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He stared at me for a moment like he was ruminating over what to say. “Raven,” he replied eventually.
It was like a slap in the face. Not that I had a right to expect any kind of loyalty from the staff at the hospital, I supposed.
“I asked her what she could tell me about you. I don’t think she thought it was any kind of secret.”
“It’s not,” I said too quickly. It wasn’t a secret. But knowledge of my impediment revealed a weakness to my enemy. I felt uncovered, exposed. “It’s not a secret; it’s common knowledge,” I assured him, downplaying the raw feeling inside.
“Why do you want to kill Elio?” I asked, jumping subjects. That I’d rather discuss murder rather than my partial deafness shocked me to some degree.
“Why don’t you seem terribly distraught over it?” he returned with a question of his own.
“Because I’m not emotionally invested in Elio,” I lied. Sort of. I think I was more numbed by the events that had taken place than I was indifferent.
He shook his head as he poured himself another drink. Perhaps he’d drink himself unconscious. A woman could hope, could she not?
“Somehow,perla, I doubt that’s the reason.”
“Because you know me so well?” I replied, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Because I’m a damn good judge of character.”
I scoffed. “Perhaps you’re not as perceptive as you think…” I paused; I could feel my brow furrowing. “What’s your name?” I asked. “You said it, but I couldn’t… I didn’t catch it.”
“Amadeo Luciano,” he said with a flourished bow.
I liked that he spoke normally, rather than carefully enunciating it like I was a child.
“My friends call me Deo.”
“Amadeo.” I formed the word without making a sound, testing it on my lips.
“You approve?” he asked. His lips were back to twitching with amusement again.
I looked up, meeting his gaze. He really did have the most stunning eyes I’d ever seen, amber and deep-set and piercing. I could imagine them—
I choked off the thought before it could fully form. Physiological responses to sexual stimuli were one thing; fantasies were entirely another.
“I wouldn’t have thought criminals had many ‘friends’,” I said, too flustered by my own partially-formed thoughts to invent something better. “But you didn’t answer my question, Amadeo. Why do you want to kill Elio?”
“I don’t,” he replied like it was common sense.
“I don’t believe you,” I said, shaking my head. No part of this felt like he was looking to sit down and have a friendly conversation with Elio.
He pushed away from the bar, striding slowly back toward me. “This isn’t what I wanted. Believe it or not, torturing men, kidnapping women, gunfights, and watching my men get shot aren’t how I want to spend my days.” He paused, his eyes contemplative once again.
“Bianchi threatened my family,perla; he tried to kill my sister, Freya—or maybe what he was after was worse; I don’t know. In my world, that shit can’t slide. It just can’t. It’s my job to do whatever’s necessary to put him in the ground.”
His words made the room feel just a little bit colder. “You live in a very violent world.”
He stopped in front of me, close enough, he’d be able to reach me if he just stretched out his arm.
“You live in the same world, Heidi. You know firsthand the bad shit that happens in it—I know you do. I just don’t have the luxury of pretending it doesn’t exist. And even if I did have that luxury… I wouldn’t want it.”
“You think I’m pretending?” I said, crossing my arms over my chest defensively.
“I think you suffered shit no child should ever suffer. I think you spent years never feeling safe, always waiting for whoever killed your parents to come back—to come for you.
“If I were you, I would have spent every night wide awake, listening for sounds of them coming for me. For you, you were trapped in silence; you didn’t even have the comfort of knowing you’d hear them when they came for you. That kind of terror stays with a person. And I think you were scared shitless that I was just like them, but I also think some part of you is learning that I’m not.”
