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I want to groan. I want to roll my eyes. Jesus, I want to destroy this man, his soldiers, his home, and then I want an hour to explore the grounds on my own.Withoutbeady eyes watching every step I take. Without guns pointing my way, held by men who are ordered to shoot before they bring me back.
“So?” He’s persistent, raising a brow as we traverse the stairs. “Why my family?”
“Why not? You’re the mob, Felix—you can call it whatever you want,” I add when he opens his mouth to argue. “Businessman. Entrepreneur. Boardroom professional. You can slap a suit on a pile of dog shit; doesn’t make the dog shit any less… fecal.”
He chuckles as he walks, his shoulders bouncing as he leads me from the third floor to the second. “Am I the mob, or a pile of shit? Because the second is a tad hurtful.”
“You make money by being hurtful to people.” I straighten my spine and broaden my shoulders, preparing my retort. But before I can manage anything witty, my foot slips on the second to last step.
My heart drops to the very bottom of my stomach, then I yelp and close my eyes, waiting for my forehead to collide painfully with the cold, hard tile. But muscular, bruising arms wrap around my torso and keep me upright, catching me before I fall.
My heart scrambles. My pulse, pounding.
Opening my eyes, I find Felix glaring straight down into them, his forest-green stare the same color as the trees that surround his home.
“Nearly smacked your pretty little head, Darling. You gotta be more careful.”
“Let me go,” I bristle. I can’t find appreciation for his save. I can’t manage to soften for the man whose family callously kills the women who walk through their doors. I’ll be next, I’m sure. I doubt I have to sleep with, and be impregnated by, the man to qualify for execution. “Now.”
Instead of letting me up, he chooses instead to lean a little closer, his brows pulling tight in curiosity. “Your breath tastes sweet.” He leans closer. Closer. Almost sticking his nose between my lips. “Like a fruit roll-up.” He takes another whiff. “Yummy.”
“Nauseating.” I slap his shoulder and shove out of his arms, though the fast movement and odd angle make me sway.
Behind me, Felix only chuckles.
“Do you think it’ssweetthat your family puts drugs and guns on the street, killing innocent people?”
“Ms. Cannon is back, I see.” He straightens his spine and looks me up and down. Then he grabs my hand and continues our trek to the kitchen. “Would you like a formal statement, Darling? Will this be added to your next article? Oh wait,” he leads me along a dark hall and emerges in the bright kitchen I got a peek at yesterday. “Your articles are speculation and gossip. Not fact.”
“The things I write are always fact.” I yank my hand from his, but I don’t run, even if the exit is within sight. I don’t try to escape, even if the front and back doors are within my sights. Because oddly, I’m safer in here with Felix Malone, than out there with god-knows-who. “I heavily research every piece I publish.”
“‘Cato Malone,’” he parrots, stalking to the other side of the counter and bending out of sight as I pull up a stool and gingerly sit down. “‘Mobster in the making, or pro ball player?’” Standing again, he sets a first aid kit on the counter and pushes it my way. “How is an opinion piece about my baby brotherfact?”
“First of all, that was not the headline.” While he turns and switches the faucet on, pumping soap into his hands and rinsing them clean, I open the kit and forage for ointment for my wrists. “Second, it’s still fact. He is the son of a don, just like you.”
“And just like me,” he flips the tap off and grabs a towel to dry his hands, “he didn’t get to choose who his father was. Cato was a child only last month. His eighteenth birthday, still a hangover I’m dealing with.” Setting the towel down, he moves to the fridge to take out ingredients to prepare our dinner.
Ourdinner.
For fuck’s sake, I’m having dinner with Felix Malone!
“It was Tim who made babies.” He piles items in his arms. “It wasn’t our fault. It wasn’t our choice to come into this world. And I’ll be damned if you punish a child for the choices his father made.”
“He’s not a child now.” I find an antiseptic cream buried deep in the bottom of the kit, and lift it out before I lose it amongst the mess of everything else. Then, closing the box, I scan the side of the tube and find the expiration date:still okay.
“Cato Malone is a full-grown adult, Felix.” I open the tube and squeeze the white gel onto the tips of my fingers. Massaging it into my left wrist, I clench my teeth against the sting thatalmostmakes me whimper. “He chose to go to Copeland, correct?”
If I can’t accuse the kid and get answers, I’ll ask questions instead. One is an attack. The other, interest.
Maybe Felix will be more receptive to the latter.
“Why did he go there?” I press.
“To be with my brothers. Mybetterbrothers.” He hip-bumps the fridge closed and drops the pile of ingredients to the counter: steak, already in a container filled with marinade; lettuce, peppers, carrots, onions, mushrooms. “Cato is better than all the rest of us combined.” He switches the stove on and sources a pan from somewhere hidden on the other side of the counter. “He was just a baby when the rest of us were already grown. Honestly, he was probably supposed to be the next fucking don. Tim typically had reasons for the things he did, and he made another son when he’d already had four before him.”
“You think he intended to rid himself of the first four and crown the fifth?”
Felix exhales a scoff and shrugs. “Who fuckin knows? He was always a little crazy. Maybe Cato was an accident. Or maybe Tim really wanteda baby from that woman. Or maybe he was preparing for a rebellion and wanted to get ahead of it.”
