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“Nothing,” I snap. “Like you, her only crime is existing.”
“I’m not buying it. He did this for a reason.”
“He did it because he could. It’s as simple and as fucked up as that.”
“No.” Peppermint shakes her head. “This wasn’t the quick act of a man who kills just because he can. This took planning, it took work. He had to either lure her here under some false pretense or he traveled across the country and somehow convinced her to come back to New Jersey with him.”
Fuck. She’s right. But that means…
“He’s been watching me.” I turn away from Peppermint and slam my fist into the wall. “For years, he knew where I was, who I was. Fucking years!”
“Probably.”
“How the hell are you so calm?” I thunder.
“Blood and death don’t bother me,” she says matter-of-factly. “And really, this isn’t all that surprising.”
“It sure as shit is to me.”
“It shouldn’t be. Nothing Nicholi does should surprise you. He was raised by your father, after all. The only reason you’re not exactly like him is because you got to be someone else. You got away.”
“I was sent away,” I remind her. “Banished and treated like a pariah.”
“Not by the people who mattered.”
“Person. It was one person.”
“You’re right, it was only one person. But even you have to admit, having a person like Malachi in your corner kinda balances the scales a little.”
“How do you figure?”
Peppermint grabs my hand and drags me out of the bedroom and downstairs. I should dig my heels in, stop her from treating me like a rag doll, but I can’t. Not when she’s voluntarily touching me.
Down, boy.
She guides me to the kitchen where she pushes me toward the only stool that’s still in one piece. “Sorry. It was hard to have a conversation up there.”
“Okay.”
“Sit, Nico.”
I do.
Why am I letting her order me around?
“Malachi balances the scales because he’s good. He shouldn’t be, not with how he was raised, just like your brother. But he is. And not only is he good, he’s also a man who has turned the Ricci name from a dark stain on this city to a bright light in the remaining dark.”
“Aw, listen to you waxing all poetic.”
I straighten to look over Peppermint’s shoulder and she turns around. Malachi whistles as he takes in the chaos that is my home.
“I’ll deny ever having said a word of that,” Peppermint barks.
“Don’t worry, the fact that you’re secretly in love with me will not make the rounds of the gossip mill,” my cousin teases her.
Jealousy burns through me. “Back off, Mal,” I snarl.
“Fucking hell,” he mutters. “You’re usually the one who can handle jokes.”
