Page 18 of It Must Be Fate

“No–”

“Yes.”

Thiago glares at me. “Are you sure I can’t shoot him?” he asks. “Please? A flesh wound, just for fun.”

I don’t even bat an eyelash. No way my sister is going to let her husband shoot her favorite brother.

“You made me a promise, Thiago…”

Her voice is tinged with disappointment and his eyes widen.

“I did,” he assures her. “I’m fulfilling it. Enjoy your dinner,amor, I love you.”

“Love you, baby. Kiss Theo for me.”

Thiago hangs up and puts his phone away in his jacket pocket. He pulls out a chair and sits down, looking expectantly at me.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Sitting and enjoying your company.”

I look around my kitchen for the hidden cameras that would explain this shift in behavior. Finding none, I ask, “Did you just have a stroke?”

“No.”

“I think you might have. Your facial features are going to start drooping any minute now. I’m sorry to be blunt but I think my sister is with you only for your looks—it certainly can’t be your personality keeping her around—so let me call an ambulance before that happens and irreversible damage is done.”

“Sit down.” I open my mouth to tell him to piss off when he adds, “Please.”

I blink at him. “Okay, now I know you’ve definitely had a stroke. I’ll let the paramedics know the symptoms appear to be severe.”

“I made my wife a promise.”

There he goes again with the ‘my wife’ shit.

“Not to shoot me?”

“To spend time with you.”

That’s the last thing I expected him to say. “Huh?”

He sighs, settling back into his chair. “I don’t care what we do or what we talk about.Joder, we can sit here in silence for all I care, so long as I spend three hours here with you before going home.”

“Why?”

“Because a long time ago, I promised Tess that I’d get to know you and befriend you. Then she got shot and we had thebaby and we got caught up in our own little bubble so it fell by the wayside, but I did make her that promise. And I keep the promises I make to my wife.”

“Why did you promise that?”

“Because it’ll make her happy.” He says it like I just asked him if water is wet, like the answer could not be more evident. “I’d be willing to do things a thousand times more painful than hanging out with you if it made her smile.”

I stare at him for a long time, at this notorious, ruthlessly callous and violent man who’s sitting in my house and basically trying to date me just because it’ll make my sister smile.

Walk him like a dog, sis.

In the year and a half since they’ve been together, we’ve never spent time alone, just him and I. We’ve always had the company of my friends or his to buffer us, mostly because I was uninterested in spending any more time with him than I needed to.

He’d forced my sister into this marriage and that’s all I needed to know. I’d obviously seen many examples of his infatuation with her, from how he’d cared for her after she was shot to the birth of Theo, but I always thought it was obsession and not love. Doomed to burn hot for a while and then eventually fizzle out.

---