Page 89 of Runaway in the Mafia
Sitting down, she started to work quietly. Unsaid words rustled between us while she prepared to clean a wound her son had cut, like I’d ever be able to erase the memories of a dead man caged inside me.
For the second time.
Second time he’d killed for me, and something snagged in my chest.
“Everything is a lot,sì?”Her head was bent, while she dropped antiseptic onto a cotton wad.
“Yes.” But my answer sizzled with the burn of alcohol on my palm.
“Yes. A lot. But I had my eyes on you two. This is how it should be.” She started wrapping the gauze around my palm.
I wasn’t sure what she meant. “Ada—”
“I’m happy.”
“What?”
Her eyes were still on the gauze she was wrapping, but I was sure she’d said those words.
“I know.” She finished her work off with a clip. Started collecting the scissors and bandages to pile back into the box. A box that had probably had more use than the one we had back in Delhi, collecting dust and rust. “I’m being selfish. You’re like a daughter to me. Sometimes I think...” She paused, and her hands trembled silently. “You were sent to us. To heal us from all the suffering my husband made us go through.” She was nervous. Clumsy. The gauze unrolled straight out of her hands. With a sigh, she started rolling it again. “You are like a… how do they say it in English… a balm to us?”
“You could say that.”
She nodded. “Yes. Lia is happy again. Me…” She looked up, and her eyes shone with silent tears. “You’ve given me a new purpose. I have four daughters now.”
“Ada?” My hands went to comfort her, and she took the uninjured one and squeezed it in hers.
“And my son… I think he’s the most affected of all. From Carlo’s sins and from your…” She snapped her fingers in the air, coming up with a word. “Treatment?”
“Ada, I’m n—”
“I know. I know. He’s evil. We’re criminals. All of us. Even me. Even Lia. We’re all made with bad blood, born with it. Keeping all their secrets. And I’m a bad person to want to pull you into it. But it’s not all evil.” She pulled my hand by my elbow and clutched it to her chest, desperation in her eyes. “He’s not all bad. He’s got a good heart. The best.” She gulped and swiped her tears angrily. “For a long time, I thought he was like his father. But he’s not. He’s nothing like him.”
Sorrow touched the hollows behind my rib cage. This family had gone through so much.
Her eyes pleaded with me. “Promise me one thing?”
“What?” I croaked.
“Give him a chance. He’d do anything for the ones he loves.”
I didn’t react, but she didn’t notice. I followed the direction of her frown.Shit.Two black buttons lay scattered on the floor. She got up hurriedly.
“I’ll leave you to it.”
I didn’t even try to grovel my way out of my embarrassment, and she didn’t hang around for it. But then she paused with her hand on the open doorknob. When she spoke, her voice was a little louder.
“When you speak to him next, can you tell him something?”
“What?”
“I know what he did for me. I know how painful it must have been carrying it alone,” her voice broke. “Tell him. I’ll always love him for what he did.”
She stepped out, the door shutting softly behind her. Her words echoed in the room. Vitale’s gaze across the room flared. He turned the key in the lock behind him. I half stood and half crawled to him. He was on me in a heartbeat. We came together like an explosion. Clothes flew off me. The rest of his buttons landed on the bed. His shoes and socks slid across the floor. His pants and boxer briefs dropped next to it. With a growl, he yanked me down and crawled on top of me. He was electric power in between my legs, with his erection gripped in his hand. His movements, when he coated his thickness along my slit, were high-energy voltage ready to rip into me. Then he winced and ground to an aggravatingly slow halt.
I looked down in impatience and wiggled my hips closer to him. But he was frozen. Checked out. Then with despair in his eyes, he pulled his gaze to mine. “I don’t have a condom.”
The words drilled right through my ribcage. Made something snag in my chest.He listened.Even if he didn’t understand my reasons, he listened.
