Page 28 of Lourdes & the Mafia
I want to snarl at her, but bite back the sound when Ramiel’s lip twitches. “What conditions?” my brother asks.
“Well, first things first, I don’t want you to kill her.”
I blanch at that. “What do you mean you don’t want us to kill her?”
Her glare strays straight to me and only me. “I didn’t stutter. I don’t want you guys killing her. That kind of defeats the purpose of finding out who’s behind this, don’t you think?”
I open my mouth to argue, but Ramiel shoots me a glare that has me shutting up immediately.
“Fine,” my brother concedes. “What are your other conditions?”
She looks at him in surprise as if she hadn’t expected him to agree with her in the first place. The expression clears within an instant and she squares her shoulders, looking him straight in the eye once more. “I want full transparency. That means you guys don’t get to decide what youthinkI can handle. I don’t care how difficult it is. I don’t care how violent or bloody. I want the truth at all times. No trying to protect me, no treating me with kid gloves, no treating me like I’m an incompetent idiot, and no lies. This is my life, you know, and my problem. I want you guys to run things by me before you make any decisions.”
Ramiel leans back in his chair. “Those are very reasonable requests,” he says. “You are right. It is your life so the decisions should be made by you.”
Again, she looks surprised, but she just nods once. “Good, I’m glad we’re all on the same page.” Her eyes stop on me and bounce back to Lorenzo right before going back to me again. I feel like it’s a dare, a challenge, almost as if the little temptresswantsme to defy her.
Temptress?
Unsure where the thought comes from, I force my entire body away from her, turning so that I’m looking at my brother instead. I won’t fight them on this because a part of me recognizes that they’re right. This is her life. She should make the decisions. Yet I do want violence.
And I’m sure I’ll get it one way or another.
“Kane, Lorenzo, go find the woman. Bring her back here unharmed.”
And with those words Lorenzo and I whisk away.
“It smells like piss down here,” Lorenzo whines.
I snort and the sarcasm behind the gesture is retort enough. “You’ve grown too comfortable in your flower field, brother.”
Whereas I am comfortable within the uncomfortable. I am at home in the darkness and the unpleasant. Like a Pit of fire and pain. Like a dark alleyway that reeks of piss and scurrying rats.
“It is alamentingfield,” he scoffs. “It’s meant for those who have repented.”
I ignore him, as I already know perfectly well what that field is for. I live in hell too, though I don’t point this out. It’s better not to engage Lorenzo when he’s ranting anyway, or else he’ll go on for hours. And right now, what we need is silence.
For sleuthing.
To find a would-be murderer and the woman I mean to torture information out of.
“Are you sure she’s here?” Lorenzo asks, scraping his shoes across the damp ground.
“Ramiel sent us the location.” As brothers who share the same source of power, we can share thoughts, even if we cannot share our magic. So, Ramiel can sense death as well as life, and take the latter with single-minded brutality. I am the lord of torture. Lorenzo, we joke, is the more sensitive of us three; his domain is one of healing and moving on to better skies.
It is why he cannot deal with the acrid stench of piss and rats.
His nose is too delicate.
It is also why we are standing here in the first place. Because Ramiel can sense the woman. Now that he’s had a sniff of her blood, he can find her wherever she is. And it is up to us to take her back to the Underworld with us.
“Speaking of Ramiel… he seemed well acquainted with Lourdes, don’t you think?”
My eyes roll. “As well as any of us are, I reckon.”
To be honest, I do not care. I do not care about her. Just thinking about her and what her touch provokes makes my blood boil.
“Hmm. You were prettytaken abackby her, huh?” he chortles.
