Page 126 of Dirty Mafia Torment
“Settemo did quite the number on you.”
“Something about me and men who like to put hands on a woman.”
I swear he flinches. Human, after all.
“What was my brother doing on your farm?” he casually asks. Except there’s nothing about this A-hole that’s casual; every question sounds like an order.
I make dumb-eyes at him. “What farm?”
He scowls. I’m certain men quake beneath similar ones. “Shackled inside a barn, from what I hear.”
“Prying for information is what I hear.”
He doesn’t like my response, or me.
We face off.
“If you have questions concerning Renzo, ask him yourself.”
“Protective …” he comments.
“Controlling…” I mimic his condescending tone.
He screws the cap on the bottle and places the juice back inside the refrigerator.
I arch an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Anyone else drinking from that bottle? Or you starting a new batch of bacteria?”
He stares me down. “What I do in my villa, in my fucking kitchen, is no concern of any of my guests. Especially the nosy kind who can’t leave well enough alone.” He shakes his head. “Of all women, he brings you here.”
I stiffen. “What’s that mean?”
“Come on. You obsessed over him like a kid over a carton of candy.” He cocks his head, arrogant as can be. “Let me ask you this: you follow him to Rome?”
“No.”
“You hesitated?—”
“I did not,” I spit out. “Truth is, God’s had it out for me ever since…” Oh no. I almost handed him a loaded gun by offering apiece of my past best forgotten.
He laughs. “Ever since you stole from the wedding tributes?”
I pause like a deer in headlights.
“Listen, Elia?—”
“Fina.”
“Fina, answer this one question, the one I’m most curious about, and my father will never hear the truth from my lips of how an easy half million in tributes disappeared.”
I try to bluster my way out of this. “Ask away.”
“Did Accardo die from a fruit allergy or something else?”
“A fruit allergy.” I bite my lip, my mind racing, trying to figure out why this, of all questions, has him so fascinated. “He was allergic to strawberries.”
