Page 111 of My Dark Fairy Tale
Raffa had tensed midstep, staring at me like he had never seen me before.
Lastra sighed deeply and patted Raffa’s arm. “Buona fortuna, capo.”
Capo.
Boss.
The last threads of my sanity and understanding snapped under the shears of that one telling word.
“What the hell!?” I yelled as Lastra slipped out the door. “Who are you?”
Raffa walked over to the table, his movements stilted, almost robotic. “Will you sit?”
“No,” I snapped, my stupid hands trembling so that the blanket crinkled constantly. “I don’t want to sit with you. Why the hell are you here? I-I didn’t say you were the one to kill him when I gave my statement. I won’t.” I swallowed thickly, fear a sour tang on my tongue. “You don’t need to worry about me telling anyone about anything. I wouldn’t ever turn you in, e-even now.”
“Guinevere.” His head slumped forward on his neck, his voice ragged around the sound of my name. “Dio mio, I would never harm a hair on your head. Please, sit down so I may explain.”
I shook so hard, the blanket wouldn’t stop rustling, so I threw it to the floor and went to the chair. I placed it in the far corner and sat there with my arms and legs crossed. His eyes on my skinhurt, and I wished he would not look at me.
“You just blew a man’s brains out without blinking an eye,” I said, reliving it again and again.
Because that was the craziest thing about it all.
Not that Raffa had a gun when they were legal in Italy. My father was strictly antigun and could argue for hours with the television about the lack of strict gun control in America, but I could understand the need to have one to protect the palace, or maybe when Raffa traveled through the country as one of its wealthiest citizens.
But to use it like that?
No hesitation. No qualms whatsoever, even after the man had fallen brainless at my feet. When I’d looked up into those whiskey-brown eyes and been met with cold ruthlessness.
“You’ve killed before,” I whispered.
Of course he had.
It matched the pattern I’d refused until now to piece into shape at the back of my mind.
Raffa did not disagree.
“The man was there to hurt you, Guinevere. Someone sent you flowers. Chrysanthemums. In Italy, you only buy chrysanthemums to bring to a funeral or lay on a gravestone. They were not a gift. They were a warning. And tonight, that man came to see it through.”
“Who was he?” My voice was losing steam, fading as I was into a specter of myself.
I was cold, quaking, and utterly alone. The reality of my situation, of how stupid I had been to throw in with a stranger so completely, living with and loving him when I didn’t even reallyknowhim or this country ...
God, it was sick how stupid I had been.
How right my father was, and how angry it made me to think that.
Raffa huffed a frustrated breath and ran both hands through his hair. “I do not know yet. Now that you have the police involved, it will be easier to identify him but harder to discover who he worked for.”
“You have multiple enemies.” I thought back woodenly on my earlier suspicions about who Raffa might be. “Whoareyou?”
There was blood on my hand, smeared on the insides of my thumb and forefinger.
I wondered how difficult it would be to get it off. Books and movies always spoke about how hard it was to get bloodstains out of skin.
Red handed and all that.
“Guinevere.”
