Page 58 of My Dark Fairy Tale
But her laughter was my reward. She had been so brave, my fawn, standing on those shaking legs but unwilling to back away. She knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself. It was such a compelling combination, that tangle of innocence wrapped around a curious mind and a steel spine.
More intoxicating than any of the wine we’d drunk that day or any woman I’d ever wanted in all my thirty-four years.
“You are such a jerk,” she said, but there was a soft smile on her face, and she reached over to squeeze my thigh as if she couldn’t help it.
“You make a good argument,” I said, tone somber now because she deserved that. “I am older, wealthier, and local here. The power skews in my favor, and I would never want you to feel ...” I made a face. “As if you did not have a choice in this.”
“For the record, I don’t feel that way. At all. Remember earlier when I said you were dreamy?”
I chuckled. “Distintamente. Still, I hear you, and even though I do not like the idea of you sleeping across the street from a drug deal, I am not in charge of you, and I respect your decision to stay there.” I hesitated before adding, “For now.”
Her only response was a light laugh as she relaxed back into the seat, curling up her legs to hug them to her chest as she tilted her head to look out the window at the watercolor blur of the landscape passing by.
“Grazie, Raffa.”
“You do not have to thank me,” I said. “Just call me if you hear or see anything that is not right.Prometti?”
I did not think I would sleep knowing she was alone in that place and decided that one of mysoldaticould be spared to keep surveillance on her, at least for the first few nights, to make sure it was safe enough.
“Prometto,” she swore.
Minutes later, she was asleep against the passenger door.
When I parked in front of her building, I took a moment to study her in the yellow cast of the sodium streetlights. Even bathed in unforgiving shadows, she seemed ethereal, somefatawho should be curled up in a woodland grove instead of a Bugatti Chiron. I caved to temptation and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. It was heavy as brocade silk, fine and thick. I thought about braiding it again and was surprised when arousal pooled warm in my gut.
I had given up on this. On moments such as these, strung together like beads in a rosary, something only the pious could hold and find comfort in. The day of my father’s funeral, faced with the eradication of my entire remaining family if I did not step into his shoes, the boy I had been and the man I had tried to become had died a swift death. Laid to eternal rest in the ground besidecapo dei capiAldo Romano. A man who, the last time I’d seen him, had branded me with the Romano family crest with the iron we used on wooden wine boxes at the vineyard. I had promised him I would never live under his rule again, and in a sense, I was right.
Instead, I took over it.
A reluctant mafioso if ever there was one.
Leo had teased me at first, wondering if I could stomach the responsibility after years in England living as a student and financial analyst.
To prove him wrong and keep my mother and sisters safe from the tradition of new capos eliminating the old reigning families, I buried who I was six feet deep inside my soul.
Somehow, an American foreigner had stumbled upon the gravestone. And instead of fleeing like any sensible, sheltered girl should have, Guinevere had sunk to her knees in the dirt and started excavating.
I did not want to take her inside thatappartamento di merda. I did not want to leave her alone in my city. I did not even want her to leave my car.
But I appreciated her speech, both for the courage it took to speak so candidly and for her solid logic.
So I got out of the car, rounding the hood, and opened the door softly so I could catch her body as it slumped without the support. I unclipped her seat belt and carefully took her into my arms the way I had done so many times when she was sick. Only now, I could appreciate the way her hair smelled of the rosemary shampoo Martina had bought her and the lingering undercurrent of wine I knew would probably arouse me at inopportune moments for years to come. Her hair tickled my cheek as I curled her into my chest and locked the car. The key was in her purse, zipped into a compartment, and the door buzzed loudly when we entered, but she was out like a light.
The apartment still smelled faintly of za’atar spice and slow-cooked meat from the restaurant next door, but I could admit it was clean enough as I laid her in the thin, rough sheets of the single bed. It was easy to tug off the oversized skirt, but I left her in the winery shirt and arranged her aura of inky hair on her pillow so it wouldn’t fall on her face. I itched to braid it but resisted because I realized I was just making excuses to stay.
It took effort, but I pressed a kiss to her smooth forehead and stood up to survey the apartment properly before I left. The lock was pathetic,so I used the butcher’s knife from the kitchen and wedged its blade through the frame over the door as another layer of defense before I climbed out the window, closing it securely behind me and then dropping to the wooden overhang over the first floor. I dangled from my fingertips and fell to the cobblestones to find one of the skinhead thugs from that morning watching me with a cigarette hanging loosely from his gaping mouth.
“She sleeps safely every night, I’ll give you one hundred euros a day,” I told him, smoothing my shirt as I moved to the Bugatti. “If she has even one bad encounter, I will gut you and feed your innards to the rest of your crew.”
Chapter Thirteen
Raffa
I did not see Guinevere for four days.
It was unacceptable but seemingly unavoidable.
I had neglected business for too long to take care of her when she was sick, and both my desk and my inbox were stuffed with items that needed immediate attention.
