Page 81 of My Dark Fairy Tale
Guinevere basked in the praise, her smile almost dopey. “Thanks, Renz.”
I lifted my brows at the nickname, but my taciturn right hand only lifted his chin at her and went back to the sofa to continue his work with our new information.
“I knew I wasn’t the only one with beauty and brains in this place,” Martina complimented her, pressing her cheek to Guinevere’s in a rare gesture of intimacy. “This is a big deal for us.”
My fawn lifted and dropped her shoulder as if she wasn’t sure what to do with the kind words from my crew. Her eyes dipped to mine when Martina moved back to the couch.
Carmine, still out cold in his chair, snored on.
“Magnifico,” I told her when it was just the two of us behind the desk, palming her entire face in my hands. “Absolutely magnificent.”
Her flush was the prettiest swipe of vermilion along her cheekbones. “It wasn’t anything.”
“It was everything,” I corrected, then said, softer, “That is twice now you have come to my financial aid. Even if you had not found anything, it means everything to me that you wanted to help.”
Her bashfulness melted away, leaving behind an expression of mingled wonder and tenderness that made the spot behind my sternum ache. I thought perhaps it was because each time she did something to move me, her name was carved into the walls of my chest.
“I may not be strong enough to break a man’s finger when he insults you or wealthy enough to fill your closet if you lose all your clothes, but I can protect you in the ways I know how.”
I fingered thecornicelloaround her neck and wondered aloud, “Have you heard of the saying ‘sfortunato al gioco, fortunato in amore’?” She shook her head. “It means ‘unlucky at cards, lucky in love.’ You cannot have good fortune in all things, and so you have to choose, or maybe fate chooses for you. Either way, perhaps you have spent your life until now saving up all your good fortune for a truly worthy love story.”
I looked up into her eyes to find them dark as lake water at night, the impact of my words rippling across their surface. We were suspended in the moment, but under the silence I could see that we were breathing in tandem, and I knew without checking that our hearts would be beating the same notes.
“Maybe,” she whispered, the word almost sick sounding with hope.
“Boss, I found something,” Ludo called out from the floor.
I nodded, drawing my thumb along Guinevere’s suede-soft cheek. “It bears repeating—thank you.”
“No thanks necessary,” she mumbled, getting off my lap as Ludo came around the table with his computer once more. “I’ll leave you to sort out the rest, but have any of you eaten?”
“Are you offering to cook?” Martina asked, perking up. “Because Servio won’t be in to start breakfast for another two hours, and I’mstarved.”
“Coffee,” Renzo added.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Guinevere said, winking at me over her shoulder as she rounded the desk.
She hesitated beside Carmine, peering at me with mischief in her eyes. When I nodded, she dropped the pen lid that had found a place on her pinky again straight into Carmine’s open maw.
He woke up spluttering, everyone enjoying a good laugh after a long night.
Guinevere left bouncing on her tiptoes, grinning ear to ear.
There were still too many unanswered mysteries, but thirty minutes later, one thing had become clear.
The Grecos had taken over operations for the Albanians, and a handful of the shell companies had linked back to some of the higher-ups in their organization.
“What are we going to do?” Martina asked as the scent of frying pork filtered through the room.
I leaned back in my chair, staring into the distance, trying to sort through the threads of information we had and plait them into something we could use to bind the Grecos to the stake and burn them for their betrayal.
“Carmine,” I said slowly. “Do you think Drita would forgive you if you took her some choice information? Like perhaps that the Grecos have informed about their previous transactions with us to the DIA?”
Understanding and dark glee suffused his handsome face. “I think she could be persuaded.”
“Right, then we contact the Albanians and offer the information without a price. They won’t want to lose their ties to Italian trading ports, so we suggest that we will step in again. If they are hesitant, point out that one of our men deciphered their code in under five minutes.”
Not one of my men. My woman. But still.
