“And I was just about to tell him that I already put the pasta water in the sauce. Honestly,” I mumbled to myself, a little riled even though I was aware that Primo was just trying to create a cover, “like I haven’t been making sauce since I was in elementary school,” I said, moving the strained pasta into the pot. “Thinking I need cooking advice,” I grumbled, wiping the drips of water from the colander off the counter.
“The bakery didn’t have the Pear Almond Cake,” Dulles said, looking uncomfortable, thinking he was interrupting yet more tension between his brother and me. “But I got Lemon Ricotta Cake with Almonds instead. Figured it was better than nothing,” he added, shrugging. “Smells good in here,” he told me, making my lips quirk up.
Because if there was one thing I knew about Italian men it was that they were always hungry.
“Do you want to stay for dinner, Dulles?” I asked, watching Primo’s brow raise. Like he wasn’t happy I hadn’t consulted him. But in all the households I knew, the wives never asked the husbands if they could invite a hungry family member to share a table for dinner. That was just what you did. You offered food. It was our way of showing love.
“I haven’t eaten,” Dulles admitted.
“Then it’s settled. You’ll stay. Your brother will set you a place,” I added, watching as Primo’s lips twitched.
“Oh, I will, will I?” he asked.
“You will,” I said, nodding, getting a snorting laugh from him.
And then this man, a mafia don, hopped to and set a place at the table for his brother.
I was still kind of riding that high, mingled with the one from all the praise I’d gotten for my dinner, when Dulles eventually headed out.
“Come get ready for bed,” Primo demanded as I washed what felt like the fiftieth pot from dinner. But his words, and the insinuation beneath them, made my belly shiver in anticipation.
“I can’t go to bed with a full sink,” I admitted. “I won’t be able to sleep,” I told him.
“Alright,” Primo said, shrugging, and heading up toward the bedroom.
I made my way up twenty minutes later, going into the bathroom to find him already standing there, shaping up the scruff on his face.
It felt weird to go through my evening routine in the same bathroom as someone else. Even when I’d partially lived with men in the past, we’d always just taken turns in the bathroom. Probably because New York bathrooms were usually barely big enough for one person to move around, let alone two.
But with a bathroom nearly as big as my old living room, I figured there was no reason to waste time twiddling my thumbs when I could have gotten started on my skincare.
I was on step two—my vitamin c serum—when we heard it.
A crash.
Glass breaking.
Below us somewhere, but it was impossible to tell how far below, if it was in our apartment or one of the lower floors where Primo’s work operation took place.
My gaze shot to Primo’s whose jaw went tight as he immediately dropped the razor, reaching instead for his gun that he had hanging in the holster along with his jacket on a hook behind the door.
“Here,” he said, grabbing it, and coming back to me.
“No. You need it,” I said, shaking my head.
I couldn’t claim to be super comfortable with guns. Sure, I’d been around them my whole life, but I’d always been really thankful that I hadn’t ever needed to use one myself.
“Isabella, you need to take this. Go into the closet. And if anyone comes in that isn’t me, you shoot them, got it?” he asked, voice firm, commanding.
“I…”
“Do you know how to use it?”
“Y…yes,” I said, nodding a little frantically, the adrenaline making my insides feel shaky.
“Good. Get in the closet. Use it if you need to. And, baby, if someone gets in here past me, you need to, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Closet,” he demanded, voice a little softer than usual, picking up on my panic. “Now, lamb,” he added, tone firmer. Because he knew he needed to get down there, had to see what was going on.
“Okay,” I agreed, walking on numb legs into the closet, hearing him already closing the bathroom door, then rummaging around in the bedroom, likely getting another gun since he’d given me his own.
I didn’t, as I probably should have, find myself going into my side of the closet to sit amongst the things that belonged to me.
No.
For reasons I didn’t really understand, I turned into Primo’s closet, walking along the lines of suits, and climbing in the small space between his shoe cabinet and the wall, the long legs of his pants falling in front of me like a curtain.
It smelled like him in there, like the spicy cologne and body wash he used. I found myself taking deep breaths, breathing him in, somehow finding that the scent eased the frantic slamming of my heartbeat in my chest.