Twisted Fate (Dark Heart 2)

“Now?” I can’t help asking.

“Not the bus boy. That’s for sure.” He breathes deeply, his eyes closing. “I’m the veep…maybe the interim. Babysitting a few hundred people while Roberto travels all around. Trying not to die…you know. He’s had some heart attacks.”

“I thought you’re in charge now.”

He rubs at his forehead. “Sort of.”

“How do you do it?”

His eyes flicker to mine. “What do you mean?”

My heart throbs, the beats so hard they almost hurt. “The violent parts,” I whisper. “How do you do those?” I look up at him and think of younger Luca crying for me from a bedroom right beside my secret cousin Isa’s. Picturing him like that—in a moment that’s behind me in time—makes me want to rage with regret, so I have to switch my focus. That’s all done, so I want to know about his life now.

“You don’t…seem like a criminal,” I whisper.

His brow furrows. “I don’t think Roberto seems like that either.”

“He had your dad killed.”

“Yes.” He blinks. “Because he was a narc.” He says it slowly, as if to be sure it sinks in for me. “Those guys warned him half a dozen times. He got the warning because they had all been friends, when you and I were little. My dad, your dad, all of them. My father got…I don’t know, I think like six courtesy warnings from the goddamn mob. And he still didn’t listen. What were they supposed to do?”

I shrug. “Something milder.”

“That’s not how it works.” His face looks troubled. He goes back to making coffee, this time grinding the beans.

“Fucking cold,” he mutters, rolling his shoulders. Are those chills on his back? It’s too dim for me to see.

“I can get your clothes for you.”

“La mia rosa…you should go.”* * *LucaWhen she doesn’t reply, I look over at her, finding her lips pressed in a thin line. “You don’t want to talk to me about the mob.” She says it flatly, and her face isn’t condemning. She’s stating a fact.

“Hell no, I don’t. Because it doesn’t matter how I do or what I say. What matters is you talking to me. Being with me in my cabin. I don’t ever want to put you at risk. One second with me, how much shit gets fucked up for you?”

“I’m not sure how that’s relevant to you.” She looks at the floor, pensive and stubborn, and not listening to a damn word I said.

I turn to the fucking coffee maker. None of what I told her just now sunk in. Or she doesn’t give a shit. But maybe that’s good—it may be better that she doesn’t give a fuck I said I love her, that I want her life now to be everything she deserves. It hits me in the chest, though. I rub my hands through my hair, not sure what to say—except she needs to go.

“Trying to be a friend.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Sigh without noise. “You’re better off not knowing mob shit. What can you do with it? Say you got the deets from me up at my cabin?”

I can’t read her face. All I can focus on is how beautiful she is with her long hair around her bare throat.

I rub my eyes. “C’mon, E. You want some coffee?”

“Sure.” The word is too pert. “If you want to make me some, I’ll drink it.”

I get a mug down for her, load it up with creamer and sugar as she stands there by me, still and quiet before she turns on her heel and heads toward the bedroom.

I can barely make the coffee, knowing that she’s in my cabin. I just touched her…kissed her…tasted her. Elise. She put her hands on my face, smoothed my hair back, just the way she used to. Like she has in my damn dreams for longer than I’d ever admit.

But…the things I did admit. Jesus fucking Christ, what made me say those things? I hold my throbbing forehead, telling myself to lock all this away before she comes back.

I can feel the inferno kindling in my chest…but that’s for later.

She comes back dressed, with her hair back up in the tie, looking like a miracle of time and wealth and education. She looks poised and perfect, even in her down coat and those sleep pants. She hands me a pair of boxer-briefs and my long-sleeved 10k shirt, plus some olive green long johns I packed in my weekend bag.

“It’s too cold for no clothes,” she says simply.

I turn sort of sideways to pull on my clothes. I don’t know if she’s watching. I tell myself it doesn’t fucking matter. When I turn back toward her, she’s got her arms folded around herself.

“I’m going to go now, I guess.”

I nod. Now’s the time to send her off strong. “Do you want my number, if you need me?”