Inhaling through his nose and rolling his eyes, he pretended to be in pain… “Seems we’re going to have to call it a draw, Donny.”
“Or…”
“Donatella,” Ethan’s voice hissed above me.
Letting each other go, we both rose to our fee
t.
“Sister dearest?” Ethan said, rage dripping out of his unnaturally calm tone. “Who is this?”
That’s what I wanted to know! But I couldn’t say it, not with so much attention on us. We’d look like fools if they found out I just fought—and didn’t a kill—some random madman who somehow got past our security and gained entrance into our home. It was then that I remembered what he’d said.
The Queen of Beata Veronica Negroni da Binasco School for Girls.
“Dona,” Ethan repeated slowly.
“An old annoyance,” I answered, staring at the strange man with grey eyes.
He frowned, rubbing his wrist. “Donny, just because I rejected you back then doesn’t me—”
“You rejected me?” I gasped in disbelief. He really was out of his fucking mind, and I wanted to die.
“That’s how I remember it—”
“Obviously you need to get your head checked, then!”
“Really, is that why you pulled a gun on me a decade later? If you rejected me, shouldn’t I be the one angry?”
I stared at him in utter confusion. The only word I could think of saying was “Huh?”
I didn’t know him! What the fuck was he talking about?
“Luckily our brother is a doctor, he can check if you are both alright,” Ethan said with that fake politeness in his voice again.
“If they are, I’m going to make sure they aren’t,” Wyatt muttered, now off the ground. He wiped the blood from his nose, his hair a disheveled mess as he glared at the man beside me. I wondered how badly I must look now.
To make it worse, Mr. Crazy leaned forward and pet his shoulder saying, “Sorry mon amie, I didn’t see you there. You alright?”
Both Ethan and Wyatt glanced down at his hand, then back at him at the same time, their expressions the same. I wanted to laugh; I wanted to laugh hard because sometimes it’s like they were the twins between us.
When they both glanced to me again, at the same time, I shook my head and walked around them, knowing full well everyone else was unsure of whether to continue having a good time or be concerned.
“I’m so sorry about that, childhood friends just know how to get under your skin. Please enjoy the rest of brunch.” I smiled at them and they relaxed, allowing me to calmly walk back into the house.
I knew I couldn’t escape. Ethan would follow and most likely Wyatt, but I wanted to understand who that other man was. I went to Beata Veronica Negroni da Binasco School for Girls, but my father told people I went to another school to make sure no one knew where I was. The only people who knew were my father and my grandmother.
I stared down at the gun still in my hand… I’d lost it. My temper had gotten the best of me many times, but never like that, never publicly.
Walking straight into the Ethan’s study, I picked the phone off the receiver but then the wooden doors opened and my brother walked in, along with the man in question, my bloody hand print still on his white shirt.
“Who are you?” I snapped.
Wyatt closed the door behind them and leaned against it, a knife his hand. He spun it carefully, the tip of the blade pressing in his finger as he waited. Ethan came forward, sitting on the edge of his desk, and took a gun out from his jacket. “You should answer her question quickly because I don’t have any. I know you aren’t Irish or Italian and so you were not invited to my house—”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the man before us said casually as he took a seat on the couch before resting his feet on the coffee table.
“I’m never wrong,” Ethan shot back.