She stands, her eyes sparking at me. “You should go to the drag race tonight,” she says with a smirk. “Would love to see you get your ass kicked by Moby Big Dick. His Ferrari’s… bigger.” She smirks, at which point I think it’s an excellent time for her to leave.
I go to reach for her to try to smooth things over, not because I care but because I don’t want any trouble. It surprises me when I realize… it revolts me to touch anyone but Emma. Touching everyone used to come as natural to me as breathing.
Eloisa pushes me away and stomps her way past me toward the front door. It shuts behind her before I can respond.
“Hell hath no fury…” Emma mutters. She stands in the bedroom doorway wrapped in a robe, obviously freshly showered.
Is she talking about Eloisa or herself? I look at her curiously.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty.”
She presses her lips together and doesn’t respond. “Let me guess. A distant cousin?”
There’s no use in lying. “No, an ex-girlfriend of mine. Part of another mob, would’ve done a good job joining our families together but I’m not interested in her. And she’s the type that can’t handle when men aren’t interested in her, which is precisely why I’m not interested in her.”
Emma sighs. “Irony.”
I can’t help mulling over what Eloisa said, though. Drag race tonight. Moby Big Dick? What the fuck?
“I need to dig around online,” Emma says. “Romeo keeps saying that Grady is in the pocket of a rival mafia group, but I’m not so sure. I wonder if you guys assumed that because it’s obvious Grady’s in someone’s pay, and you’re used to assuming it’s one of you. But I’ve researched rival mobs—honestly, all of you guys—so thoroughly that I’d have seen any connection between Grady and any of them. But I haven’t. And definitely nothing with anybody named Ishmael. I’d like to cross-reference a few things, but I think we need to look elsewhere.”
She’s brilliant, I’ll give her that. So something tells me we should trust her instincts.
“Ishmael… Moby Dick… Did you ever read Moby Dick?”
She shakes her head. “Now you want to talk about literature?”
“No… She said something just now about a drag race tonight. I’m not sure what the fuck she was talking about, but I know the transfer into Grady’s bank account came from an Ishmael. And isn’t Ishmael in Moby Dick?”
“Yes,” she says, then huffs out an impatient breath. “Alright, let me get changed first.”
There’s a weariness to her voice that surprises me.
I thought we’d had a breakthrough last night.
I thought we were starting to understand each other. But I realize there are many things that I don’t know about her at all. As she turns her back to me and heads to the bedroom presumably get dressed and ready for the day, I call out to her.
“Favorite genre of music?”
She pauses. “I have eclectic taste. Sometimes I like country, sometimes jazz, sometimes classic rock, sometimes pop.”
She doesn’t ask me what mine is. She doesn’t wanna play this game.
I’m not giving her a choice.
I’m leading up to a bigger question. I need to open her up a little before I do.
“Favorite subject in school,” I say in response.
“Abnormal psych,” she responds. That makes me smile. Of course it was. No surprise.
Still, she doesn’t ask me a question back.
“Why were you happy your mother died?”
No hesitation. “Because she didn’t love me. And one of the most painful things in the world is having someone who’s supposed to love you not love you. And it’s easier to heal from that when they’re no longer actively not loving you.”
I swallow, surprised to feel tears in my eyes. Unusual for me. But it wasn’t until just now, when she verbalized the bold, bald truth, that I realize the connection we have because of parents who didn’t love us. Both of us feel the need to prove ourselves. Me, to my brothers. Her, to herself.
“And your father. Tell me about him?”
She turns and gives me a suspicious look finally. “Why the twenty questions? Trying to alleviate your own guilt?”
I shake my head. “Trying to understand. Why would I feel guilty?”
She purses her lips, and finally shakes her head. “Forget it.”
I’m on my feet. I need to hear the truth. I want it from her own lips. “Why do you have a personal vendetta against ‘the mob?’ Why have you made it your personal mission in life to take down organized crime?”
She blinks once. Twice. Swallows, then brushes damp hair behind her ear before she says breezily—too breezily— “Because the only person who ever loved me was my father. He was a good man. He was killed by mafia in a shoot-out in downtown Boston when I was a child. He left me to be raised by my heartless mother, who took to prostitution and whoring herself out to another mafia group to get by.”