“Yes, sir. It’s in our records, won’t take long. Will call you right back.”
The seconds seem to pass by like the ticking of a time bomb. I pace with my hands in my pockets. What will this mean? If he corroborates what I suspect…
Finally, he calls me back.
“September, twenty-five years ago. We don’t have the exact date because his body wasn’t found until weeks later, remember? But there were witnesses that saw him at a nearby quarry.”
A cold chill skates down my spine.
“Right.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes. Marialena probably would’ve been a toddler at most, three maybe. But Romeo… Romeo would’ve been a teenager. Romeo would’ve known things.
I’ll have questions for him.
“Tell me again how he was killed.”
“Knife up the back of the head, lacerations on his body…”
Our door opens.
“Salvatore? Are you okay?” Marialena walks in.
“Gotta go, man.” I hang up the phone and face her. “I told you to stay with your family.” I can’t keep the ice out of my voice. I hate that she flinches.
I’d move heaven and earth to keep her here with me. No one, literally no one, has ever looked at me with concern in her eyes like that. She’s worried, but she’s also truly concerned about my well-being, and I swear to God she’s the only one that ever has been.
I sit on the edge of the bed and crook my finger at her. “Come here.”
My voice is husky, and if I didn’t know any better, I would think it was affected by emotion. But I don’t allow emotion to do that to me.
She walks to me with concern in her eyes. “Is it my family? Are you uncomfortable with them here?”
Uncomfortable? No, sweetheart. Trying to talk myself out of murdering your brother. Trying to figure out how I can salvage our marriage when I have to avenge my father’s death.
“It’s nothing,” I lie. “I got a present for you.”
A look of concern flits over her features before she smiles. “Okay. I’m glad it’s nothing. They went to their rooms to get ready for tonight.”
Good. Keep those fuckers away from me.
I take a long look at her. I know that she doesn’t believe me, but we both are wise enough to know sometimes it’s best to leave a sleeping snake well enough alone and not fucking poke it with sticks. Sometimes, it’s better not to know things.
I open the side table and pull out the box of edibles. “I think tonight will go a lot better if we have a little bit of an edge.”
She smiles at me. “You just want to fuck me high.”
My voice is even deeper when I respond, “You’re goddamn right about that.” Sex with Marialena is the best thing I could’ve ever imagined. Sex with her uninhibited and high…
Right now, I have more reasons than that. I just can’t tell her.
From what she says, she’s a lightweight. I take out the small, sugarcoated candy shaped like a slice of lemon.
“Have one of these.” She’s not new to this, so her reaction will come quickly.
She sniffs the edible and sighs. “God, how I’ve missed that smell.” She slides it into her mouth and smiles at me.
“Sit here.” I take her onto my knee.
“Are you going to ask me what I want for Christmas?”