One
Allegra
One week ago
I’m hunched over on my sofa, bare foot propped on the coffee table, frowning at my half-done pedicure when Santo prowls into my suite. Glancing up from the nail polish brush, I raise an eyebrow at my older brother.
Dark hair like mine, and the sharp De Rossi cheekbones. Hollowed eyes and the signature family exhaustion.
“You never knock. It’s my bedroom, Santo.”
He shrugs, surveying the furniture. “It’s my mansion.”
There’s something off about him tonight. Something cagey. My normally pristine brother looks ruffled, the shadows under his eyes darker than ever, and there’s a crease in his gray embroidered waistcoat.
Acrease.
Guess the sky is falling.
The grounds are dark through the balcony doors, and my suite glows with lamplight. These rooms are more familiar to me than any place in the world, and I know every inch. Every piece of antique furniture, restored by master craftsmen and gifted by Santo; every famous painting on the walls. Everyone thinks that Santo displays his most impressive finds in the visitor areas in order to intimidate visitors.
I know better. He saves the best for me.
Swallowing hard, I sit back. Whatever has shaken the mob boss is not good news. Santo is a block of ice, hard and impenetrable, and yet tonight he looks lost in the center of my suite. He keeps gazing around, blinking hard as he drags his focus back to the present. That fearsome brain of his is working overtime, and I’m surprised there isn’t steam coming out of his ears.
“What is it?” I cap the nail polish with only three toes painted red. “Maybe I can help.”
Santo stares up at the ceiling. “Yes, you can.”
Oh, I don’t like that. “On my terms,” I clarify. “I’ll help on my terms.”
Because I’m not one of Santo’s pawns to be pushed around his mental chessboard. I understand this business better than anyone, present company excluded, and I don’t do grunt work. Life’s too damn short—especially in our world.
“You need me to get info?”
Santo shakes his head, slow and thoughtful. He’s still staring at the ceiling over my shoulder.
You know, when I was growing up with no one in the world except this man, he protected me. Kept me safe from the wolves at our door. And he taught me everything he knew, even when I was a sulky, frightened teenage girl and he was a newly minted mob boss who surely had better things to do.
I owe Santo, no two ways about it. Doesn’t mean I’ll agree to his requests blind. Because Iknowmy brother, know him inside out and back to front, know him in a way that not even his inner circle do. And just because he cares about me, in his own stilted way… that doesn’t mean I’m immune to his machinations.
“Stop scheming and spit it out.”
Santo nods once, then looks me in the eye. “I’m sending you away for a few weeks.”
Um. What? Over the holidays?
“There’s a hit out on you.”
Ah. My shoulders drop an inch, because at least my big brother is not simply sick of me. I hate that’s where my mind goes, but I can’t help it. I may bluster for the outside world, but there’s a scared little girl deep inside me, and she is shrill as hell.
“Come on, there are always threats.” I smooth over my flash of panic with a confident tone. “If you overreact every time some asshole tries to kill me, your men will think you’ve gone soft.”
Besides, I can handle it. There are no less than six knives hidden around my suite, and always at least two on my person. No need to freak out.
“They stabbed Nico two weeks ago.”
I scoff, blowing my dark hair out of my face. “Well, it’s not like that’s hard. And he was barely hurt! It was a flesh wound.”