SWNOVELS Brutal Vows: Chapter 5
For six entire days, I don’t speak to my brother. I can barely look at him either.
Which is lucky for him, because if I look at him long enough, I’m liable to scratch out his eyes.
The heartless bastard.
In the meantime, he’s been floating around on cloud nine, bragging about the match to anyone and everyone who’ll listen. He’s already had a meeting with the heads of the other four families to announce the news. I’m surprised he hasn’t taken out a full-page ad in the New York Times.
And Lili, my poor darling Lili, has been locked in her room, crying.
I’m concerned about how hard she’s taking this.
Of course it’s horrible being no more to your own father than a pawn on a chessboard to be moved around to his advantage in Mafia war games, but it’s never been a secret that she’d be matched to a husband the way all the women in our family are.
Though I suppose cold, stark reality is always worse than the theoretical.
A man of flesh and bone is worse than the idea of one.
And an arrogant, swaggering Irishman is exponentially worse than them all.
I haven’t been able to wipe the memory of his smug smirk from my mind. The way he looked at me. The way he laughed at me.
The way he pulled me in with his eyes.
Those long-lashed, half-lidded eyes that burned and brutally mocked me.
If he’s anything less than an absolutely ideal partner to Lili, a Prince Charming she can eventually learn to tolerate if not love, I’m going to kill him.
Which basically means I’m going to have to kill him, because that insufferable toad of a man couldn’t be less of a Prince Charming if he tried.
“Reyna! Sei fuori! You’ve ruined it!”
Startled out of my thoughts by my mother’s sharp rebuke, I look down at the pot of boiling water in front of me. I’m standing at the stove in the kitchen with a wooden spoon in my hand and no idea how long I’ve been off in la-la land, brooding about Lili and the lout.
Long enough to overcook the pasta, evidently.
Leaning on her cane at the stove beside me, my mother crossly pokes me in the arm.
“Look at that soggy mess. Put it down the drain and start over.”
“Sorry, Mamma,” I say, sighing. “I’m preoccupied.”
Her gaze stays on me as I pull on a pair of oven mitts and take the heavy stockpot over to the sink. She watches me as I dump the pasta, refill the pot with hot water, and bring it back to the stove. She continues silently watching as I salt the water and turn up the heat.
This hawkish focus is nothing new. My mother is like one of those creepy paintings in a haunted house whose eyes follow you everywhere, looking right at you no matter where you’re standing.
Or where you try to hide.
“You’re right to be upset,” she says abruptly. “The Irish are despicable. To give one of them such a jewel is…” She curses in Italian, gesturing angrily.
“It’s not that he’s Irish. It’s that he’s a canaglia and a mascalzone with the manners of a barnyard animal. You should’ve seen the way he strutted around, pompous as a peacock.”
A peacock with size sixteen feet.
Shaking off the unwelcome memory, I continue. “I’ve never met anyone so horrid. He barged in here like he was Julius Caesar at the Colosseum, expecting us to shower him with rose petals and virgins.”
Under her breath, my mother says, “Not that he’d find any of those in this house.”
I look at her sharply.
She waves a hand at me like she’s swatting away a fly. “Oh, don’t give your own mamma such an evil glare. It’s not like I’m a ragazza stupida, you know.” She taps her glasses with a finger and waggles her eyebrows. “I see what goes on around here.”
I know she isn’t talking about me, because literally nothing is going on around here where it concerns me.
Unless she found my collection of sex toys and erotica.
No, that can’t be it. She’d already have had a stroke and keeled over dead if she found those.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She smiles. “No? You haven’t seen that pretty boy Lili sneaks into her room at all hours of the day and night?”
I’m scandalized. I simply can’t believe the matriarch of the Caruso crime family would allow her granddaughter to have illicit liaisons in the house, let alone with the son of the pool man.
“You knew about that? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“To who? Your brother? And get the poor boy shot?”
“To me!”
“Why, so you could ruin all her fun by putting an end to it?”
“Yes!”
She clucks. “The piccolina principessa is going to be married to the same idiot for the rest of her life, Reyna. She deserves to live a little first.”
When I only stand there staring at her in disbelief, she says more softly, “It’s one of my great regrets that I didn’t allow the same freedom for you.”
After a moment of profound shock, I say faintly, “Please hold. My brain has melted.”
She turns and makes her way to the kitchen table, hobbling with the help of her cane, then drops into a chair and sighs.
Dressed all in black—as all widows in the family dress, regardless of how long their husbands have been dead—she looks much older than her sixty-five years.
She’s never colored her gray hair and wears it shorn close to her head like a man’s. The style of dress she wears is frumpy and unflattering. She’s not overweight, but refuses to do anything whatsoever to make herself even slightly attractive, including wearing makeup or updating her eyeglasses to a style from this century.
After my father was killed, she simply gave up.
I know it wasn’t from grief. I think it’s that she never wanted another man to notice her again.
Life with my rageaholic Sicilian father was hell for all of us.
Especially after she was diagnosed with MS and he brought his twenty-two-year old mistress to live in the guest cottage so he didn’t have to “fuck a cripple,” as he put it.
Watching my mother hold her head high and grit her teeth through all his cruelty and indiscretions taught me to have the same strength when my own husband turned out to be worse than my father ever was.
So much worse, I never could have imagined it.
Gazing at me fondly, Mamma says, “You’re the best thing I’ve done with my life, stellina. I’m very proud of you.”
I have to turn back to the pot on the stove so she doesn’t see the water welling in my eyes.
My mother giving me a compliment is an event as rare as a UFO sighting.
I murmur a thank-you, staring at the water and willing it to boil so I’ll have something to do other than struggle with this awful feeling in my chest.
Anger is so much easier for me to deal with than tenderness.
Anger gives you armor. Tenderness strips you naked to the bone.
“You would’ve made an excellent mother,” she continues in a thoughtful tone. “It’s a pity you couldn’t have children. Or should I say…made sure you couldn’t.”
When I glance at her, startled all over again, she chuckles.
“I don’t blame you, tesoro. Enzo as a father?” She shudders. “You were smarter than I was. Not that I’m saying I regret my children, mind you. You’re the love of my life.” She thinks for a moment. “Your brother, meh.”
I laugh. “I know you don’t mean that. He’s the firstborn and a boy. It would be a crime punishable by death in Sicily if you didn’t love him the most.”
She shrugs. “Then it’s lucky we’re not in Sicily.”
I scoff. “Oh, Mamma. You’ve been at the wine again.”
“No, but that reminds me,” she says, perking up to look over at the wine cooler next to the refrigerator. “How about a nice pinot noir?”
“Since when do you drink anything but Chianti?”
“Since I started watching this charming young man on YouTube with his own channel all about wine.”
“You’re watching YouTube?”
She nods as if her deciding to get on the internet isn’t as monumental as the moon landing. Up until last year, she’d still been using a rotary phone.
“Pinot is his favorite. He drinks it by the gallon. Let’s have some with the tagliatelle.”
“Wow. Wonders never cease. Okay, Mamma, you’re on.”
I head to the wine fridge, select a bottle, and bring it over to the counter to open it, when a man walks through the kitchen door.
It’s the Irishman.
My heart clenches. My face goes hot. I draw in a sharp breath and freeze.
“Hullo,” he says in a throaty voice, gazing at me.
Past my shock, I manage to say, “You.”
He sends me his signature smirk “Aye. Me.”
He’s holding a wrapped bouquet of white roses. He’s wearing a black suit again. Armani, by the looks of it. His tie and shirt are black, too. On any other man, that much black would make him look like a game show host or an undertaker.
This man in head-to-toe black looks like a runway model who moonlights as an assassin, the smug fucker.
And oh, sweet Jesus have mercy on my soul, I am not noticing how tight the suit is around his crotch area.
I do not see that substantial bulge.
I do not.
I say stiffly, “What are you doing in my kitchen?”
His heated gaze takes a leisurely trip over my body, head to toe and back again. He licks his lips.
“I was in town. I wanted to see Lili.”
I exhale hard and set the bottle of wine on the counter with such force, my mother jumps in her chair.
“If you’d like to see Liliana, Mr. Quinn, you’ll have to make arrangements prior to showing up at our home unannounced. Regardless of how things are done in the Mob, this family has certain standards of conduct.”
“Oh, come now, lass,” he chides, enjoying my agitation at his sudden, unwelcome appearance. “A man should be able to see his fiancée without penciling it in on a calendar.”
Knowing there’s nothing I can do to stop him from showing up any damn time he likes, he smiles.
He’s so lucky I don’t already have the wine opener in my hand. He’d have a corkscrew shoved up his ass before he could speak another word.
Into the ensuing silence, my mother says, “Hey. Irish.”
Quinn looks at her. Judging by his expression, he’s surprised to see someone else in the room. She points to a cabinet behind him.
“The vases are in there. When you’re done arranging the flowers, you can open the wine.” She smiles. “If you can pry it out of Reyna’s hand, that is.”
“Pardon my manners,” Quinn says. “I didn’t see you sitting there.”
“I know. You were too busy annoying my daughter.”
“Mrs. Caruso?”
“The one and only.” She chuckles. “Well, now. The rest of them are worm food.”
God, my mother has a dark sense of humor.
Quinn crosses the kitchen and extends his hand to her. He says respectfully, “It’s my honor to meet you, ma’am. I’m Homer.”
I nearly fall face-first onto the kitchen floor.
First, because Quinn is acting like a human for once—not the ape I know him to be—and second, because…Homer?
Mamma accepts his outstretched hand. He clasps it gently for a moment, inclining his head, then releases it and straightens. She gazes up at him through her glasses with narrowed eyes.
She says bluntly, “What kind of name is that for an Irishman?”
He doesn’t take offense. He only chuckles. “My mother was an art student. Winslow Homer was her favorite artist.”
Mamma cackles. “Good thing it wasn’t Edvard Munch.”
“If I tell you the name everyone else knows me by, you’ll laugh even harder.”
“What is it?”
“Spider.”
She doesn’t laugh. Instead, she looks over at me. “You didn’t tell me he was a comedian.”
“He’s not,” I say through gritted teeth. “But he is leaving.”
“Not before he pours me my wine!”
Quinn’s smug smile reappears. “And puts the flowers in water.”
I mentally telegraph a murder threat to him, which he ignores, turning instead to the cabinet behind him to select a vase from the collection of crystal.
As my mother and I watch him, he brings the vase and the flowers to the sink, tears the plastic and tissue paper wrap from the bouquet, fills the vase from the tap, then says calmly, “Your pot’s boiling.”
I look over at the stove. The pot of water is at a full rolling boil, about to spill over the edges.
Cursing, I abandon the bottle of wine and jump over to the stove. I switch off the heat, turn back to Quinn, and demand, “How did you get in here?”
“Through the front door.”
Cocky bastard. “I mean who let you in?”
“The housekeeper. Nice lass. Bettina, I believe? Couldn’t have been sweeter.”
I bet she couldn’t. One look at Mr. Supermodel Assassin here and she most likely fainted.
“Why didn’t she announce you?”
“I told her I wanted it to be a surprise.” He sends me a smoldering glance. “Surprise.”
I feel that look all the way down to my toes.
Flustered, my cheeks hot, I snap, “I hate surprises.”
Mamma mutters, “Somebody around here is about to get a surprise in the form of a smack if I don’t get my wine soon.”
Quinn drops the flowers into the vase of water, fusses with them for a moment until he’s satisfied they’re just so, then crosses to the counter and picks up the bottle of pinot noir.
He examines the label. “Hmm.”
Mamma says, “I’m sorry we don’t have any beer to offer you.”
His smile is faintly amused. “I don’t drink beer.”
“Then why are you looking at the wine like that?”
He glances up at her. After a pause, he says, “I don’t want to insult you by telling you the truth.”
“It’s never stopped you before,” I say, furious that I can’t get him out of my kitchen.
He smiles at me, his hazel eyes burning. “Corkscrew?”
He managed to make that sound lewd, the pig.
I point to the drawer next to the dishwasher, then say, “Liliana is at the movies with her girlfriends tonight, so unfortunately, you won’t be able to see her. And my brother is in the city for business. If you call tomorrow morning, we can set up a time for later in the week.”
“The movies?” Quinn repeats.
“Yes,” I lie, nodding. “You’ve heard of feature films, I presume? Perhaps they don’t have them in Ireland. Too many other important things to do, I imagine, what with the sheep shearing and the river dancing and all the dart throwing championships down at the local pub. But she goes every Thursday. She won’t be home until late. So you should leave. Now.”
He gazes at me in silence for a while, then says, “Sea Smoke.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
He turns his gaze to my mother. “If you like pinot noir, you should try Sea Smoke.” He holds up the bottle in his hand. “It’s better than this cheap bloody shite.”
My mother says, “My YouTube boyfriend drinks that. It’s too pricey for me, though.”
“I’ll buy you a bottle.”
She brightens, clapping her hands. “Ah, grazie mille. I can’t wait!”
Am I having a stroke? What the hell is happening?
“Mr. Quinn—”
“Spider.” He smirks at me. “I’d let you call me by my real name, but you haven’t earned the privilege yet.”
I gather all the raging anger in my body and concentrate it into my glare, which I direct to a superheated laser focus on his handsome, hideous face.
He smiles wider and opens the wine.