Page 197 of Ruthless Sin
“I’m going out there for a moment.”
He goes.
I sit. Plates out, chairs scraped back, the low sound of Maria’s work from the kitchen. The dining room empties to its bones. I count my brother’s minutes on the porch the way I count everything I can’t stop.
He comes back through the dining room and stops at my chair. His hand on my shoulder for one breath — the Don’s weight in it, and also his.
“Brother.”
He walks back to Cassia.
I do not ask Dante what he said to Mila on the porch.
I find her at the railing a short while later. The garden is going dark. She has been looking at the iron bench.
I stop at the porch door. She turns her head.
“Dante skazal mne.” She stops. Switches to English. “He said thank you. For my brother. In Russian.” A beat. “He had been practicing.”
Something pulls in my throat.
“Ya skazala yemu.” I told him. “He kept his promise to my sister. Late.” She turns back to the garden. “But kept. In English.”
“He went back to Cassia.”
She nods once.
I cross the porch. I stand beside her at the railing. Her jaw goes tight for a moment. She does not look at me. I put my handon her shoulder and she lets me, and the garden goes the rest of the way dark around us.
Two figures cross from the side gate into the garden below. I clock them before Mila does. Giada. Luca Valentino behind her.
I watch without moving.
Luca is in a dark suit. He always comes in a dark suit to a place he is not supposed to come to at all.
He has a thermos in his right hand. This is not improvised — Luca Valentino does not improvise. He planned to bring coffee to a woman whose Don he’d have to go through to speak to.
He planned the thermos the way I plan exits. I respect it and I am not going to tell him that.
Giada has not seen him in months. She is in the dress she wore to dinner and she walks straight to the bench like she knew he would be there. Maybe she did.
He steps forward when she reaches the bench. Hands her the thermos. She unscrews the cap. Drinks. Hands it back. He drinks from the same cup. Sets it on the bench. They do not speak. They stand in the garden in silence while the last light goes.
Mila is still beside me. Her shoulder is quiet under my hand.
That’s going to be a problem. For someone. Probably me.
Luca tips his chin — the Don-nod he gives a woman whose Don he respects. He turns and walks out the side path.
Giada stands at the bench alone. Watches him go. Her hand stays at her side. She picks up the thermos cap. Looks at it. Sets it back on the bench.
She walks back to the house. She has not seen us on the porch.
Mila and I stand until the garden is empty. Neither of us speaks. Her shoulder is still under my hand and her breathing is even and I am so aware of her it is embarrassing. That is all. That is everything.
We walk upstairs.
The hallway. The household already in and behind their doors.
