Page 22 of Ruthless Sin
She is barefoot in the same faded dress she had on this morning, her hair loose over her shoulders. She isn’t hovering at the threshold the way she has every other time. She is moving, keeping her shoulder near the wall as she crosses into the dining room and does not stop.
I stand up.
She doesn’t look at the rest of the family.
She looks at the empty chair. The one right next to mine.
She walks to it, pulls the oak frame out with both hands, and sits down.
Her bare shoulder is two inches from mine.
Don’t.
I sit back down.
Cassia’s voice is quiet, that low tone she drops into when the table is about to tip.
“Pass the bread to your right, Marco.”
Marco passes the bread without asking a question. The loaf comes around the table and arrives at Mila’s place because Nonna set one for her tonight. Nonna has been setting Mila a place every Sunday, ignoring the empty wood.
Mila doesn’t touch the crust.
She lifts her right hand off her lap, slow and deliberate. Her fingers find the cuff of my shirt and hold.
Cazzo.
Her fingers are small and warm. They have closed directly on the linen, locking around the bone of my wrist, and they do not let go.
I go very still.
Her hand is on me. Right there, at the table, in the light, with my entire family six feet away. The pulse at my wrist is going to give me away and there is nothing I can do about it. She can feel it. She has to feel it. Her thumb is directly over the vein.
The family doesn’t look at us.
Cassia turns her gaze to Giada. “Tell me you finally hired the night nurse for the clinic.”
“Next week.”
“Thank God.”
“Don’t thank God,cher. Thank the woman in Algiers I poached her from.”
“What’s her name.”
“Renée.” Gia picks up her wine glass. “Loyola Med. Two years on a trauma ward. She knows what she is walking into.”
“Good.”
The conversation has moved on. Nobody mentions Tuesday, the drive, or the Russian enforcer tracking her through the ports. Nobody says her name aloud.
Mila’s grip on my sleeve does not move.
I cannot shift my arm. If I move, she lets go.
I do not look at her face.
I keep my eyes fixed on my plate. On Dante’s gold signet ring on the other side of the table. On anything that is not her small hand pinned to my wrist.
