Page 23 of Auctioned to the Mafia Don
Erin smiles.
Heath watches my face when she does. I think I pass whatever test he gives me, because he finally picks up his fork and takes a second bite of eggs.
After breakfast, Omar takes us to a sitting room off the interior courtyard. Not the formal one I passed earlier. This one has softer furniture, shelves with books that look chosen by someone who had to guess what eight-year-olds liked, and a basket of toys faintly smelling of packaging. Stefano had someone prepare this. Not well, exactly. No child chooses beige throw pillows. But quickly, and with enough attention that the effort feels worse than indifference.
Erin finds colored pencils and takes over the low table within thirty seconds. Heath chooses the chair with the best view of the door, the windows, and his sister. I sit on the floor again because apparently that is who I am now.
“You don’t have to sit there,” Heath says.
“I know.”
“There’s a couch.”
“I don’t trust rich couches.”
Erin looks up from her drawing. “Why?”
“They look comfortable, then they try to eat you,” I say with a smile.
She studies the couch with immediate suspicion.
Omar, from the doorway, protests, “The furniture is not hostile. Don’t fill their heads with useless ideas.”
“You don’t know that,” Erin says.
Heath’s mouth twitches again. And I decide Omar may be useful after all, even if only as a target.
The morning quickly drifts into early afternoon in small, fragile pieces. Erin draws a horse with too many legs, then tells me it is a dog. Heath corrects her anatomy with the seriousness of a surgeon. She ignores him. I learn that Erin likes strawberry jam, hates peas, and believes all houses should have cats. Heath claims not to care about animals, then asks whether dogs can tell when someone is bad. I tell him some can, but people should not put all their faith in dogs because dogs also eat socks.
Erin laughs easily. Heath doesn’t, but he looks at me longer than before. Progress with him isn’t going to be warm and immediate, I realize quickly. It comes in inches, so small that most people would miss them. He stops angling his body quite as sharply between Erin and me. He lets me hand him a glass of water instead of making Erin get it. When one of Stefano’s men passes too close to the doorway, Heath’s shoulders stiffen, and he looks at me before he looks at Omar.
Around two, Erin decides my hair needs help.
“It does not,” I tell in mock offense.
“It does.”
“It’s been a hard twenty-four hours,” I say.
“That’s why it needs help.”
Omar looks away, but I catch the smirk on his face before he can hide it.
“I saw you smile,” I tell him.
“I would never,” he protests, reclaiming his normal stern look.
“That's a lie.”
Erin climbs onto the couch behind me with a brush someone must have found in one of the upstairs bathrooms. She works with the confidence of someone who has no idea what she is doing and the determination of someone who will not be advised. The brush catches twice. She apologizes both times with a soft, worried little sound that makes my throat tighten.
“It’s fine,” I tell her.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
Heath watches from his chair, suspicious. “Mom used to braid her hair.”
