Page 25 of Auctioned to the Mafia Don
I look at him too. “Both of you are staying here for now. You eat what you can. You sleep if you can. You do what Omar says if there’s an emergency, even if his face makes it seem like fun is all but illegal.”
Erin nods.
Omar looks offended. “Fun is not illegal.”
“Strongly discouraged, then.”
Heath finally speaks. “What counts as an emergency?”
Smart question.
“If people start running,” I say. “If Omar tells you to move without explaining why. If you hear shouting close to this room. If anything feels — wrong. You stay with Erin. You listen to Omar. And then you wait for me.”
The last part leaves my mouth before I can soften it.
Heath’s face doesn’t change, but something in his stare shifts. Not trust. Not yet. A note taken. Just like Omar, I realize. Kindred spirits, perhaps.
“Okay,” he says with a nod.
I follow Omar into the hall before I can make the moment worse by reacting to it. The door remains open behind us. Erin says something to Heath about the dog-horse drawing. Heath mutters that it still has too many legs.
Omar walks beside me toward the stairs. “You should not make promises you cannot guarantee.”
“I know.”
“You did anyway.” He glances at me. “Why?”
I look straight ahead. “Because sometimes children need someone willing to lie to fate, even if they won’t lie to them.”
Chapter Five
Maya
Omar doesn’t say anything to me after that. For once, I am grateful.
He walks beside me in silence as we leave the sitting room behind and head toward the stairs, my last words still sitting between us like something that should not have been said out loud.Sometimes children need someone willing to lie to fate, even if they won’t lie to them.It sounded better in my head. Less reckless. A promise I have no legal, tactical, or moral right to make inside a house owned by Stefano Savarese.
But I made it anyway.
By the time Omar leads me back to the guest room, the bed has been made, the water replaced, and the pills removed from the nightstand. A garment bag hangs from the wardrobe door, black and expensive and smug before I even unzip it. He stops at the threshold, but he doesn’t close the door and retreat. He standsthere with one hand on the frame, watching me look at the black bag wearily.
“You’re expected downstairs in thirty minutes.”
“I’ll be there when I’m ready.”
“He thought you’d say something like that. And I’m to remind you of your part of this plan. To behave.”
I look over my shoulder at him. “Does he do anything besides anticipate how irritating I’m going to be?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Was that humor?”
“No,” he says quickly.
I wink at him, teasing him. “It almost was.”
His gaze drops over me once, taking in the robe, the bandage on my wrist, the bruises on my knees, the disaster Erin has made of my hair. “You should look in a mirror and see what you look like; that will prompt you to get dressed. I’m sure of it.”
