Page 22 of Ruthless Claim

Cillian doesn’t do that.

Cillian just is it, all the time, in every room, and he doesn’t seem to notice or care.

There’s a stillness to him that isn’t peace.

It’s the opposite of peace, actually. He always seems to be ready for something.

Whenever he sits and reads the news, it’s like sitting next to a fault line.

I am not attracted to this.

I want to be extremely clear about that.

It unsettles me the way any unpredictable thing unsettles me—purely as a matter of self-preservation and situational awareness.

That’s all.

My mother comes on a Thursday afternoon when I’m halfway through reorganizing the closet for the fourth time.

She appears in the bedroom doorway looking, as always, like she just stepped off the runway.

My mother never has a hair out of place.

Her dark hair is shot through with silver pulled back in a sophisticated twist.

Today, she’s wearing cream slacks and a silk blouse in deep blue.

Her trademark pearls are at her throat and the diamond studs that Papa gave her for a twentieth wedding anniversary twinkle in the sunlight.

She and I look alike.

I’ve inherited her cheekbones, and those dark eyes are intense and unmistakably familiar.

They’re my eyes, or I suppose mine are hers, which means she has always been able to see through me with them in a way I find inconvenient.

She looks at the organized devastation I’ve made of the closet then looks at me. She sighs deeply. “Valentina.”

“I’m organizing,” I tell her.

“You organized this closet last week,” Mamma responds. “I can tell because the shoes were by color before and now they’re by designer. Which means something is wrong.”

I open my mouth to tell her nothing is wrong.

“Ah, ah,” she says pleasantly, “Don’t tell me nothing is wrong.”

I close my mouth. Dammit.

She comes in and sits on my side of the bed.

How she knows it’s my side is beyond me, but then again she’s my mother and can read me like a goddamn book.

She folds her hands in her lap and looks at me with an expression that means we are having a conversation whether you want to or not.

“Sit down, amore.”

I sit. I’m still holding a pair of Louboutins, which I put down because it’s hard to have a dignified conversation while holding shoes.

“Tell me.” She looks me up and down.