Page 39 of Hollow Forest

“I know you aren’t hunting down a lover, so what brings you by?” Drusilla demanded, folding elegantly into a high-backed armchair.

The program chose that moment to finish processing.

I leaned toward the screen, feeling my eyes go wide. I didn’t want to believe it, but the truth was right there, staring back at me with a rosebud smile. Body draped in white, pearls adorning her lush throat, was the spitting image of my monster.

Only this woman was a raven-haired beauty.

I wish she hadn’t dyed her hair.

It hurt every time I looked at these old pictures of Samantha. No…she was Ophelia then.

So engrossed with the images scoured from the internet, I didn’t hear the princess approach. She’d taken off those six-inch spiked heels and cat-walked behind me.

“Pretty,” Drusilla purred.

My fingers curled into fists. “Go away.”

“Why?” Drusilla hopped lithely on the edge of the desk, gaze ping-ponging between me and the screen. “This is sssooo much more fun than dealing with the Bratva nonsense.”

I ignored her and began to click around in a new window. Ophelia Hood, age twenty-eight, lost her sister nearly three years ago. That much I knew. But something about the car crash didn’t feel right. Sealed records bubbled onto the screen, courtesy of the computer program my sister designed for our family business.

Desdemona Hood had been at a college party, drinking the night of the crash. I frowned. That, unfortunately, fit the puzzle. The University of Miami was a known party school. Ophelia’s official statement was redacted, which took my computer several seconds to reveal.

Merda, bella, is this true?

It had to be.

“Ooh! Looks like Ferretti’s boy was at the party,” Drew prattled. “Looks like you found your connection to the family business after all.”

I shoved her. “Vaffa!”

She gave me a rude gesture, the Italian equivalent of the bird, as she regained her balance. Waltzing to pick up her ridiculous shoes, I thought I was rid of the pest until she stopped short in the doorway.

Those sharp eyes narrowed. “Does this have anything to do with the woman living in the cottage?”

Only because of years of practice, I able to keep the neutral mask on my face. The last thing I needed was the famiglia’s princess poking around where she had no business. “It has to do with the Volkov Pakhan Lucian went to have lunch with.”

Drusilla’s poker face was not nearly as good as mine. Her painted cheeks paled. Fear flashed through her brown eyes.

“We should cut the Russian pigs down and be done with it,” she declared, tossing her hair defiantly.

I leaned back in my chair. “And if they’d rather join forces? Tell me, Drew, since you’re not getting any younger, how do you feel about a spring wedding?”

Her claws came out. Bristling, Drusilla hissed through clenched teeth, “I would slit my husband’s throat on his wedding night.”

“But only after you made sure he died a happy man,” I needled. “A very happy man.”

The missile shot through the air a moment later.

I ducked.

But the second shoe hit the back of the computer screen, sending it crashing forward. I managed to catch it just in time. I laughed. It was the best way to show the hellion her tantrums were feeble. Ever since we’d been young, when we first learned about the mafia legacy of the Cove, it had been our secret joy to taunt our Drusilla about being sold into marriage.

She should know by now that we would never.

But it was still the best way to get under her skin.

By the time I fixed the screen, the mafia’s princess was gone, having banged the pocket door to the library closed behind her.