Page 95 of Urgent Vows
"Getting ready for bed."
"You're sleeping here?"
"This is our room. Where else would I sleep?"
Our room. Our bed. Our life. A life I can't just walk away from, no matter how angry I am. I am a don's wife and there is no divorce in the mafia. Which isn't strictly true, but it's close enough.
If my mom had tried to leave my father and filed for divorce, her death wouldn't have been an accident because he hit her too hard and sent her tumbling down the stairs. He would have murdered her on purpose.
"That's it?" I still find myself asking. "You accuse me of betrayingla famigliaand now we're just supposed to sleep together?" As in sleep. Not sex. That is so off the table right now.
"Call it my penance."
"How is it penance?"
"Because this." He shucks out of his boxers and his erection springs free. "And there's no way you're going to let me touch you tonight."
He's got that right. No matter how tempting the idea of drowning pain in pleasure is. He showed me at the hospital how easy it is to do and I'm pretty sure it will work on emotional pain too. Only afterward, the cuts on my heart would be deeper, not healed.
Severu gets into bed, shifting until his naked body is right next to mine under the covers.
"Don't get any ideas," I mutter.
"Not getting ideas," he says with too much frustrated sincerity to be lying.
I don't look at him. I don't need the temptation. "How do you know my sister is the one who put up those videos?"
"She named the channel Stellina."
"That's hardly incontrovertible proof."
"We're tracking the IP address of the owner. If it's not her, we'll know."
I hope against hope it isn't my sister, but something inside me tells me it is. There are a limited number of people with access to the mansion. Of them, only one is known asstellina.
"Even if it is Carlotta, that doesn't make her the mole either."
"You don't think?"
"Don't forget, they were going to kidnap Carlotta. She wouldn't have done that to herself."
"She could have staged it as a way to get away from New York," he says, though his voice lacks conviction.
"Not going to mention again that the attempted kidnapping isn't necessarily connected to the other leaks?" I taunt.
"No. That would mean we've got two rats and that's a coincidence I don't buy."
Well, that's something.
"She might be young, but she's not stupid," I tell him. "They shot at us, Severu. Either of us could have died that day, or both. Besides, where would she get the money to pay them? Our father kept even his favorite daughter on a tight leash financially."
I don't ask where I would have gotten the money because I know I've been adding to my escape fund since I was twelve years old.
"The YouTube channel."
"You think she got enough off of it to pay for a team of Albanian kidnappers?" That would mean that more than one video had gone viral.
I hate that thought so much I shove it to the back of my mind. "Are you going to get the channel taken down?"
