Page 56 of Revenge on the Mafia

I’m just his maid.

I’d arranged the wedding in one week. Could have been a day if I hadn’t been a fool and ordered her a special dress all the way from fucking Spain to marry me in. One hundred and seventy-two hours. The four words she spoke denying the truth… it dropped down to one hundred and sixty-eight.

We settled into the paperwork. Ludano spoke again, his voice shaky. He wasn’t trying to find any holes in my pipeline anymore.

She just smells good.

I tried to lose myself by timing shipments to avoid patterns. If we asked Columbia to hold on for a month, that would get the feds out of sync.

You don’t mind, do you, bella?

Maybe we could get them to do a detour.

He had his nose in her hair. I stared at the offending body part, which seemed to be growing larger by the minute.

In the meantime, we could leak something else to the feds. Something less damaging.

I hadn’t even sniffed her hair yet.

She just smells good.

It would reduce tension if we redirected them— fucking hell.

My chair hit the wall as I stood up.

Ludano startled, his face the color of mortuary meat.

“Let’s do this another time.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Yes.” He bent to gather the papers.

I glanced briefly at my brother. He cocked his head. ‘Now?’ he mouthed. No. I wasn’t that bad. I get to six hundred and ten. “Leave it.”

“But I need them to work on them.”

“Leave. It.”

Ludano visibly shrank from the tone of my voice. For a second, he hovered, clearly wanting to defend his job. Then he decided he was getting the better deal by walking out alive. With a slight nod, he dropped the papers and picked up his suitcase.

I let him get to the door while I glared at my brother, trying to come up with a number, any fucking number to calm me down. He didn’t even get to the door before I gave up.

“Fuck it.”

Stefano chuckled. Ludano turned. I walked toward him. “Let me drop you off.”

He staggered back. “But I came by car.”

Stefano joined us and casually draped his arm over him. “You can’t drive by yourself.”

“Not where you’re going,” I said right behind his ear.

He went still. His skin turned clammy, but to his credit, he didn’t put up a fight. We walked him out the door and passed Anna in the hallway coming out of the living room. She opened her mouth to say something. I prayed it was a long sentence because my patience was thinner than a fucking fishing line. She must have sensed it because she closed her mouth. Such a smart girl.

At the car, Ludano’s obedience gave way. “I didn’t know, I swear, please.”

“You sound like a broken record.”

He struggled. Stefano put his hand on his head and shoved him down and into the car.