Page 25 of Twisted Throne
I felt my face turn beet red.
“No! Of course not,” I said weakly.
“Ha! Told ya!” Lucy crowed.
“Don’t you have somewhere you need to be, Lucy?” Elena asked her, sounding exasperated.
“Fine, but we’ll talk later, Gia!” Lucy called out as she bounced out of the room.
Elena spoke up, breaking the void of silence that had crept in after Lucy’s departure.
“Look, it’s not really any of my business,” she said, hesitating. “But you should stay away from Paul. Angelo likes and trusts him, sure. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s not… our type of people, you know?”
She stared at me for a minute, like she was waiting for me to agree with her. I stayed silent, then she grabbed my hand and clasped it in hers. Her hands twitched as she held mine, reminding me of a bird fluttering in someone's grasp.
“I’m not trying to be judgmental, and Paul is one of Angelo’s favorites, sure,” she said, sounding slightly bitter. “But, he’s still just not the quality of people that you want to get involved with. Once all this settles down I’ll introduce you around to some more appropriate people if you’d like.”
I couldn’t help the scowl that tightened my face. So Paul grew up poor, who cares? I liked Elena, but I couldn’t help but think that if she saw where I lived, would she talk shit about me like she’s doing with Paul?
“Sure, maybe,” I answered, trying to keep up the pretense of politeness at least.
“Well, I’ll leave you to get settled in,” she said. “I’ll be right across the hall if you need anything at all.”
She left quickly. Maybe I hadn’t sounded as polite as I thought I’d had.
Dropping down into the leather armchair in front of the fireplace, I took a moment to savor the luxury. This was a far cry from my duct-taped sofa and array of door locks. And though the people around me were just as dangerous, at least some of them were on my side.
Could I fit in here?
Did Iwantto?
I sat and thought for a while, until the stillness got to be too much for me. Then I stretched and ran through a few basic exercises, concentrating on execution and precise motions to keep my mind from racing through thoughts it couldn’t control. It wasn’t enough to wear me out, but it gave me room to think rationally instead of letting my emotions take over as they’d done earlier with Paul.
But that never happened, according to him. Asshole. My footwork got a little stompier than it should have been, until a quiet knock sounded on my door and I spun around to open it.
“Do you mind if I join you?” Angelo stood just outside the doorway.
“Oh, no. Of course not!” I reassured him. “I just needed to work off some steam, so–” I gestured at the open space of my suite, with all that room to stretch. I didn’t want to bother anybody, but maybe later on I can go, um, downstairs.” What was I supposed to call it? “Gym” sounded too commercial, and “training room” sounded too scary. “If that’s alright?”
“Certainly, certainly. I wish for you to be absolutely comfortable here.” He sat down in the leather armchair that faced me and tilted his head to the side. “It is a small thing, but it was good to see your mother’s necklace once more. Regardless of what you decide, I wanted you to know that.”
I glanced toward the dresser drawer, where I’d stashed the folder containing Mom’s necklace.
“I remember when I gave that to Catherine.” He smiled softly and chuckled. “I had it custom made for her. She always hated it when I gave her gifts, but I thought that if it was something that I’d made specifically for her, she would have to accept it. And although I ended up being right, she gave me holy hell over it at first.”
“Mom always hated getting gifts, it made her feel uncomfortable.” I laughed, thinking about all of the times she’d fussed at me for giving her something. “She always said that she had everything she needed already and that any more would be a waste.”
Angelo cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, his face looking more serious.
“If I had known about this, and you, earlier, I hope that you know that I would have provided for you both.”
“I… I believe you.” And I did, I realized. I’d be a fool to ignore Angelo’s hard edges and everything he was up to his neck in, but he saw to the needs of everybody he considered his own. I only had to look at confident, outgoing Lucy or even pampered Elena to understand that.
He sighed heavily. “After my wife passed away, I didn’t get involved with anyone else. Willing women are easy to come by in my position, but after Isabella’s death nothing truly mattered. Not even for a night.”
He paused, then leaned back against the smooth leather back of the chair.
“I was a capo at the time, and had gone out with some of the others to celebrate a certain… acquisition we’d recently sealed the deal on. We could have gone anywhere in the city that night, but as fate would have it we ended up at the jazz club where your mother was performing.”