Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
She was dressed in a pair of black slacks, icepick heels, and a buttery-soft looking light yellow button-up.
Who could she be?
This woman with the code to the house?
Who was walking in with bags like she belonged there?
My stomach dropped out at the next thought that raced across my mind.
A girlfriend?
Did he have a girlfriend?
One he failed to mention before he kissed me or went down on me?
“Huh,” the woman said, brows pinching as her gaze moved from me to Judah, then back again. “Okay then,” she said, nodding. “It seems like my brother has been keeping a lot from the family.”
Brother.
Brother.
Of course it was one of his sisters!
With the jealousy gone, I could see the similarities much more clearly. The same eyes. The thick lashes.
This was Elisa or Smush.
And, from the stories, I felt like I knew which one.
“Are you Smush?” I asked, then watched as the woman sighed and shook her head.
“Sofia,” she corrected. “Did he actually call me Smush when he talked about me?”
“Uh, I feel like I’m supposed to say no here,” I said, wincing. “But yes. Is that… not a nickname you like?”
“It’s what my mom called me because I was a fat baby,” Sofia said. “It unfortunately stuck. And as any insecure girl growing up, I really learned to hate it.”
“Sorry,” I said, grimacing.
“It’s not your fault. So… I’m Sofia. And not to be crass… but who the hel—heck are you?” she asked as she walked over to put the bags down on the kitchen table.
“I’m Claire. This is my son, Judah.”
“Just your son, right? Do I have to break it to my poor mother that her son has been keeping a grand baby from her?”
“No, he’s not… Aurelio’s not his father,” I said, feeling a little pang in my heart, suddenly wishing Judah had been that lucky.
“Oh, okay. Not with those curls, right, buddy?” she asked, giving Sofia a warm smile. “So is this one of those super-secret mafia things that I’m not allowed to know about?” she asked.
“I… I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I know his boss knows we are here.”
“Well, if Luca knows, I’m sure Romy knows. And if Romy knows, she’s going to slip and tell someone else eventually. So, the way I see it, you should just tell me,” she said with a wicked little smirk.
“I see your logic,” I admitted. And Aurelio was really close with his siblings. Surely, he wouldn’t be mad at me for explaining. Not when I was literally caught in his house by his sister.
“This has something to do with the shooting, right? With the fact that I have a damn guard literally following me everywhere I go lately?”
“I’m afraid so,” I told her.
“Alright. You chop green beans. I’ll put the groceries away,” Sofia said as she went toward the table to dig through the bags. “And we talk. How’d you come to be staying with my brother?”
“I was… with the man who… who did the shooting,” I said. “That night. I was in the car. And I knew what was going to happen. I, uh, I couldn’t go out and stop it. I had to stay in the car. But when Aurelio started to pass me… I warned him.”
“So when you say you had to stay in the car,” Sofia said, stuffing some more fresh fruit into the fridge, “I’m assuming you meant you were in some way forced to be in there.”
“Handcuffed,” I admitted.
“Handcuffed,” she repeated, looking at me, then Judah. “By his father?” she guessed.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“What a dic—“ she started, then caught herself, “dill pickle,” she settled on, making me snort-laugh.
“Pickle,” Judah agreed with a firm little nod that had us both chuckling.
“Totally a pickle,” Sofia agreed, going back to the table to grab several different kinds of meats, and bringing them to the fridge. “What happened then?”
“Aurelio wanted to free me.”
“Of course,” she agreed.
“But I couldn’t go with him.”
“Because your son wasn’t there,” she guessed.
“Yes.”
“So, his father was, what? Your… husband?”
“Ex,” I clarified. “I’d left him for… a lot of reasons,” I said and the look in her eyes said she understood, “before I found out I was pregnant. Then I did everything I could for him not to find me because I knew how much he wanted a son to… train up to become a monster like him.”
“But he found you and dragged you back then kept you under lock and key.”
“Yes… it’s weird how much this doesn’t shock you,” I decided as she stacked her arms with boxes of pasta to bring to the pantry.
“You know, when you grow up in a family as big as mine, many of whom are in the Family, you learn to accept what would be extraordinary circumstances to normal people with a nod or shrug.
“I mean, I have a cousin who is now married to an employee of his who’d seen him pew-pew someone,” she said, careful to not say anything that Judah might not fully understand but repeat anyway, “then had her blackmail him about it. Oh, and another one who was having brunch or lunch or whatever at this place and two guys came in with pew-pews and the woman who worked there jumped in front of him and took the… you-know-whats herself. So you can say we all have a willingness to take crazy situations with a grain of salt.”