Page 8 of A Love Most Brutal (Morelli Family #2)

MAXIM

I sit across from my fiancée for another meal. It’s the third weekend in a row we’ve been seen out together, though this time no photographers. She’s still dressed up like a young congresswoman, today a soft pink sweater and a complicated hairstyle that leaves little curls around her face.

She looks so different, polished and glowing, exactly the sweet kind of girl my mother would choose for me. There’s nothing of the girl I’ve watched in my club: no devilish light behind her brown eyes, no dark lipstick, no frizzy hair. I’m besotted by both versions of her.

I didn’t realize before how much she looks like her sister, the older one, though I see the resemblance to Vanessa as well.

They all share features, same slope in the nose as Vanessa, the high cheek bones of Willa.

Of all the sisters, she might look most like their mother, Claire, though that woman’s face is soft and gentle.

Claire could be getting a speeding ticket and the officer might somehow still feel fundamentally seen .

Since the local news outlets had their fun reporting on my much younger fiancée, it’s only a matter of keeping up appearances until the wedding next month.

Thus, brunch, then a dinner, and now a mid-week lunch in the nicest Orlov hotel in the state.

The Meridian is a great restaurant, but everyone here knows I own it, so the entire staff is attuned to the table, worrying over their boss’s experience.

Someone tops off Mary’s glass with more water and we haven’t even ordered yet.

Today’s outfit is doing horrible things to me.

I’ve seen her in far more revealing things at the club, but the prim little sweater over a collared shirt is something in between cute and the sexiest thing my mind could have conjured.

I had to put concerted effort to not stare at her muscular legs in black tights—have mercy—and her eyelids shimmer with a warm color that makes her brown eyes bright.

She bites her lip as she studies the menu and I once again wonder how the fuck I am going to do this.

How am I going to keep sitting across from this woman once per week until we’re married, and then every day for as long as I live? My cards will be revealed eventually, I won’t be able to hide my infatuation forever.

She puts the menu down. “Can we get a bunch of appetizers?”

Her eyes narrow, I think this might be a test, though she asked over the last two meals we shared and my answer was the same.

She could get the whole fucking menu if she wanted, she has no clue.

“As many as you want.”

She raises an eyebrow as if to test this theory, and I’m pleased that when the waiter arrives—the manager this time, who is exceedingly polite and welcoming, and probably sweating through his dress shirt—she orders three different seafood appetizers and a french onion soup.

I get the Margherita pizza, and she adds a slice of cheesecake and a coffee.

“Black tea for him,” she says as she closes the menu and hands it to the man.

The exchange thrills me.

Her eyes wander around the restaurant, squinting as she takes it in, but they return to me when I speak.

“You love seafood?” I ask. She ordered lobster on our dinner date last week, though the restaurant was loud and we didn’t converse much.

I did a lot of watching her, and she did a lot of watching everywhere else.

“Do you?” she asks instead of answering.

“I do,” I say after a moment. “My mother used to make fish soup when we were sick or when the weather got cold.” My mom has always loved fish; caviar, pickled herring, ukha , the whole lot. There’s a warm nostalgia in my chest when I think about it.

“You know about the feast of the seven fishes?” Mary asks.

I nod. I’ve, of course, heard of the Christmas Eve tradition, though I’ve never actually attended one.

“My favorite meal of the year, I think,” she admits.

Her eyes look past me, distant, and I imagine that she’s remembering the last Christmas Eve, a month ago now, when I crouched with her in the alley and she demanded I marry her.

The silence isn’t awkward, though I do wonder if I should be trying to fill it. I’d like to ask her more about the meal, her favorite part of it, if she prepared any of it herself, what her favorite dish tastes like on her tongue, but I don’t want to overwhelm her.

She sits up taller in her chair, her face perplexed as she looks out the big restaurant windows.

“What is it?” I ask. Mary blinks, staring out the window for another moment then lifts her shoulder in a shrug.

“Nothing, I guess.”

I’m not so convinced, but the waiter is back with our drinks, setting them down as unobtrusively as he can on coasters in front of us.

Mary takes this as an opportunity to change the subject.

“Your sisters are coming into town. Which of them is your favorite?”

My eyebrows stitch together. “You’re not supposed to have a favorite.”

“Right, right. Very diplomatic of you.”

I think of them—Nadia, Vera, and Sofia—all so different from one another, but united in their ability to needle me relentlessly. Father always wanted another son, never mind the bastard son he had, but other than me, my mother only gave daughters. Served him right.

Made my life Hell though, the only son .

“They have different strengths.” Nadia is closest in age to me, and the only sister that still lives in Massachusetts.

She is headstrong and takes absolutely no shit.

Mary would like her. In fact, I think she might like them all.

Vera and Sofia are loud and creative, both incredibly talented at various arts, both living half of each year with our mother in Russia. I miss their noise when they’re gone.

“I like them all,” I decide.

“Mhm.” Mary sips her coffee, burning her tongue and wincing at the heat. She uses a spoon to scoop an ice cube into the steaming mug, then pours from a small tin of creamer and a spoon of sugar. Tendons dance under the skin of the back of her hands as she performs the ritual.

“Who’s your favorite then?” I ask. “I thought every Morelli was as close as the next.”

“Leo,” she answers without hesitation. “It was Willa, but yesterday she was annoying me, and Leo made cinnamon rolls.”

My lips fall open, and after another drink of her coffee, her face breaks into a slight smile, signaling another of her dry jokes. I’m dumbfounded and thrilled each time.

“I also love them all,” she amends. “Except for Nate, who I hate.”

“You’re funny.” It comes out surprised.

She smirks. “Occasionally.”

In the lull that follows, I watch Mary’s eyes scan across the restaurant pausing again on the large windows that light the space. Once again, her lips turn down into a frown.

There’s usually patio seating, but not until it’s warm enough outside. Now, it’s empty, only the street and another building beyond.

I turn back to Mary and see that her hand rests lightly around her coffee cup, my babushka’s ring reflecting in the light. I feel an undue possessiveness at the sight.

“Do you trust me even a little?” she asks without looking away from the window.

“What’s wrong?”

Mary’s eyes dart to mine, and then back to the windows.

“I’m going to ask you to do something that might cause a scene.”

My hand immediately moves to hover over the gun at my hip. I don’t know what she sees, but I trust her instincts indelibly. She is as quiet and broody as she is watchful—it’s what makes her so dangerous.

She opens her mouth to speak, just as I hear the first unmistakable pop.

“ Get down, ” she shouts and lunges off of her chair.

I follow as the gunshots break glass, shattering into the restaurant and spraying over us.

I immediately cover her body with mine, crawling on top of her crouched in the fetal position, and cradle her head against me as a barrage of bullets zip above us through the windows.

There are so many shots, and so quickly, I know they have to be shooting Uzis at us.

Those damn machine guns are illegal for a reason.

This isn’t just some drive by, it was calculated, targeting both me and Marianna.

I hold her tightly, staring at the top of her head until the gunfire stops. It feels like an eternity, but is likely only a few seconds before the restaurant quiets to the gasping and crying of patrons and staff.

I lift just enough to look at my fiancée beneath me. The hairs around her face have fallen out of her braid, and her brown eyes are wide. She’s okay, neither of us shot. Neither of us are bleeding.

She’s alive.

A strand of hair lies over her eyes and I exhale before I trail just the tips of my fingers across her forehead and tuck it behind her ear. I would never let myself touch her in this way, only a respectable hand on the small of her back, my fingers brushing her palm when I placed the ring there.

But here, when she could’ve been shot, I let myself, just once.

“Sir, are you alright?” an employee asks, crouching beside us. We both turn to him and, after a moment, nod. He looks relieved, and is talking something at me, assurances perhaps that the authorities are on their way, but I return my attention to Marianna and help her to her feet.

“How’d you know that was going to happen?” I say once the waiter has left us. Her wide eyes harden. “I’m not accusing you, I?—”

“The car drove by three times. Dark fucking windows,” she explains. She sounds out of breath, rattled even. I watch her brown eyes scan quickly around the restaurant from one damaged thing to another.

My own heart is still racing in my chest, my throat dry, but my water glass was shattered with a bullet so there’s no relief there.

“Thank you,” I tell her. She swallows and nods.

“Can we go?”

“Of course,” I place a hand on her back and usher her beside me out of the restaurant. “Let’s get out of here.”