Page 174 of Bad Bishop

We were greeted by my family. Tierney was there, too, looking especially beautiful in a risqué black Balmain dress that clung to her killer body, black lacy gloves, and a pearl choker.

She was never going to get Achilles off her back if she continued baiting him, looking like she did.

A part of me suspected she didn’twanthim to stop.

“You look so beautiful,bambina mia.” Mama kissed my cheeks with glittering eyes. “Glowing.”

“Thank you.” I held her wrists, kissing her back.

“And you’re wearing pink.” Tierney’s grin was conspiratorial. “To a blue-themed party. That’s so…you.”

Luca, Achilles, and Enzo hugged me, too. Sofia and I rubbed each other’s bumps, giggling. It was the first time I saw a genuine smile on her face. I knew better than to think that smile was because Luca and she were doing better. She still lived in Chicago, and he still lived in New York.

Vello wasn’t in attendance. Mama said he was feeling unwell, and I didn’t push. Frankly, I felt more relaxed without him being around.

There was food, cupcakes, virgin cocktails, laughter, and a game of trivia. Mama brought out the big guns at some point. Thick, dusty photo albums of me as a baby. I held my breath the entire time Tiernan and Tierney examined them, knowing their infancy did not include baby pictures, smash cakes, colorful bikes, and Barbie-themed Band-Aids.

At some point, I had to excuse myself to go to the bathroom. Peeing every ten minutes was the unfortunate by-product of having a six-pound human using your bladder as a pillow. I slipped into the restroom, did my business, and washed my hands. When I got out, I saw Achilles and Tierney huddled in a darkened corner of the hallway. I froze. She was pressed against the wall, him crowding her, his arms on either side of her shoulders. It was the first time he paid her attention all evening. He’d refused to look her way the entire evening. I suspected it had something to do with the revelation she’d been sleeping with Angelo. It was hard to think of Achilles as heartbroken. Then again, his behavior had always been so weird around her.

Stepping back behind the door, I studied them, waiting to see if Tierney needed any help.

I loved my brother, but I was fully prepared to jump to my sister-in-law’s defense and protect her.

“Did you touch my mistress?” Achilles’s face gave away nothing.

“Hmm.” Tierney yawned in his face provocatively. “Which one?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Tierney.”

“Honey, don’t you worry your ugly head about that. I’ll never fuck you.”

I pressed my lips to suppress a giggle.

“I only have one. Tessa.” The corded muscles in his tanned arms flexed. He looked like he was trying his best not to touch her and losing his control rapidly. Every hair on my body stood on end. I really didn’t want to smash something on his head but could see it happening if things went south. “She says her legs were broken with a baseball bat.”

“You mean, she can’t open them for you anymore?” Tierney clutched her choker in mock horror. She laughed, patting his shoulder good-naturedly. “Oh, come, Achilles. I’m harmless enough. The only thing I’ve ever killed is a sourdough starter.”

Achilles obviously wasn’t buying it.

“Did you do it yourself or send someone else?” he asked.

“I’m a hardworking gal.” She flipped her hair to one shoulder. “If I want to get something done, I always do it myself.”

“Thought you said you’d never hurt another woman.”

“Thatwoman has a rap sheet a mile long,” Tierney quipped. “Have you read it?”

“No.”

“She’s not exactly a symbol of feminism. Child abandonment, child neglect, solicitation, statutory rape of a seventeen-year-old boy…” She listed the colorful past of my brother’s mistress. “Honestly? She’s lucky I stopped at her legs. That neck was sooo squeezable.”

Achilles’s mask slipped, and a flash of surprise crossed his face. A rarity in itself. “Didn’t know all that.”

“Even if you did, it wouldn’t have made any difference to you.” She shrugged.

He didn’t deny it. “This was your payback for Angelo.”

“If I can’t get some, Ferrante, then neither can you.”