Page 21 of Brutal Devil

“Maria?” I echo.

“Ah, don’t look so hopeful, sweetheart.ZiaMaria is like a mother to me. Wonderfully loyal. Have I mentioned that she makes the best lasagna in the whole fucking world?”

I’m staring at him blankly.

“She does,” he says as if we’re having a conversation.

We’re not having a conversation. I don’t even know if I’m capable of coherent speech at this moment. The enormous dining table is made of solid marble—white with gray striations running through. It’s stunning and must have cost a fortune.

“I always tell her so, don’t I,Zia?” he asks warmly as she trundles around the corner.

She’s shorter than I am, round-faced and smiling, her dark hair wound in a tidy bun at her nape. “Of course you do, Matteo my boy. But you must watch your language. I’ll not have my food on a wicked tongue.”

She wags her finger at him, frowning.

I watch the exchange unfolding, not sure which has shocked me more, the undeniable tenderness for the older woman reflected on Priest’s face or Maria’s brazen scolding of one of the most feared men in the Andriani family.

“Now I’ll have another woman to look after me,” Priest is saying, sending a glance in my direction that I somehow feel likea caress. “Maybe between the two of you, there’s hope for me yet.”

“This is the one?” Maria asks in an aside I easily overhear.

“Forgive me,” he says, playing the role of the consummate gentleman all too well. “I should have introduced the two most important women in my life properly. Luna Revello, my soon-to-be-wife, this is Maria Andriani, my aunt and the woman who feeds me.”

Maria beams with pride as she bustles to me, folding me in a big hug. I hug her back, weirdly grateful for the comfort. She’s soft everywhere, but her embrace is tight and strong, and for a second, I’m so reminded of my own mother that my throat goes tight.

But then the hug is over, and I’m recalling all the things Priest just said.

“Welcome to the family, Luna,” Maria says, then cups my cheeks. “What a lovely bride you’ll make. Promise me that you’ll treat my Matteo well.”

Matteo.Hearing someone call him by his real name feels so much more intimate. I don’t want to think of him this way. Matteo is a charming, handsome man who dotes on his elderly aunt and lights candles on the dinner table. Priest is the vicious mobster who held a Glock to my temple earlier and told me I had no choice but to obey him.

I can’t reconcile the two. It’s as if they’re different men.

But Maria is looking at me expectantly, and I’m guessing she doesn’t know her beloved nephew kidnapped me and is holding me here against my will. Well, sort of against my will at this point. He did unlock the door after dumping a whole shitload of alarming information on me.

So, I force a smile I don’t feel. “I promise I’ll treat him as well as he deserves to be treated.”

There. It’s the most I can manage. I don’t miss the way Priest is looking at me—or the inky eyebrow that flies up at my words.

But Maria is pleased by my response. “You’ll do.” She gives my cheeks another pat and then turns back to Priest. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Matteo. Be careful.”

I wonder if she’s referring to me or to the life he lives. I don’t ask, just watch her give him a motherly embrace. He leans down dutifully for a kiss on each cheek, and then she’s off, a silent guard waiting in the shadows to offer her escort. I think it’s the same man who was our driver earlier, but it’s difficult to tell.

Then they’re gone, and it’s just Priest and me.

Alone.

And my heart is pounding because I don’t know what to do with Matteo, and I’m not sure which man he is in this moment.

“Sit,topolina,” he says, an order instead of an invitation.

I know which one. Priest is back, unsmiling and forbidding, the hauntingly beautiful angles of his face carved from granite.

“I told you not to call metopolina.” We’re having the same battle we’ve had before, but I don’t care.

He gives me a thin smile. “Sit before I make you sit,topolina.”

He’s not wearing his Glock. At least, not that I can see. My eyes flit to the table where the silverware is carefully laid, gleaming. There’s a knife. A dull one, but still. We’re alone and there’s a knife.