Page 20

20

Tovah

W hen we got back to Isaac’s house, I undid the seatbelt. Isaac, for all of his anger at Judah earlier, had been gentle when he’d buckled me in, and the care for me and my safety—coupled with his confession of jealousy—had undid something inside me, something soft and vulnerable that petrified me. I couldn’t be feeling soft toward Isaac, not when he was my enemy and had threatened both my life and my mother’s, if the latter unknowingly.

Speaking of my mother, I needed my phone back from Isaac. Although he hadn’t said anything, and my phone was locked, I was worried she’d texted and hadn’t heard back and was freaking out by now. I needed to get a burner phone somehow so I could get in touch with her and let her know I was okay.

But was I?

When I went to get out of the car, my door was still locked, and I couldn’t unlock it. Could you even put child safety locks on the passenger side door?

Isaac got out and came around to my side, opening the door and helping me out by grabbing my hand and lacing our fingers together again. He didn’t release me as we walked up the sidewalk to the front porch. I couldn’t understand why he was holding my hand. The only audience we had were the trees from the forest that butted up against his property, so there was no need for him to pretend we were a couple who held hands. His big hand engulfed mine, making me feel safe and extending the cared-for feeling that had begun when he buckled me in, and I hated it, and the way it confused my brain—and my heart.

“Let go,” I said, tugging at my hand.

“No,” he said, typing the keycode into the door, disengaging the locks and opening it.

He still didn’t release me when we were inside, leading me down the hallway to the kitchen. Then, he finally let go of my hand, only to boost me onto the kitchen counter—the same spot where he’d spanked me and gotten me off the night before. My nipples went tight at the sordid memory.

Isaac, of course, noticed. His eyes went dark with lust, and a feral smile took over his face.

“Don’t worry, little snoop. I’ll give you what you want later but first I need to feed you. How’s spaghetti and meatballs?”

He was cooking for me?

“That’s fine,” I said.

As he made his way around the kitchen, pulling ingredients out of the huge fridge and pantry and setting them up near a chopping board and the stove, I watched him, flummoxed.

“I didn’t know mafia princes knew how to cook,” I finally said. “Don’t you have like, staff to do that for you?”

He looked at me. He smiled slightly, but his eyes were sad.

“My mom taught me how to cook, before she was killed,” he told me. “After she died, I cooked for me and my siblings. My dad is an old school chauvinist and has always given me shit about it, but it made me feel closer to her. I don’t know.” He shrugged, and then his voice turned bitter. “But I guess if you know so much about me already, you already know she was killed.”

I did. I knew Louisa Silver had died in a tragic accident, but the night she’d been killed was the same night my mother and I had made our escape. I’d been young, and terrified, and determined to help get me and my mother out from under my abusive stepfather’s thumb and had never bothered to learn exactly what happened.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “How did she die?”

“She was on her way to the opera,” Isaac said as he started mincing garlic. “My father wasn’t accompanying her, but she was meeting her sister. Her car had barely pulled away from the curb when gunshots rang out. They shot up her car with her inside, killing her on the spot. I’ve never seen so much blood in my life.”

He closed his eyes at the memory, and my heart squeezed in sympathy. I’d liked Louisa. She’d always been kind to me and my mother, even though we were only the help. But I couldn’t say as much to Isaac, or he’d realize who I actually was.

“My dad went running out of the house, pulling her out of the car. He was covered in her blood. He made a sound I’d never heard before and I’ve never heard since. He was always a maniacal asshole, but he loved her. That night, he told me you couldn’t love anyone when you were a part of our family. Loyalty, yes. Love, no. Because love meant death.” Isaac started chopping an onion furiously, making my eyes sting with tears. “And he was right.”

I didn’t know this side of Isaac, the part that thought he didn’t deserve and could never have true love in his life. It wasn’t something I wanted, either, but my reasoning was different: My mother had loved my stepfather, at first, and look how that turned out. I couldn’t trust a man long enough to believe he’d take care of me, instead of trying to destroy me. No, my love was reserved for my friends and my mother. That was it.

“I’m sorry, that sounds terrible,” I said.

“You know what I sometimes think is worse?” he mused, as he finished chopping the onion and pushed it with his knife into the big pot with the garlic, pouring in some olive oil and setting it on the stovetop to sauté. “There was a little girl who lived on the property. I never learned her name; I think she was the daughter of one of the maids or my father’s men or something. She refused to tell me. But even when I was young, I cared about her a lot. Actually thought I loved her, that we were meant to be together. I called her my bashert, my destiny.” He scoffed, and I had to look away so Isaac couldn’t see the pained shock on my face. “Anyway, she disappeared around the time my mother died, didn’t even come to the funeral. I was an idiot; her family was clearly involved in my mother’s death.”

I caught the denial in my throat. My mother and I had had nothing to do with Louisa’s death. I’d been devastated for Isaac, but my mother had thought that the chaos going on with the Silvers was a good opportunity for us to take care of my stepfather and disappear. And she’d been right.

But I hadn’t realized that Isaac had looked for me at the funeral.

Isaac had grabbed a can opener and was using it on a can of tomatoes, like he wished it bodily harm. “Anyway, that was the last time I gave my love to anyone. It’s better this way.”

I swallowed. What could I even say? All I wanted to do was to wrap my arms around my enemy and tell him that I was here, that I cared, that I hadn’t left him by choice. But I had left him, and he thought I was involved in his mother’s death. If I told him who I was, what was to stop him from using the big chef’s knife on me?

“I’m so sorry you lost her,” I said, and I wasn’t sure if I was referring to his mother or to me. “That’s a horrible thing for anyone to go through, especially when you were so young. Do you know who did it?”

“The Golds,” he said shortly. “Which made it kind of awkward and inconvenient when Jack got involved with Aviva, but she’s only a distant cousin and isn’t involved at all in the family’s actual business. They’ve been our enemy forever.”

Aviva was a Gold. But the wealthy, dynastic family had never wanted anything to do with Aviva or her brother, Asher. The connection had concerned me, at first, but Aviva knew nothing. And I needed to keep it that way, to keep her and Asher safe.

Isaac stirred the sauce, and the smell of garlic and onions filled the kitchen, making me salivate. “In fact,” he added, “I bet that little girl was a plant or a spy of theirs. Just goes to show the kind of taste I have in women.”

Ouch.

“She was just a kid, wasn’t she?” I said, defending myself even though I needed to leave it alone. “Do you really think she’d plot against you that way? Or was she just an innocent bystander with no control of her own?”

Isaac turned away from the stove, his eyes landing on mine—and narrowing. “Why do you even care?”

Shit.

“As a journalist, part of my job is to both expose the bad guys and defend the innocent from slander. I guess I feel some sympathy for her, when it’s unlikely she’s the villain you think she is.”

Isaac nodded. “Go get a pot from the bottom left cabinet and fill it up with water. Usually I’d make pasta from scratch, but I’m starving, so we’re going to have to go with the boxed kind.”

I grabbed the change of subject with both hands. “Boxed pasta is my favorite pasta.”

He smirked, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s because you haven’t had my pasta.”

* * *

Dinner was quiet, broken up by my helpless moans as I ate the best spaghetti and meatballs I’d ever had in my entire life. And each time I moaned, Isaac watched me, a dark look in his eyes as he gripped his cutlery so hard, white showed around his knuckles.

“You know,” I finally said, patting my stomach. “If hockey doesn’t work out, you could easily become a chef. This was delicious.”

His eyes shuttered. “Hockey’s not going to work out,” he said.

I sat up. “What do you mean?”

He hesitated, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell me. Then he shrugged. “You might as well know. I’m going to have to take over for my father one day. Can’t really be the head of a criminal empire and play for the NHL at the same time. I made a deal with him a while back; he’d let me go to college and play hockey as long as I came home to take up my position in the ‘company’ after…and agreed to run Vice and Vixen distribution in Gehenom.”

I digested his words, almost feeling guilty for the assumptions I’d made about him in the past. “So that’s why the hockey team oversaw the dealers,” I guessed.

He nodded, watching me. “We’re out of the game now,” he said. “We’d always known how dangerous it was, but what happened with Aviva and Jack really drove that point home, so we decided as a team to be done.”

“How’d your father take that?”

He snorted. “The old man was pissed. He hasn’t acted on it yet—and I’ve been avoiding him anyway. But there will be retribution. There’s always retribution,” he added darkly.

I swallowed, hating that I felt bad for him, but I did. “Is what happened to your mom partially why you don’t want to work for your father? Is that why you want out?”

Isaac rose, taking my plate and his.

“I can wash up,” I said.

“I’ve got it. Can’t have you thinking you’re here for your maid services. And no. It’s because unlike my family, I’m not a killer, and I’d like to keep it that way. Unfortunately, that looks like it’s not in the cards for me. Sometimes you just don’t have any control over your own fate.”

I sat there quietly, because how did you respond to something like that? Or how devastatingly resigned Isaac sounded to his future?

“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “That fucking sucks.”

Because what else was there to say? I might hate him, but I was sorry.

He shrugged. “It is what it is,” he said. “What about you?”

“What do you mean, what about me?”

“Why do you want to be a journalist so badly?” he asked. “Does it have anything to do with the way you lost your mom?”

Because Isaac thought my mom was dead.

“Something like that,” I said.

He watched me from where he stood, plates in hand. “That’s it? I just told you all sorts of deep, dark shit about me, and you can’t even be bothered to share beyond a ‘something like that?’”

But I couldn’t tell him more.

So I shrugged, getting up from the table. “I really can help with the dishes.”

He shook his head back and forth slowly, placing the dirty dishes back on the kitchen table.

“The dishes can wait. If you won’t use your mouth to talk, you can use it in a better way. Get on your knees, Tovah.”

I glared at him. “No.”

He raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“No, Isaac. No one is here, we don’t have to pretend. I’m not going to blow you.”

He chuckled. “Oh, calling it a blow job doesn’t even get close to what I’m about to do to you. Remember: I say get on your knees, you get on your knees. I fed you dinner, now I’m going to feed you my cock. Kneel. ”

Glaring at him, I kneeled. Because what other choice did I have? But one of these days?—

“I’m going to bite your dick off,” I told him.

He laughed again. “This better be one of those times where you’re all bark, no bite. If I feel even the hint of teeth, I’ll strip you down, drive you to campus, and tie you to the statue of the founder. How does that sound?” He caressed my face. “I don’t want to hear another word out of that pretty mouth. Open up, little snoop. That’s all you’re good for, after all.”