Page 86 of The Butcher's Wife

Except, it’s not Rafa.

20

ANNETTA

I scramble to my feet,ignoring the soreness in my thighs as I put on a scowl despite the fear thrumming under my skin.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Don’t be a bitch,” Russell says without any heat. Has he slept at all since I last saw him? His eyes are red-rimmed, and his grey clothes hang off his skinny frame like an elephant’s skin. He looks over at the perfume bottles on Serafina’s dresser and steps over to pick upRêves de Pensées—her favorite.

That’s when I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was telling the truth.

The pills in her closet, a hidden boyfriend—Serafina was keepingsecrets, from me, from the whole family.

I can’t breathe. A sick, foul scent like rotting flowers coats the back of my tongue. My stomach lurches, and I swallow the horribly familiar nausea rising in my throat.

The image of Frederico in bed with that girl through the crack in the door, of my Prince Charming husband finally exposed as a disgusting monster—and now, Serafina? Howcould my sweet, perfect, innocent sister have lied to me? Why didn’t I know?

Russell ignores me as he takes the perfume, sprays it onto the collar of his shirt, and lifts it up to smell. He turns his bloodshot eyes toward me. “You don’t smell like her.”

He knows.

My blood runs cold.

Even as I’m reeling and the edges of the room go blurry, a desperate, animal instinct for survival has me blurting out, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Russell scoffs. “It’s your fault, isn’t it? Carlo said that the guy we cleaned up was supposed to kill you, but he got Serafina on accident.”

I want to cry.Fucking Carlo.

“You shouldn’t believe everything my brother says.” My voice is distant, like it belongs to someone else.

He strums his fingers through Serafina’s jewelry display until he touches the gold cross necklace she used to wear every Sunday. He pockets it.

Righteous anger swells inside me. “Put that back.”

“You know they asked me to kill you.”

My anger dissolves into chilling fear.

I don’t have to ask who he’s talking about. He takes one long step forward, placing himself halfway between me and the door.

Once, when we were little, Serafina and I were redecorating her room. I jumped from her bed to the floor, and Mom came running up to whisper-hiss at us that we needed to be silent when Dad had guests.

If I stomp loud enough, as a last-ditch measure, someone downstairs might hear me, but Dom will notice I’m gone first… won’t he?

I just need to stall.

“You wouldn’t get out of this house alive,” I say, and a vicious part of me hopes he doesn’t. He’s ruining Serafina’s memory when she’s not here to defend herself, and all for what—to scare me?

Except he doesn’t seem all that concerned with me as he walks to Serafina’s bed, pushing aside the canopy to sit down.

He’s got a gun stuck in the front of his waistband, the outline faintly visible behind his shirt. I avoid looking at it, trying to meet his eye, but he’s looking everywhere in the room but at me.

“I don’t give a shit about that anymore. Your sister was the one good thing I had, and some fucking bastard killed her byaccident.” He runs his fingers across her pillow in a caress so tender that I look away.

There has to be another explanation, something I’m missing, even as the truth stares me in the face. Serafina wasgood—she wouldn’t have spent time with some loser like Russell without reason.