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“He walks away.” He turned back to the mare, speaking to her in Russian, before he turned to me some. She nudged his hand. “This is all I know at the moment.”

I didn’t fucking believe him. Lev was not as honest as my people.

I had a feeling he had spoken to Iggy, and this conversation was what came of it, except he was leaving a few details out.

Such as, how he was going to get my wife to—I couldn’t even fucking think it, or I was going to lose fucking control.

My mind was out to prosecute me, because it wouldn’t stop with the poking fucking questions.

Did he consider taking her on dates and bringing her fucking chocolate? She couldn’t have chocolate. It gave her headaches. That was why she stuck with fresh fruit most of the time.

A strike of silver lit up the barn with a shock of lightning, followed by thunder rolling in the distance. My eyes had turned in that direction for a moment, and when I looked back to the spot where Lev had been, he was gone.

Marciano appeared in the doorway. I could smell the scent of rain on him, though it hadn’t started yet. He stepped inside and narrowed his eyes at my head. “What the fuck happened?”

I waved him off, about to head for the villa.

“You got company, brother,” he said when I reached him.

“More fucking company,” I grumbled, about to walk off.

“It’s a lady. Said she’s a friend of yours. She has a horse for sale.” When Marciano said friend, he’d put emphasis on the word, meaning, she was more than a friend at one time. A lover.

This “friend” was a horse breeder. She knew where I lived because we had dealings with horses before. No other women came to this property. I usually went to theirs. And when I had relations with her, it was always at her place.

I was being haunted. Truly and thoroughly haunted—by my past and my present.

I would have ordered Marciano to send the lady away, but it wasn’t his responsibility to deal with my past. I was known to go after women who enjoyed stealing and ripping clothes, burning them after to prove a point.

These women, even though I made no promises, still clung to the idea that I could be changed.

I couldn’t be changed.

Not until the one who held the fucking key came along.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you but never found the time. What’s with Flavio calling Sistine one of the Cappello women ?” Marciano started, but someone made a noise from the left side of the stable.

The mare at the end stall was shaking her head, almost like if she was trying to get my attention. That mare didn’t like strong perfumes, and this scent was wafting in the air like it had been doused on the fodder, and the mare was about to have to consume it.

Marciano took his position next to me, setting his hands on his hips, narrowing his eyes as a naked woman emerged from the shadows. Another one was right behind her, tiptoeing around, pulling a face and going, “ ewww .”

“Are you keeping women in barrels?” Marciano’s eyes widened before they went back to their natural state.

“Apples. All I have are fucking apples.”

“They are the forbidden fruit.” My brother was being fucking serious.

My heart almost beat out of my fucking chest when I realized who the first woman was.

My wife’s conniving sister.

If her family knew she was here, or not, they could accuse me of breaking the sequester and attempting to hijack the maze by conspiring with this woman.

Everyone knew my wife and her sister didn’t get along, but Benedetto Dandolo was the most neutralist man I’d ever met.

Magpie said he was so neutral, his spirit aura was cream colored.

“Wowza,” the ewww woman said, breathless, checking me and Marciano out. “Where do these men come from?” She pulled two apples from another barrel and set them over her breasts. “Are you hungry for my fruits?” She jiggled them.

Marciano exploded with laughter. When he looked at me, he sighed, wiping his eyes. “Can’t make this fucking shit up, brother,” he said.

“ Ciao , Mariano.” My wife’s sister waved, her breasts bouncing. “I thought you would be alone, but I see your other brother is here.” She pulled the friend forward. “We could make this the four of us?”

“You and your friend, get the fuck out,” I said, heading toward the villa, going for the phone. Her father would hear about this.

Fuck me sideways. Six words I never thought would register in my brain. Her father would hear about this. It was usually the other way around that got stuck in my head. He would never hear about this.

“No!” my wife’s sister screeched, and her weight fell on my back. Her arms wrapped around my neck, her legs around my waist. “I know you are just using my sister to get to me! You have wanted me all along! It is fine. My family will allow us to be together!”

I turned, facing Marciano, and she held on, almost choking me.

“I saw the way you were looking at me!” the sister yelled in my ear, trying to nibble on my earlobe after.

I had to push her head away. My earlobe stretched and I thought she might bite part of it off, take it as a souvenir.

“You cannot want my sister! You cannot! There is no truth to this. None at all! My name will fill the pages of your little red book I have heard so much about!”

I wasn’t going to spend a second fucking defending myself to this woman.

She was either here to truly threaten the date I would be reunited with my wife again, or she was truly, madly disturbed.

I was a betting man, and my bet was on the latter, then the first—she’d use it when she didn’t get her way.

Marciano decided to help a motherfucker out by attempting to pry my wife’s sister’s naked, clinging form from my body. The friend jumped on his back, clinging on for dear life.

“ Woooo !” she was shouting. “This is just like a rodeo! I have always wanted to ride a cowboy! Yip. Yip. Yipeeeeee!”

“I’m not a fucking cowboy,” my brother was saying, trying to peel my wife’s sister off me. The friend started to nibble on his ear. “That fucking tickles! Knock it off, lady!”

“I can’t fucking help you unless you help me,” I said to my brother, growing more frustrated by the second.

We were taught to respect women, honor them, and I didn’t want to fucking hurt this one by flinging her off.

Unless she was a direct threat to me or mine, wielding some type of weapon, it wasn’t in me to cause harm.

These women were much smaller than us, but they were worse than an itch we couldn’t fucking scratch.

“You’re the master at this, Mariano!” Marciano pushed her head back when she started making horse noises in his ear. “What the fuck? Has anyone told you lately you’re not a horse?”

I somehow managed to get my wife’s sister off me, but she was fucking relentless.

She jumped right back on. My brother was able to bring the friend to his shoulder, where he threw her over it.

I did the same, but the sister kept pounding on my back.

She was throwing one of her tantrums. My wife could throw one, too, but hers were cute. This one was starting to piss me off.

“Who’s the fucking master at wrangling a ‘won’t take no for an answer’ woman?” Marciano hit his chest. “Me.”

“You tell Sicilia this? You’re a master at wrangling naked women?”

My brother spun around so fast the friend went flying. “Sicilia,” he said.

“She’s not here, motherfucker,” I said.

“Oh.” He fixed his disheveled hair. Then, before he knew it, the woman was back, fodder all in her hair. She looked like a demonic creature.

“Fuck me sideways.” I sighed.

“All ways!” the sister screamed at me.

“Get off. Now.”

Three simple words from my sister’s mouth.

Mia seemed to appear out of nowhere. She had that mamma tone going, and even though I had no fucking idea if it was going to work on my wife’s sister, it did. The two women slid off, and neither of them looked at my sister as they ran for the stables, probably to grab their clothes.

Marciano hugged her, giving her a big kiss on the temple. “Thank you,” he said. “I spun around so fast, I got dizzy. Damn.” He sniffed himself. “I stink like that perfume.”

My sister eyed me. “What happened to you?”

“Those women?—”

“No.” She shook her head. “What happened to your head?”

I had forgotten about the cut. I told her what had happened, and she went to tend to me, but I kept walking. “I have fucking phone calls to make,” I said.

I made the calls. First to Benedetto Dandolo to let him know what had happened. If an issue arose from this, there was no force in this world that would be able to stop me from stealing all of Flavio Capella’s extremities.

Then I made the main call.

“Are you sure you do not want to switch daughters?” Flavio asked seriously.

I hung up on him, and after Lev appeared in the villa, I instructed him to take the women back to Venice with a warning.

I looked my wife’s sister in the eyes when I said this.

If Capri, or any of her friends, ever even attempted to breach our property again without an invitation from my wife, woman or not, they would be returning to Venice in a box.

I told the friend, the horse breeder, that I was married and uninterested. Then I went to take a shower to wash the stink of another woman off my skin.