Page 28 of The Killer Cupcake (Poison Cherry #3)

She dropped back against the pillows and rolled her eyes at the ceiling, frustration bubbling up in her chest. She bit her bottom lip, her mind already working, already planning.

"You're not escaping that easily," she murmured to the empty room.

She dressed with deliberate care, taking her time to style her hair in the soft waves he preferred and applying her makeup with the precision of a woman preparing for battle.

She chose a strapless summer dress in bright yellow—something she was certain would capture and hold his attention.

She massaged his favorite jasmine oil into her skin until she was as fragrant as a garden in bloom, each detail calculated to remind him of what he stood to lose.

When she emerged, he was seated at the yacht's stern, deep in conversation with the captain. She could feel his awareness of her, even if he didn’t look back to see her.

"Mrs. Ricci, would you like us to prepare breakfast before we return to shore?" one of the crew members asked politely from behind her. She turned to address the crew with a lowered voice.

"Certainly. Is there television reception out here?"

The crew member smiled apologetically. “No, ma'am, there's no signal unless we're docked. The antenna is too weak at sea."

"I see. Well then, prepare breakfast for my husband and have it served on deck. I'll eat inside—I have some reading to catch up on."

"Right away, ma'am."

She heard Carmelo's low chuckle with the Captain as they joked about fishing and chose to ignore it completely. She selected a seat in the main cabin where he could glimpse her if he looked sideways, then deliberated between her leather-bound journal and the novel she'd been neglecting.

If she journaled, he'd assume she was processing their conflict, that he remained the center of her emotional universe.

For Carmelo, that would be enough to satisfy his need for control.

But if she chose the book, it would signal her determination to mentally escape from him, to prefer the separation he was imposing over reconciliation.

That was something the Wolf absolutely could not tolerate.

She chose the book.

When breakfast arrived for him, Carmelo glanced back toward the cabin with evident confusion.

He watched her accept her own meal while appearing completely absorbed in her novel, her posture relaxed and content.

His stare lingered for a long moment before he looked down at his untouched plate with visible agitation.

Within minutes, he'd gathered his breakfast and stalked into the cabin, choosing a seat directly across from her. A challenge.

Kathy felt his gaze burning into her, but continued reading with serene focus. She nibbled her toast and turned pages with unhurried ease. Carmelo cleared his throat meaningfully—she didn't even glance up. He began eating with exaggerated noise, clattering his silverware against the porcelain.

She simply turned another page.

Finally, his patience snapped. He activated the intercom with sharp aggression. "Captain, take us in. I have business to attend to." His voice was gruff and abrupt, barely controlled.

She sipped her coffee and kept reading.

After ten excruciating minutes of being ignored, he exploded from his chair and switched on the sound system, cranking Bruce Springsteen to an ear-splitting volume.

He'd won. Kathy looked up and glared at him with withering disdain. Carmelo stared back with grim satisfaction.

"What are you, two years old? Turn the music down," she said coolly, and knew he could read her lips.

"No," he replied, crossing his arms like a petulant child.

"Fine. I'll go read on deck." She stood with dignified grace.

He jumped up to block her path, and she paused with patience. "What exactly do you want, Carmelo? I'm not playing these ridiculous games with you."

He rolled his eyes and slumped back into his chair in defeat. She climbed to the upper deck with a secret smile, leaving him to sulk in his manufactured chaos.

When they docked, she accepted assistance only from the crew, pointedly refusing his offered hand in front of his men. They rode to the villa in glacial silence, the tension thick enough to cut.

Nino met them at the estate's grand entrance, sweeping Kathy into an enthusiastic bear hug that nearly lifted her off her feet.

She embraced him warmly, genuinely happy to see his innocent joy.

When he finally released her and led her inside, she glanced back to see Carmelo walking away in the opposite direction, his shoulders rigid with frustration.

The first round was hers.

The rest of the day passed without any sign of him, which completely undermined her strategy.

It was impossible to punish someone who refused to be present for the punishment.

She took a leisurely stroll through the villa's manicured gardens with Nino, then positioned herself strategically in the solarium where Carmelo typically enjoyed his evening cigars.

She lingered there longer than necessary, pretending to read while actually listening for his footsteps.

He never appeared.

After an afternoon of playing games with Nino and sharing a quiet dinner where Carmelo’s empty chair seemed to mock her efforts, she climbed the marble staircase to their bedroom with barely concealed hope.

Perhaps he was waiting for her there, ready to engage in the emotional chess match she'd so carefully orchestrated.

The room was empty, his side of the bed still perfectly made from that morning.

Her heart plummeted like a stone dropping into dark water.

Her elaborate plan to ignore, tease, and slowly torture him with calculated indifference had backfired spectacularly. Worse, he'd turned her own weapon against her—now she was the one being ignored, the one left wondering and wanting.

She showered. Her confidence from that morning was crumbling like sand. When she slipped between the cool sheets alone, the vast bed felt like an ocean of loneliness. Every sound in the villa made her hope he was finally coming to her, but the hours crawled by in silence.

When she woke sometime after midnight and found his side still cold and empty, the tears came without warning.

She pressed her face into his pillow, breathing in the faint scent of his cologne, and cried herself back to sleep—not because she missed him, she told herself, but because she'd underestimated her opponent.

The Wolf was playing a much longer game than she'd realized.

Morning.

Kathy woke with a flutter of hope, expecting to find him watching her sleep as he had the previous morning.

The bedroom was empty, sunlight streaming through the windows onto cold, untouched sheets.

She sat alone in the vast bed as fear began to crawl up her spine like ice water.

This wasn't Carmelo pouting like a wounded lover.

The Wolf wasn't toying with her emotions for sport.

Something fundamental had shifted, and she could feel it in the very air of the villa.

She slipped from bed and wrapped herself in a silk kimono that felt breezy against her skin, then began a systematic search of their floor.

Nothing. She moved through the lower rooms with growing urgency, her bare feet silent on the marble floors.

She could hear Nino's cheerful chatter from the breakfast room and assumed Carmelo was with him.

He wasn't.

Where the hell was he?

"Marco," she approached the only member of their security detail she truly trusted—a young, imposingly handsome man who'd been with the Ricci family for the past three years. Everyone else was new blood, hired guns with no loyalty beyond their paychecks.

"Where is he?" she asked, trying to keep the desperation from her voice.

"He asked to be left alone, Kathy. If you need him, he said?—"

"Where is he?" The demand came out sharper than intended.

Marco's eyes flicked toward the left, toward the under-construction poolhouse nestled among the trees, then he turned and walked away without another word.

Relief flooded through her so powerfully her knees nearly buckled.

At least he hadn't abandoned her and Nino completely, hadn't escaped to some unreachable fortress while leaving them trapped here under his control.

But now she faced a more complex problem. How she approached him would determine everything. She had to push aside her mother's careful coaching about managing husbands, ignore Aunt Janey's lessons in emotional manipulation, and forget Debbie's retaliatory tactics with Matteo.

She had to reach him as simply Kathy.

But who was Kathy anymore? After years of survival and strategy, she wasn't sure she remembered that woman.

She walked toward the poolhouse, Bruce Springsteen's gravelly voice drifting through the air at near-deafening volume. Instead of approaching the door directly, she slipped around to peer through the window, some instinct warning her to observe before announcing herself.

He was there, shirtless in the wrinkled linen pants from yesterday, his dark but greying hair disheveled as if he'd been running his hands through it.

A massive satellite phone was pressed to his ear while he paced, his free hand gesturing violently as he spoke in rapid, furious Italian to whomever was on the other end.

In it, glinting in the morning light, was the hammer.

She froze at the sight of it, her blood turning to ice in her veins.

He'd brought that cursed thing with them—the instrument of so much violence and pain in his past?

She stepped back instinctively, nearly knocking over a terracotta planter.

The thunderous music and his shouted conversation covered any noise she might have made.

Her heart hammering against her ribs, she turned and walked back toward the villa.

"Kathy? Where's Melo?" Nino asked, looking around the dining room with a confused expression.

Kathy gently rubbed his massive hand. "Finish your dinner, sweetheart. He'll be back soon."

Nino returned to his meal, while Kathy pushed the pasta around on her plate, her appetite completely gone.

Her mind kept circling back to that satellite phone in the poolhouse.

She could slip out there and call Debbie, but then what?

Even if Debbie told Matteo everything, what could that possibly change?

Carmelo had committed federal crimes—faking his death while under investigation, reneging on his deal to turn against the other families in exchange for Matteo's pardon, robbing a grave, and using a dead woman’s corpse to be her.

He'd systematically torched his entire life, making sure there was no path back to their old existence.

The finality of it all hit her like a physical blow, and her eyes filled with tears just as she heard his footsteps approaching.

"Melo!" Nino bellowed joyfully, slamming his hand down on the table hard enough to rattle the crystal.

She looked up to see Carmelo freshly shaved and dressed in clean clothes, looking almost normal except for the haunted shadows beneath his eyes.

He walked directly to Nino and allowed his brother to engulf him in an enthusiastic bear hug. He patted Nino's cheek affectionately and promised to take him horseback riding the next morning. When that successfully calmed his brother's agitation, Carmelo's dark gaze found hers across the table.

She met his stare for a moment, then deliberately looked away.

He moved to her side and leaned down to brush his lips against her cheek, the gesture tender despite everything between them. With careful precision, he placed the wedding rings she'd left behind on the table beside her plate.

"I missed you," he whispered against her ear, his breath warm on her skin.

"Missed you too," she mumbled, the admission pulled from somewhere deep and honest. She put on her wedding ring first, then the other tarnished band.

Satisfied, the Wolf took his seat across from her as the staff brought his dinner. She found herself studying his face as he settled in. "Marco told me you were looking for me?" he asked.

"Yes. He wouldn't tell me where you were."

Carmelo continued to hold her gaze steadily. "I figured you wanted me to stay away. Give you the space you asked for."

"That's not what I want," she said quietly.

"What do you want, then?" His voice carried a dangerous edge. "To bake me a cupcake?"

Her eyes widened at the loaded reference. She glanced toward Nino, who was giggling delightedly. "Kathy bakes good cakes! Bake us cupcakes, Kathy! I want a pink one!”

She managed a smile for him. "Maybe later, Nino."

Turning back to Carmelo, she asked the question that mattered most: "Will you come to bed tonight?"

His eyebrow arched with sardonic amusement. "I haven't been invited."

"You want to fight with me? Keep me angry so you can stay angry?" Her voice grew stronger. "What is it with Ricci men constantly punishing the women they claim to love? Do you get off on me breaking like your father?”

Carmelo's fist slammed down on the table with enough force to make the silverware jump and ring like bells. Kathy allowed herself a small, satisfied smirk. That cupcake remark pissed her off.

"I've lost my appetite. I’m going to bed now,” she sighed.

"Wait," Carmelo said sharply as she started to rise. "Please."

She settled back into her chair, waiting.

"I'm sorry. I'm not handling this right." His voice was rough with exhaustion and something that might have been defeat.

She studied his face, searching for the man beneath the Wolf's mask.

"Can I come to bed?" he asked, the question almost vulnerable.

Kathy stood and moved to Nino first, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead.

"Goodnight, sweetheart." Then she walked around the table to where Carmelo sat watching her every movement.

She placed her hand on his shoulder, letting it drift down to rest over his heart, her diamond wedding ring gleaming in the warm light.

He captured her hand and brought it to his lips, pressing a reverent kiss to her palm.

She leaned close enough that only he could hear. “Play with your brother. Then come to bed. I'll listen to everything you need to tell me. I promise."

“Can I touch you tonight?” he asked, his hand on hers.

“As much as you want,” she said.

She watched the tight coil of anger in his shoulders finally begin to unwind, then stepped back and left the brothers at the table. As she climbed the stairs, she understood exactly what his return to their bed would mean—and this time, she would handle things differently.

This time, she would meet him as simply Kathy, not as a wife armed for war, but as the woman who'd loved him long before she'd learned to weaponize that love. And she would make him face some hard truths, so they can finally unite and save their family.