Page 123 of The Wicked

It was intimate and rapturously addicting, but was I the only one who felt it? Did I do it wrong?

It was inescapable. I knew I would obsess over this until I got an answer. I would waste precious time dissecting the look of irritation and discomfort in her eyes the moment she rushed to her feet.

Women had tried to kiss me a couple of times; if I had succumbed and kissed them, would they have looked at me the same way, or was this because Zahra hated me?

But why would she stop me from hurting myself if she hated me? Why would she ask me questions about why I couldn’t sleep?

I was treading through a territory I knew I shouldn’t cross. All through the day, this woman refused to leave my mind. I’d asked myself similar questions to the ones plaguing my mind now.

Did she care, stopping me from ending it all? Why didn’t she get nervous and scared around me? Why didn’t she drive away from me? What was she up to today? Did she tell Elia about what happened?

When she’d told me she had to get away from everyone, I had a burning desire to ask, and I would have asked what happened, but I knew I couldn’t get invested.

I knew little about her.

I’d found she had some history with some self-made mobster in Sicily, but I didn’t know how deep it ran or how she came to be here in Milan. I knew nothing. I needed to stop wondering and asking questions, but a part of me also knew it was too late, and if picturing Angelo’s death wasn’t proof, I didn’t know what would be.

“I most definitely interrupted something, didn’t I?”

I blinked, looking up at him. “Every human has two angels, the good one that rests on the right shoulder, and the bad that rests on the left.”

Angelo frowned. “I don’t…”

“You’re the good one. The one always giving advice that I would never follow and popping in when I don’t even need you. The one I’d love to squish, but I can’t because I happen to like you. How fortunate for you and unfortunate for me.”

He opened his mouth to say something—closed it, opened it again, before finally closing it.

My lips lifted in irritation as I watched him try to find an excuse.

He cleared his throat, standing straighter, his hair rough, as if he had just gotten out of bed. “I didn’t know you wouldn’t bealone, Marino, and—the girl was the last person I expected you to be with. Are you fucking her?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I mean—something was happening, the way she rushed—”

“And how is any of that your business?”

“It’s not, but it’s unlike you. I mean, you did try to drown her before, so… it’s just—you don’t, you and women—I’ve never…”

“Go on, Angelo, I’ve heard you form consecutive sentences before. You can do it.”

He sighed. “You’re right; it’s none of my business. But if you are… involved with her or… want to be, or would soon be? I can ask my people to carry out intensive research on Manuel Conti—”

“Leave it to me,” I said, getting to my feet, surprisingly without staggering. I felt very sober but still a little light. “No one does any research on her. I doubt you would find anything useful.”

Angelo’s eyes widened with surprise as he watched me. “My God. You didn’t deny it.”

“Deny what?”

“That you’re involved with her, or would want to be, or willsoonbe involved with her.”

I bent to pick up the empty beer bottle on the ground, straightening before walking to the end of the chair and leaning on it. “Why? Are you interested in her?”

“Of course not.”

“In me, then?”

He gave me a blank look.