Chapter 11: Three A.M.

I put the roster back exactly where I had found it.

Then I lay down on his side of the bed, with my eyes shut and my heart going.

At five past three, Emanuele woke.

He didn't stir.

He opened his eyes all at once and lay listening.

I breathed slowly.

He slid out from under the blanket and dressed in the dark.

He moved without a sound.

He bent over me.

His lips brushed my hair, and his hand rested a moment on the emerald, and then the door closed behind him.

I counted to ten.

I was out of bed before the last second passed.

The house was black and silent.

I went down the back stairs in one of his shirts, with my hair wild.

A light burned in the kitchen.

Bruna stood at the long table in a flour-covered apron, folding dough, and she didn't look up.

"You're up late," she said.

"Where does he go?"

"Oh, I wouldn't know."

"Bruna."

She sighed, wiped her hands, and picked a set of keys off a hook.

She tossed them across the table.

They hit my chest, and I caught them.

"Delivery van," she said. "Blue one, behind the garage."

"It smells like anise and it handles like a cow."

"The back gate's open, and the guard has been told you're delivering bread."

She kicked a pair of her boots across the floor, and a leather coat followed.

"You knew I'd ask."

"I knew you'd stop waiting politely."

She went back to the dough.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Mafia Princess Engaged to Her Father's Enemy from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.