Darkest Sins (Perfectly Imperfect #9)

“Yes,” I whisper.

He picks up his ruined shirt, then reaches for my silk scarf discarded on the table and stuffs it into the pocket of his pants. The next moment, he’s limping across the room, heading toward the exit.

“No ‘thank you for saving my life’?” I mumble.

My mysterious stranger stops, but he doesn’t turn to look at me. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Yes. So?”

“That’s the biggest ‘thank you’ anyone ever got from me, cub.”

The bell above the door chimes as the door closes in his wake.

I look down at my hand. The tingling feeling where his lips touched the tips of my fingers is still there. Was it a kiss? I remain standing in the middle of the operating room, staring at my hand for nearly five minutes. When I finally shake the fog off my mind, I run to the door, afraid I’ll find the long-haired guy face down in the parking lot.

There is no one around when I step outside. I turn, my eyes searching for the tall figure but finding nothing. A crumblednewspaper, tossed by a breeze, rolls down the deserted street. The trash can down the block rattles as a stray cat jumps on its lid and then leaps onto the balcony above. But, there is no sign ofhim. It’s as if he just . . . disappeared.

I pull out the phone from my back pocket and open the news app. Several articles with bold headlines flash across the screen as I swipe through the contents. All of them are about the shooting that happened earlier tonight, barely five blocks from here. I click on the most recent one, skimming the text. Nine victims, according to police. A prominent real estate mogul and members of his security team. A reporter interviewed the nearby residents, but no one saw or heard a thing. The only potential lead came from a woman working the night shift in the nearby pawn shop. She saw a man heading toward the unfinished complex where the shooting took place. Unfortunately, she didn’t see his face, only his back and long hair, twisted into a braid.

Chapter 2

“How’s that work of yours going? Anything interesting happened?” The words are spoken between bites, and it’s my dad’s usual easygoing tone, but Nuncio Veronese, the don of Boston Cosa Nostra, never says or does anything without a reason.

A piece of broccoli almost gets lodged in my throat, because for a split second, I think he might have somehow found out about my long-haired stranger from last week.

“Um . . . It’s great, Dad.” I swallow. “Nope. Just the same old, you know. Oh, but a boy did bring in a tarantula the other day.”

“Dear God.” He sighs then turns to my sister who’s sitting on the other side of the table, “Zara, please pass me the bread.”

My sister moves the glass bowl closer to him and continues eating in silence. She is always so quiet that, sometimes, I forget she’s even in the room. When we were kids, Zara was so joyful, constantly laughing and babbling about something. Mom used to say that if Zara didn’t have a mouth, she’d grow one out of sheer will. That changed after the night Elmo was killed. Since then, she hasn’t been that smiling little girl who loved mischief.

“I know I agreed to go along with this crazy idea of yours, Nera, but don’t you want to reconsider?” my father continues. “If you want to study something, why not economics? Or finance?Something that would be of actual benefit and you could use in the future?”

“Nope.”

“You do understand that it’s only temporary, right? When you get married, your husband won’t let you spend your time inseminating horses or whatever. It’s absolutely unbecoming for someone of your pedigree.”

“There are hardly any horses in need of insemination in Boston, Dad.” I sigh. It’s the same conversation every Sunday when I visit. “We mostly treat pets.”

“Thank God.” He reaches for his wine and takes a big sip. “I should have married you off the moment you turned eighteen, but Massimo said I should wait.”

I raise an eyebrow. I didn’t know that my father discussed my future with my stepbrother. Massimo is serving an eighteen-year voluntary manslaughter sentence for killing the guy who shot Elmo, and Dad visits him once a week. Every Thursday morning, Dad travels to the correctional institution outside of Boston and stays for hours. I’ve always wondered what they talk about. My father is the only person my stepbrother allows to visit him in prison. Neither I nor Zara have seen Massimo since he got locked up. As far as I know, he hasn’t even let Salvo, his childhood friend who is now one of my dad’s capos, come see him.

“How is he doing?” I ask.

“Quite fine, actually. You know Massimo, nothing rattles him much.”

“He’s been locked up in the maximum-security prison for more than a decade and he’s ‘fine’?”

“Yes,” he says. “He’s been asking about the two of you.”

A sharp intake of breath comes from across the table. I glance up to find Zara staring at her plate, her fork hovering halfway to its destination. It lasts for only a moment before she resumes stuffing food into her mouth.

“But he still won’t let us visit?” I look back at my father.

“He has his reasons.” Dad shrugs and changes the subject. “Tiziano’s son is being baptized this fall, and there’ll be a big Family lunch afterward. I need both of you to attend and look your best. Get yourselves custom-made dresses, something no other woman there will have. My daughters need to stand above every capo’s wife or girlfriend. I don’t want to be embarrassed in front of the Family, you hear me?”

“Which day is it? I’ll have to check my schedule at the clinic.”