“I’m just saying I don’t know what we’re doing here.”
“I heard you loud and clear. You’re still on my payroll, right?” I snap back to McRoy, my wiry little assistant of four years. He came from my father’s but has been with me through a few business ventures. McRoy’s style is to question my decisions, then retract his bold statements, only to slink out more objections within minutes. Now, he claims religion gives him the heebie-jeebies.
“Yes, Mr. Nascimbeni. But I thought I had Sundays off?”
“Business doesn’t take Sundays off. Business continues even when we sleep. You should know that by now.”
“Oh right. True. And I guess that’s what confuses me? We’re in a church.” He hisses it out under his breath. “During a mass? Like— I’m sorry, sir. I guess I don’t understand how we’ll be doing business here at this hour.”
We glide slowly forward with the rest of the parishioners. Thankfully, I’m taller than most and can scour the room over their heads.
There she is. I see her now. She’s in her nun’s habit, looking so beautiful she’s almost ethereal. I squint, trying to see who she’s talking to. It’s an older man. The organist?
“Our job is to observe. Gotta assist Il Lince,” I lie.
“What are we looking for?” McRoy asks.
“Anything out of the ordinary.”
“I’m not a churchgoer, so I wouldn’t be able to tell.”
“McRoy.”
The guy is sharp as a tack and all nerves. “Yes?” He looks up, freckles, short red hair, and pale eyes on jittery display.
“Shut up.”
“Yes, sir.”
I lead the way to the far left on the third bench, close to where the beautiful Tatiana stands with a stack of psalm books. I let my stare burn into her until she feels it and twists toward me. I open in a wolf smile.
Tatiana’s movements still. Her hands freeze around the books, but her eyes flick over me in the way of women. I let her take me in. She was in a different mindset the last time we met, with me surprising her in church and later pissing her off. But now we’re in a safe setting. Within the few moments she allows herself, she catalogs my appearance. She probably sees what Belen saw this morning in my bathroom mirror.
“You’re one handsome devil,” Belen purred in her oily-sexy way. “You know that, Isaias? Look at this.” Long fingers ran down my shoulder. “You’re, like, the fricking personification of stunning, I swear to god.”
Turning, I looked her over and pointed at her chin. “You got something there. You might want to clean up before we leave.”
“Oh.” She wiped off my sticky remnants and dried her hand on my stomach. “All these ripples. If I were a man, I’d have a hard-on over your six-pack, and your dark happy-trail, and god, definitely your cock.”
Throughout the mass, McRoy squirms beside me, while I hood my eyes and enjoy Tatiana’s involuntary attention. Every few minutes, her eyes draw my way, but my favorite is still that first time when I caught her off-guard. She displayed my favorite mixture of uncertainty and attraction, a vibe that’s one hundred percent female. It’s fucking addictive.
At the moment, her expression is back to smooth alabaster, an ice princess and my ultimate prize. My dick twitches. I adjust myself discreetly, leaving it resting along my thigh.
Tatiana is nowhere when the mass is over. Where was my attention when she snuck off? Within minutes, her absence is affecting my mood. It’s Sunday, and soon I’ll be joining la famiglia for dinner. If I can’t see her before I leave, I’ll be shitty company at the house.
“Something wrong, sir?” my ever-attentive assistant asks.
“McRoy.” I clasp down on his bony shoulder. “Take a lap through the church. I want you to text me immediately if you run into a young nun.”
“A nun? As in, like, a real nun?”
“She’s a young nun, a novice, and zip it with the questions. Go.”
He runs off. I text my guys outside too.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. “She’s on the gallery. I’m upstairs now.”
“What’s she doing?” I frown, instinctively keeping my attention off the banister eight feet above us.
“Looking out over the crowd.”
“Can you tell what she’s looking at?”
“You and the priest, I think? And then some of the church people when they greet the priest.”
“How do you get up there?”
“There are two stairways, one on each side of the church exit.”
“She seen you yet?” I ask.
“Doesn’t look like it. She’s on the left side of the gallery, and I’m on the right.”
“Okay, I’m coming up.” I saunter toward the exit, blending with the others, nodding to a neighborly comment from an old lady.
I keep a straight line for the front door until I’m under the overhang of the balcony. Then, I stalk up the stairs, text McRoy, and let him know to not let her past him if she tries to leave on his side.
My life is planned out, my typical diversion being to sell a business and start something new. I’m an entrepreneur, a venture capitalist, owner of businesses. I play with people’s livelihoods, and the hunt for success is what gets me off.
What I don’t do is this, lunge headfirst into an unpremeditated goose chase based on an infatuation. I don’t have a plan either, apart from cornering la bella Tatiana on the church gallery. I mean—am I talking with her? Seducing her over the heads of the good parishioners, this nun, this someone who doesn’t know me and I can’t win because God already has her?
As I take the last steps to the top and see the light of the gallery, I chuckle to myself. Isaias di Nascimbeni has officially lost his mind.
I tread onto the gallery floor. Stalk silently toward her. Her back is to me, and I appreciate that her focus remains on the room below us.
I’m a sucker for beauty, and in all my capacities, I’ve met no one like Tatiana. I’m attracted to her beyond reason—I do realize this—but I’m also curious, needing to find out who she is. That calling of hers doesn’t mesh with her sharp tongue, and I want to unravel her secrets.
“Remove your headpiece.” My voice is low. Women are aliens, fucking amazing creatures from distant planets. They’re different and fascinating, but Tatiana, she makes my blood hot. This could be war.
Most people would display some degree of fear when someone unexpectedly speaks only feet away from them. Tatiana does not. Her figure freezes, an ice angel in this house of God. I savor it.
She swings slowly toward me, and I run my gaze over her flawless face. Dark eyebrows curved above lashes so lush they seem wet. Lustrous eyes that don’t move as she fixes her stare on me.
I lift a hand in salutation, letting a small smile do the rest of the job.
There’s nothing affected about her moves as she begins to walk toward me, narrowing the remaining feet between us with her hips swaying. She’s hyper-feminine, calling to my most basic instincts, and I, quite honestly, am completely mesmerized.
I watch her half-danced shifts with my arms folded over my chest. I dip my eyes to every crevice of her robe, letting my laser imagination find her curves beneath it. I don’t hide my growing erection.
“Bella. Pull your coils of brass out of your hood and show them to me.” Her eyes. Jesus, I can study them now. They’re not blue. They’re grey—the glittering grey of Lake Como.
She doesn’t reply. She’s teasing me on purpose, hell, this is what my father talked about; he’d lived through it with girls in Italy, before Ma. Damn enticing is what it is.
The stairway down is narrow. She’s so close, the soft curve of her hip touches my thigh, and I almost groan.
“Tatiana...” I bend my head toward her, inhaling the scent of warm sugar.
She passes me.
She...? No. She did not just do that. The beautiful Tatiana of the Valley just passed Isaias di Nascimbeni.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
No answer. She doesn’t as much as look at me. What the hell just happened? Fuck, those gorgeous greys of hers never met mine. She actually stared through me like I was air.
You got her? Text from McRoy.
No. I let her go.
“Oh, Isa baby. It’s been so long!” Ma exclaims. She grabs both of my cheeks and pulls me down far, far, until generous lip-smacks echo around us in the hallway.
“I love you, Ma, but it hasn’t been long.”
“Oh, too long! Five days? You weren’t at the Isidori engagement party.”
“No. You know I don’t do Nascimbeni business.”
“But baby, they’re famiglia.”
“I know. I know. What’s for dinner?” For years, I thought Dad would never forgive me for opting out of the family business, but on year four, he took me back as a son. Since then, I’ve been welcome back for our big family Sunday dinners, which feels fucking nice.
I straighten and look down at my beautifully painted mother. I’ve never seen her without full makeup and her hair tightened in some intricate updo at the back of her head.
“We’re having the feast of the seven fishes today. It’s in honor of your late grandpa. He died on the lake of Como.”
“Yes, Ma, I know.”
“He was a fisherman. If it weren’t for him, the Nascimbeni would not have been so strong. Fish is good for the health. It leaves you invincible.”
“Yes, Ma.” I kiss her again while she pats my shoulder affectionately. “Go inside, now. Gabriela is here.”
I haven’t seen my cousin since she returned with her boyfriend from San Francisco. She and I are closer than many siblings, the way her little sister, Silvina and my brother, Gioele, are. Gabriela and I understand each other and have always stood up for each other. Only months apart in age, we were the firstborn in our American-Italian family. Now, she’s staring at me over her glass of grappa.
“Really, we’re doing grappa already?” I lift my eyebrows, running my gaze between the drink and her.
She quirks me a mischievous smile. “Eh. I have a cold. The fog in San Francisco can really do a number on you.”
With long, dark hair and black eyes, she’s the typical Italian beauty. She’s got her coloring from our Southern Italian familiars, and the good-old American boys want to do everything to her. Gabriela likes her men straight-laced, blond, and buff. Currently, she’s dating a law-school guy from Virginia, a former high-school wrestler. I grin and smatter her cheeks with kisses, much to the chagrin of the good-old boy.
“Gabi, I’ve missed you.”
“Ditto. This is Patrick. Patrick, this is my favorite cousin, Isaias. We share everything, and agree on everything, with the exception of our crushes.”
Good-old Boy tries for a laugh, but he’s apparently as square as the rest of her loves and doesn’t pull it off.
“Good to meet you, man.” I shake his hand. Despite the buff body, his grip is weak and only tightens around my hand halfway through.
“It’s a pleasure to meet another of Gabriela’s relatives,” he replies stiltedly. I side-eye Gabriela at that, and she suppresses a chuckle, eyes tender at his dorkiness. Seriously. I understand everything about this girl except her taste in men.
After dinner, I get her alone on the porch. The good-old boy is hurting after having been poured too many grappas by my grandfather. Guess he’s too polite to escape the Nascimbeni peer pressure.
“So, you’re seeing… everyone once you’re in Venice?”
She sighs, tipping her sweet smile at me. “You know I am. It’s the main reason we’re going. I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to see… everyone.”
“Take photos for me?”
“Of course. Same procedure as always, cuz. Maybe I’ll even meet up with her.”
“No.” I shake my head, willing her to remember the risk. “Only at a distance. Okay?”
“I know, but I’m bringing Patrick. We’ll look like tourists.”
“Bullshit. A Nascimbeni won’t go by unnoticed.”
“But what if they’ve moved—to the outskirts, for instance?”
“They haven’t, and either way it wouldn’t matter. Venice, the rest of Il Veneto”—I open my hands—“Same thing. We’re infamous.”
She leans back in her chair. “You don’t know that. I haven’t been there in two years, and I had short, blonde hair, then. Remember that phase?”
“Yeah, no way.” I gesture to her eyes. “You’re all Nascimbeni, no matter the hair color.”
“I’ll be careful. Not sure if you know, but I grew up in this family too. I know what I’m doing.”
I just give her a tight smile.
“Come here.” She doesn’t lean forward, just sits there, arms open for me. I thump down next to her on the porch swing, making the ropes groan, and let her try to wrap me in her arms. “I’ve missed you, cousin.”
“Yeah. You need to stay closer.”
“Life.”
I give my best friend a peck on the lips.
I could have sent McRoy to pick up my dry cleaning, but I decide to pop by the mall on my way home. I’m glad I do when I roll up the stairs to the second story to find some brute lifting and shaking a little girl. Frozen in terror, she’s defenseless, her head rattling side to side like a ragdoll’s. This ends immediately.
I take the last three steps in one leap and grab the asshole by the neck. “Let. Go,” I mutter between clenched teeth.
“What the…?” He chokes on his question while I pry the child from his clutches. Behind him is the knickknack store of an acquaintance, Cynthia. I stride in while the idiot follows me. “Holy shit! This is unbelievable—who do you think you are? That’s my daughter you’re taking!”
“No, that’s not your daughter,” I say over my shoulder. “Cynthia? Hey. Do me a favor. Take this little one to the back and figure out who her mother is.”
“What the fuck?”
I turn in time to block his fist. I slam my elbow in his face, and he howls. “Keep it down,” I hiss. “You want the police on your back?”
He tries for a blow to my temple but misses, his rage making him unfocused, so I clock him in the head, watch him fall, and drag him out the backdoor and into the staff corridor.
“I’mma make you bleed,” he coughs out, squirming to get up.
“I don’t think so.” I kick him in the stomach. Listen to his choked cries for a second. “If you as much as look at that little girl again, I swear to God I will kill you.”
“Yeah, right.” He tries to laugh. “Go raise your own kids. She was having a tantrum, and she wasn’t going to disrespect her father in public.”
“Yeah?” I kick him again, hitting his nuts on purpose this time. He squeals like a pig, and I just want to turn him into a bloody mess. The tiles are white, though, and I have a lot of business at this mall. I’m not going to get myself in trouble. I hike him up by the collar and haul him down the stairs, until we hit the alley.
“What’re you going to do with me?” he whines. His damn voice echoes in the narrow stairway. I can’t listen to this shit anymore.
“I’m going to make you disappear.” It’s not true, but I enjoy the flash of crime films-gone-real rolling through his gaze as I smile coldly.
“Please, I’ll never lay my hands on her again. She’s a good girl, for the most part. I won’t, okay? She’s...”
I push him out the exit and slam him to the asphalt. He wails now, and I’ll have to kick him in the head if he doesn’t shut up.
“Listen to me.” I jerk him up by the collar. “If you were blessed with that little girl as your daughter, I want you to know that you don’t deserve it. I saw the marks on her, no doubt courtesy of your ‘child-rearing.’ You have no right to touch her in any way that isn’t meant as comfort. Fucking. Ever. What’s your name?”
He hesitates, and I’m not waiting for him to decide what to do. I rip his wallet out of his pocket, grab his driver’s license, and snap a photo of it.
“’Kay. Got you on my blacklist. I’ll be siccing my blood hounds on you, Kyle George Ketner of Agora Hills, and if they see you as much as lay a hand on your daughter again, you will disappear. Understood?”
His nod is so fast it’s on speed.
I give a last shove of my boot to his chest and walk back inside. In Cynthia’s backroom, the three-year-old has perked up. She still has tears on her cheeks, but she’s eating ice cream and chattering about her grandmother in Ventura. Mom doesn’t live with Dad anymore. She’s moved to Ventura with the grandma, and that’s where little Erin lives too. Sounds good to me; I’ll be making a detour to Sylvia Street 15C to drop off a little treasure who should never have to deal with her violent father again.