by Sam Mariano
“Is that all?” Rafe asks, lightly.
“It’s your fault,” I state, walking ahead of him so I can look up at the menu. “You shouldn’t refer to me serving you in front of Adrian when he knows our history.”
“Our history?” he asks, amused.
Rolling my eyes, I mutter, “You men and that word. What am I supposed to call it?”
He steps up beside me and joins me in looking up at the menu board. “Well, you did serve me. You want me to lie?”
“How about just don’t ever bring it up again and we pretend it never happened?” I suggest.
“That sounds healthy. I’m starting to see how you and Mateo happened.”
I cut a look at him and scowl. “Hey.”
He shrugs as if to say he’s not sorry.
“Be nice to my husband.”
“What will you do if I’m not?” he teases.
“I’ll tell Adrian you grabbed my ass,” I state smugly, before adopting a more polite smile as the sandwich maker approaches the counter to take our orders.
Rafe takes a step closer, then I feel a very distinct grope.
I swat his hand away, glaring. “Seriously?”
“Hey, if I’m gonna get blamed for something, I might as well do it,” he states. Taking one more step forward, he then proceeds to order—for both of us, without asking what I want.
“Should we get something for Adrian?” I ask, before we scoot down the counter.
“He can order his own food if he’s hungry,” Rafe states, stepping in front of me and moving down the line.
I glance back over my shoulder at the door, then peek out the windows along the storefront, but I don’t see Adrian yet. I’m only used to it being me and Adrian when we come out like this; Mateo isn’t big on going out to eat, so most of the time Adrian is my lunch date.
My focus drifts back to my new lunch date. Despite some of the clear similarities I noticed between Rafe and Mateo, the differences make me wary. I trusted Rafe in Vegas because he was all I had, but now that I’m safe at home with my husband, he feels like a dangerous interloper—despite Mateo’s assurances otherwise.
The cashier smiles warmly at Rafe. “Can I interest you in something sweet to go with your meal?”
“What’d you have you in mind?” he asks.
She averts her eyes, then darts a look up at him. “Do you like cookies? We have world-famous chocolate chip cookies.”
“World-famous, huh?” he asks, looking at the short rack of wrapped sweets. “Well, I guess we’ll have to try those, won’t we? Ring me up for two.”
Her smile dims slightly and she glances over at me, then she nods and pushes a couple of buttons.
“Actually, can we get a third chocolate chip cookie,” I add, glancing at the cookie rack. “And is this oatmeal raisin?”
She nods.
“And an oatmeal raisin.”
Rafe gives me a side-eye as he withdraws his wallet from his back pocket. “Someone is taking ‘eating for two’ very seriously.”
“I’ll eat all the cookies I want, Mr. ‘I take my protein intake very seriously,’” I tell him, swiping the two extra cookies.
He smiles. “Aw, you remember my direct quotes. I knew you missed me.”
“I didn’t miss you. At all. I was so happy without you here; I practically forgot your name.”
Rafe shakes his head as the cashier cuts me another weird look. “That’s not very nice. Do you think she’s being very nice to me, Cadence?”
The cashier seems surprised he paid enough attention to read her nametag, then she flushes with pleasure and smiles up at him like the asshole just hung the moon. “No, she’s not. And after you bought her all these cookies.”
“Right? What a jerk.”
I flush, scowling at Rafe. “These aren’t even for me!”
He cocks his head to the side, feigning sadness. “I don’t have to take this abuse, do I, Cadence?”
She tries so hard to bite back her grin, her gaze drifting to the cash register as she absently traces the buttons and not-so-absently moons at Rafe.
I roll my eyes, grabbing my cup off the countertop and going over to fill it up with lemonade. He eventually stops flirting with the cashier and takes our tray of food over to a table. As I’m putting the lid on my cup, I feel him move up behind me. The masculine scent of him wafts around me as he reaches past me for a plastic lid. Heat rolls off his body and scorches my back. Awareness prickles along my neck and my heart hammers an uncomfortable beat. I want to scoot away, but I’m trapped between Rafe and the wall; I can only stand here until he moves, or back right into him.
“Cashier thinks you’re a big meanie,” he teases.
“Cashier wants to take you in the back and show you what kind of sweets she really has to offer,” I toss back.
He doesn’t bother feigning modesty; he merely smirks and grabs a straw before finally moving out of my personal space and heading over to fill his cup.
I go back to the table he picked out. A spike of relief hits me when I see Adrian walk in the door. I feel like running over and hugging him. I won’t, since that would make him super uncomfortable in any environment, especially in public, but I want to.
Instead, I offer a warm smile and hold out the oatmeal raisin cookie. “Here you go.”
He takes it, raising his eyebrows in confusion. “Thanks?”
“Rafe was buying; I figured you’d want a cookie.”
Now his confusion clears and he nods. “Good call. Should’ve ordered a whole dozen.”
“You’re eating with us, right?”
“Nah, I’m planning on hanging out by the door. I need to make a couple phone calls and keep an eye on things.”
“Is Rafe one of the things you’re keeping an eye on? ‘Cause I feel like he should be.”
He subtly glances behind me where Rafe must be returning to the table. “He say something?”
I shift my weight, shaking my head. “Not really, I just… I don’t know.”
“He makes you uneasy.”
“He’s too…” I don’t know exactly how to finish this sentence, especially to Adrian, so I just trail off and hope he manages to read my mind.
As if he can, he nods his understanding. “Just keep an ear open. We’ll talk later.” A few decibels louder, he raises the cookie and an eyebrow. “Thanks for the cookie.”
“Anytime,” I tell him, turning back toward the table. Apprehension moves down my spine, but Rafe isn’t even looking at me now; he’s busy unwrapping his sandwich.
I approach my side of the table, sliding my purse off my shoulder and hanging it over the back of the chair. I bend down and pull out my phone before I sit down. Being here with Rafe, watching his shenanigans, it makes me miss Mateo. Before I even touch my sandwich, I tap out a quick “I miss you” text and send it to him.
“Who’s the other one for?” Rafe asks.
“The other what?” I ask, glancing up from the screen of my phone.
“The other cookie. You said they weren’t for you. Mateo doesn’t like cookies.”
“Oh. I got one for Meg. The chocolate chip cookies here are her favorite.”
His eyebrows rise with surprise as he takes a bite of his sandwich. “Meg? You frequently buy treats for people who sell you down the river?”
“I’ve made a lifestyle of rewarding people who sell me down the river,” I inform him, placing the phone on the table and grabbing my sandwich. “What is this thing? You didn’t even ask what I liked.”
“It’s good. You’ll like it. I used to get these all the time back when I lived here.” He takes a drink of his pop. “So, you’re allowed to go visit Meg?”
“No. I’ll have to send it with Maria when she takes her dinner. Mateo doesn’t want me to, but sometimes I send treats down since I can’t go myself.”
Rafe shakes his head at me. “You’re too nice.”
I shrug, eyeing up the giant chunk of bread, stuffed full of deli meat and cheese. “
I’m married to Mateo. I have to be nice for both of us.”
“You don’t have to be nice to everyone. If someone hurts you, you should let them feel your wrath. Remind them you have power and if they don’t respect it, you can step on them. Do you send Vince care baskets, too?” he inquires.
The mention of Vince sobers me a bit. My thoughts drift to the baby nestled in my womb, the baby I still can’t feel. I can’t wait for the doctor’s appointment this week so I can see the baby moving on the screen. “No, I don’t know where Vince is. I know what state he lives in, Sal slipped and told me, but Mateo keeps the details to himself. I hope he’s doing okay.”
Rafe clearly thinks I’m crazy, but he doesn’t remark that time.
I probably shouldn’t, but having a relative outsider here, someone who knows Vince outside of Mateo, I’m too curious to stop myself from prodding him for answers. “Have you talked to him since Vegas?”
“Vince? Nah, I don’t know where he is. I figured he’d be out of the country by now. That’s what I’d have done. Mateo’s not going to rest until he’s dead.”
“That’s not true,” I argue. “Mateo let him out before and he told me on our honeymoon as long as Vince stays away, he’ll let him live.”
Smirking at his sandwich, he shoots back, “And Mateo would never lie, right?”
“He’s not lying,” I say, forcefully.
“He can’t keep letting people betray him for you. He keeps letting people get away with this kind of shit, he loses the respect he’s worked his whole life to build.”
Adrian has said similar—though much less blunt—things to me, so anxiety knots up my stomach. “No one outside the family knows any of this.”
Lifting a pointed eyebrow, he states, “Threats can come from inside the family, Mia. You start making Mateo forgive everyone who wrongs him, that’s the natural progression of things.”
“I’m not making him forgive anyone. I just don’t want him to kill either of them. He can banish Vince all he wants, I just… there has to be another way.”
“He already gave him another way,” Rafe states. “He blew it all to hell. Chances are if it didn’t work the first time, it won’t work this time, either. Think about it. How’s he gonna live on the outside when this is all he’s ever known? How do you go from this—” He indicates us, then Adrian standing guard by the door. “—to some mundane nine-to-five existence? Even if you hate this life, you keep doing it. It’s just what you do. And he’s already come back once. He says it’s for you, but was it really? Vince will come back again, and when he does, Mateo has to kill him. He’s out of other options.”
“I refuse to believe that.”
“I’m starting to understand you don’t live in the same reality as the rest of us. Has Mateo built you a whole world of your own, or did you come that way?”
I scowl at him and grab my lemonade, glaring some more as I take a sip.
As if I answered, Rafe nods. “Probably a little bit of both, huh? It’s a wonder he hasn’t broken your mind entirely. With prolonged exposure, the guy has a tendency to give people whiplash.”
I shrug. “They should get stronger necks.”
That makes him smile. “You’re loyal for a faithless slut.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” I advise him. “I’m entirely faithful.”
“Gonna tell him I grabbed your ass?”
“Mateo? Of course.”
He smiles, apparently unconcerned despite his words. “Aw, come on. You’re gonna cost me my free room and board.”
Rolling my eyes at the ridiculousness of that statement, I remind him, “I’ve seen the house you live in. You can afford a hotel room.”
“That’s cold,” he informs me, taking another bite of his sandwich and trying to guilt me with his big brown eyes.
“I’m sure Candace will come warm you right up,” I say, lightly.
He grins. “Cadence.”
“Whatever.”
Chapter Seven
Meg
My dungeon sentence stretches on for hours that feel like days after family dinner. I had been looking forward to the bubble of socialization until it happened, but I noticed as I was left in my cell alone afterward, it made my sentence harder to endure instead of easier. Now as I spend each and every hour by myself in the darkness, swallowed by silence, my mind tortures me with the knowledge of all I’m missing out on upstairs.
I expect Mateo knew that. The thought briefly flitted across my mind that he was giving in to a moment of kindness, allowing me to come to dinner, but it was a foolish thought. I should have known better. Mateo isn’t kind.
I do not expect any visitors, so when I hear the dungeon door open, I expect it’s Maria coming to collect my dinner dishes.
But it’s Rafe. And he brings me a cookie.
I stand on the other side of the bars, struggling to hide my surprise. He was a major asshole to me last time I saw him and now he’s bringing me a treat? He passes it through the food slot and I take it, regarding the baked good with open suspicion. “What is this?”
Pulling up a metal folding chair, Rafe drops into the seat and says, “That is a cookie.”
My head lolls back and I roll my eyes. “I can see that it’s a cookie. Why did you get me a cookie? I thought you didn’t like me now.”
The corner of his stupid, sexy mouth tugs up in amusement. “I didn’t get you a cookie. Mia did. I am but a humble messenger.”
That makes much more sense. That also makes me much more willing to eat it. I wasn’t so sure about the safety of a cookie from Rafe—maybe Mateo sent him to do his dirty work. Maybe that’s the business he’s in town for and they’re just selling Mia a nicer story—but I know Mia wouldn’t poison me.
Satisfied that it won’t kill me, I unwrap the cookie and break off a little piece, popping it into my mouth. “There’s nothing humble about you.”
He grins at me. “Humble is for less impressive men.”
He’s insufferable. I eat my cookie and yearn to ignore him, but I can’t. There’s no one to talk to down here. I’ve had conversations with the wall. I can’t just ignore the only person who comes to visit me, even if it is this sneaky asshole.
“I thought Mia was grounded,” I remark cheekily, breaking off another piece of cookie. “Mateo let her out of the house?”
Rafe shrugs. “She has an extra guard now. For some strange reason, he thinks she’s safer with me around.”
“Isn’t she?” I toss back. “You dropped me like a hot potato to go guard her when he called you away at the wedding. He doesn’t even sign your paychecks, so your pro bono badassery would seem to indicate you have a vested interest in her safety.”
“Maybe,” he offers, without much commitment. “Could have my own reasons, though. Like you said, I don’t work for Mateo.”
Wariness creeps down my spine. I try to remain casual, but I look at him so I can read his expression. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said.”
I don’t like this at all. Every inch of ground I step on these days is unfamiliar territory, scary new ground that may crumble beneath my weight. Mateo is too tricky, his reach too far, his methods too unorthodox. It’s not remotely beyond the scope of reason to wonder if he sent Rafe down here to talk to me, to feel me out, see where I’m at.
And that would be fucking fantastic news. If he’s testing me, that means I have a chance. If he’s already made his mind up to kill me, there’s no need to administer a test.
Of course, on the other hand, that could be wishful thinking. Mateo seems to want me gone. He’s even weaning the kids off me, only letting me come around for an hour a week. I’m present just enough for them to know I’m alive, but gone so much that they’re already adjusting to my absence—grieving my presence in their lives without even knowing it.
If this isn’t one of Mateo’s tests and Rafe is a potential ally, I don’t want to alienate him. Each scenario requires a completely
opposite response, though. I have no idea what to do.
I change the subject. Sort of. “So, you’re Mia’s temporary bodyguard, huh? Mateo must not remember what happened last time you were in charge of guarding her body.”
Rafe laughs a little at that. “Mateo has a long memory; I don’t think he forgets anything. And I wasn’t in charge of guarding her body then,” he adds. “That was more pro bono work.”
“Too much more of Mia’s influence, you’ll be eligible for sainthood.”
“Is that what happened to Mateo?”
The asshole who currently has my mind twisted up in knots as I try to figure out if my last lifeline is real or imagined? “Oh yeah, he’s a real angel,” I answer, dryly. “No, you know what he is? He’s a cruel and unusual tormentor. Mateo’s not satisfied to kill a person who lets him down; he mentally decimates you first. I can’t eat a cookie without wondering if it’s poisoned. I can’t have a conversation without wondering what side the person’s on and delving into what kind of mission Mateo might have sent them here on. I literally watch Maria for clues when she brings me food. I’ve seen how he operates before so I can’t trust anything now. He’s a brain-breaker. He’s the most diabolical man I’ve ever met, and I’ve met some baddies at this point.”
Rafe appears to be mildly shocked at the honesty I just word-vomited all over him.
To be frank, so am I. The prolonged isolation must be getting to me. Even traditional prisoners in solitary confinement get an hour every day to exercise and get out of their hole. I only make it out for one hour a week.
I need a time machine.
Instead, I have a guest that I can’t even talk to because I don’t trust him.
“Did you talk to Mia for me?” I ask.
“About your baby? No. Adrian was with us all day. Couldn’t really bring it up in front of him, and that man is everywhere.”
“Yep.” I pick at another piece of the cookie. “This is going to sound terrible, but I wonder if it was a mistake to have a son with Mateo.”
Rafe lifts his golden eyebrows and casually crosses his arms. “I would say your current position in the dungeon indicates yes.”
