“A cheese cracker?” I can’t help but laugh. “What sort of game are you playing, Hazel? Is it poisoned?”
“If I wanted to kill you,” she snaps, “I wouldn’t resort to poison. It’s a Puccia bread chip. Your mom and I made them together. I was really pretty excited for you to taste one, because, well, I guess because I’m an idiot. But I just want you to know that while you’re off rehearsing the best ways to be an ass to me, I’m making you food.”
She makes to leave. I’m smiling now. I can’t stop myself.
“Wait,” I say. “Can’t I at least taste it?”
She arches her eyebrow. I never noticed it before, but she has freckles under her eyebrows, making them look a little darker than the shade of her hair. It makes her so unique it aches.
“Why?” she says after a long pause.
“It’s not a trick,” I mutter. “I’m hungry. It’s been a long day.”
“Is that an apology?”
“It is by no means an apology.”
Her smile twitches at the corners, but her green eyes are trying to stay angry. “Fine, here you go.” She hands it to me. “Bon appe-fricking-teet!”
“Buon appetito.”
I eat it whole, and then, and then … It’s just bread and cheese and some sort of garnish. It shouldn’t taste this good. But I find myself closing my eyes, my mind soaring over golden Italian hills, a cool calm suffusing my body.
“What the hell is in this?” I gasp. “Is there more?”
“Don’t be greedy,” she mutters, but I can tell she’s pleased. She’s trying not to beam. “And I can’t tell you what’s in it. A magician never reveals—”
“But it just doesn’t make sense. It’s just bread and cheese, right?”
She winks. “Maybe, maybe not.”
Her face softens. She walks closer to me. I can smell tomato and something else, a kitchen scent, and suddenly I get an image of Hazel standing in a kitchen, our kitchen, with a fire-red apron around her neck, a rolling pin in her deft hands, and I walk up behind her and slip my hands around her waist, kiss her cheek, tell her I—
I take a step back.
Tell her I love her?
Have I gone completely fucking insane?
She gives me some bread and cheese and I’m going to lie to her and tell her I have feelings for her?
“Something’s wrong with you today,” she says quietly, eyes downcast. “You can talk to me, Carlo. Like you did at the pond.”
“Get. Out.” I snarl it through gritted teeth.
“What?” She laughs awkwardly. “Your mood swings are starting to give me vertigo. Like, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
I wheel on her, becoming the Carlo who killed those men earlier today. I feel my bandage filling with blood.
“Carlo.” Her eyes flit to my arm. “Jesus, your arm. What happened?”
“Get. Out. Now.”
She still thinks I’m joking. But I’m not. Because if I have feelings for Hazel, my family will die. I don’t know how it will happen, but it’s happened before. Dad died in my arms as Mother screamed and clawed at him, while Emily lay helpless on the floor, a bullet wound in her lower spine, and Nario called in reinforcements, not caring about his own wound, and Angel … Angel …
I’m shaking. I feel cold. I want to kill something again.
“Leave, Hazel,” I growl. “Now.”
She puts her hand on my shoulder. I almost crumble at her touch. It would be so perfect to grab her and shove her against the wall, to grind myself against those running leggings and lose myself in her. Instead I wave her hand away.
“What the fuck?” she hisses. “Carlo, you’re being really weird right now. I just want you to know that.”
“I’ve told you several times now to—”
“Or what?” she sneers, not backing up for one second. “Are you going to hit me? Is that it?”
“I killed people today, Hazel. Four men. I killed them and I’ve already forgotten their faces. One of my trusted men died right in front of me. His throat was cut, twice. I had to visit a woman and tell her husband was dead. That it was my fault. Pretend that giving her some cash made it right. So I’ll say it one more time: get out. Now. While you still can.”
She folds her arms. Except for a vague flicker in her too-tempting eyes, she shows no sign of shock. “You’re not going to scare me off, Carlo. So you might as