“We need to stop them first. But I don’t know what they want from me, and I need to know.”
“Money. I thought you said they want your family fortune. You’re the sole heir.”
“I’m not, and there has to be something else besides that.” She says, pouring the coffee into the mugs and stirring milk into hers.
“Excuse me?” I say, my jaw dropping, and my tongue falling out of my mouth in shock, like something in a Saturday morning cartoon.
“We are.”
“What?”
“Dad always wanted me to marry you. I thought it was to protect me from this inevitable event, but last week he told me it was because he thought of you as the son he never got to keep.”
Her words floor me, and I stand there, while she tries to hand me my cup and I can’t raise my hand to take it.
“Then why did you leave?”
“That was before I knew how he felt. At the time I thought I was being pushed on you, and I didn’t know why. You know my old man. He’s not the very open and talkative type.”
“So you rebelled?”
“Kind of, yeah. And I hurt both of us in the process, only to end up here anyways, with the mark on my head, just like dad feared.”
“Fuck.” I finally say as she pushes the hot mug into my hand, curling my fingers around it for me. “But then if it’s both of us, why did they send me after you? Why wouldn’t they just take me out.”
“There’s a clause in the will. If you and I are to both die, then the fortune goes to Valentino and a woman just named A. Dad wouldn’t elaborate and I don’t know how to get the answers myself.”
“So we work on this together.” I say, taking my first sip, loving how she always makes it perfect.
“But they can’t know. So you still have to hunt me.”
“Valentino already knows I won’t.”
“You have to make him think you changed your mind.”
“Who is A? Another heir we don’t know about? And why the fuck Valentino? They’re rival families.”
“I’m not sure.” She says, sitting down at the kitchen table, setting her mug in front of her, staring at the steam coming from the top of it like it’s the most intriguing thing ever, and I know it’s that she’s just thinking and processing things internally. “All I’m sure about is Dad wants it to go to us, me and you, and there’s a hefty price on our heads. And they knew the only one that could find me after I went into hiding was you.”
“So they’re playing us against each other, hoping we take each other out not knowing. Making us do their dirty work.” I say, the realization slapping me in the face that the family I have been faithful to, have killed so many people for has the grand plan of eliminating me just like any other mark, but I’m too good for their other assassins, so I basically have to kill myself by killing the woman I love. “Fuck that shit.”
“So you hunt me, and we make it believable.”
“You could get hurt.”
“It’s better than dead by someone else’s hands now that Valentino knows I’m the Recluse. Thank you by the way. He didn’t know Dani was the elusive Recluse until you opened your trap. I could have stayed in hiding as just Danielle.” She says sarcastically, rolling her eyes at me from across the table.
“Motherfucker.” I groan, hating that I ever opened my mouth.
“Still using that word for everything, huh?”
“Yeah, seems now more so than before.”
“Gee I wonder why?”
Looking at the clock on the microwave, seeing that evening is already half past, my stomach starts growling in the protest of being empty for almost twenty-four hours. The coffee is beginning to sour in it, and if we’re going to have to come up with a plan to fool both mafia families, we’re gonna need to eat.
“Order us something to eat. I’m gonna shower, then we’ll figure out how to do this.”
