Another sharp gasp from the crowd takes over.
Loretta’s eyes turn into red-hot flames as the veins bulge at her temples. “I put a POX on you, Effie Canelli!” Her shriek reaches a pitch that makes the wine glasses on nearby tables vibrate. And I swear, I just heard one crack. “A POX ON YOU AND ON YOUR HOUSE!”
The collective gasp that follows feels like all the oxygen just got sucked from the room.
“YOU TAKE THAT BACK, YOU LAZZARI STRUMPET!” Nona Jo’s voice booms from somewhere to my right. She pushesforward as her tiny frame parts the crowd like Moses with the Red Sea. Her eyes blaze with the fury of a thousand denied grandmothers.
More gasps ripple through the room. The tension crackles like electricity before a lightning strike—or a bullet, take your pick. Calling a Lazzari woman a strumpet in this crowd is like lighting a match in a fireworks factory.
“I will NOT take it back!” Loretta’s mascara continues its downward journey, leaving muddy tracks in her wake. Her brothers, Rocco and Dante, materialize beside her, their faces torn between family loyalty and a clear desire to avoid a bloodbath. “She’s cursed! She killed my Enzo!”
“That’s enough, Loretta.” A hand suddenly clamps onto Loretta’s arm, and it’s none other than Scary Santino, Coop’s scary daddy himself. His expression is somewhere between an annoyed father and an efficient crime boss. “We’re leaving.” His voice leaves no room for argument, even though Loretta immediately provides one anyway.
“I won’t go! Not without Enzo!” she wails, her body going limp in protest as her family begins the awkward process of extraction. Her legs drag across the floor, heels leaving fresh marks in the wood as she hurls curses my way. Her final insult—something anatomically impossible involving a cannoli—hangs in the air long after they’ve dragged her through the exit.
The crowd begins to murmur once more just as my Uncle Jimmy materializes beside me.
“Well done,” he whispers with his breath hot against my ear. “I wasn’t expecting it so fast.”
Before I can sputter a defense, he shoves something thick and papery into the palm of my hand. And I look down to see a fat roll of hundred-dollar bills, the texture of the money rough against my sweaty skin. My heartbeat drums in my templesas Uncle Jimmy disappears back into the crowd, leaving me holding blood money for a murder I didn’t commit.
Or did I?
The bills feel as if they weigh a thousand pounds as I stuff them into my purse, posthaste.
Across the room, Cooper barks orders into his phone with his shoulders rigid under his suit jacket.Potential crime scene. Coroner. Backup.The words float across the space between us as unwanted as can be.
Well, maybe Coop wanted it a little bit.
Cooper finishes his call and makes his way toward me.
“Are you okay?” he asks as he wraps his arms around me, pulling me against the solid warmth of his chest.
“Define ‘okay,’” I mumble as the fabric of his shirt muffles my words. “I was just accused of being a walking death curse by your sister, who promptly put a pox on me. And let’s be real, I’ve probably had one on me all along.”
Cooper doesn’t protest the idea. And why would he? He’s a smart man.
I close my eyes and wish with everything in me that it was just the two of us. No bodies dropping at my feet. No warring families drawing battle lines across dance floors. No surprise weddings sprung like traps. It would be a lot simpler, and possibly a lot less deadly.
Possibly.
Regardless—someone killed Lorenzo Bianchi tonight. Maybe it was me, maybe it wasn’t, but I have a very hard time believing this was his time to go.
One thing is for sure—before Santa glides down my chimney, I’m going to find out who’s responsible, even if I have to chase my own shadow to the scene of the crime.
CHAPTER 13
The Cutie Pie Bakery and Cakery smells like chocolate cake wrapped in butter and sugar—a stark contrast to last night’s cologne-and-death-scented disaster at the Velvet Fox Hotel.
Snow piles against the windows in fluffy drifts, diffusing the light inside to a soft, pearly glow that makes the Christmas decorations seem to shimmer with their own inner magic. The bakery is bustling as Lottie entertains Noah, Everett, and Carlotta who are all nibbling on a stack of donuts at the counter.
The espresso machine hisses and gurgles in the background, a homey counterpoint to the Christmas music playing at a mercifully reasonable volume. My hands move on autopilot, arranging snowflake cookies in the display case while my brain replays last night’s horror show in vivid, technicolor detail.
“Stop making that face,” Lottie says, nudging me with her elbow as she slides a tray of gingerbread men into the case beside me. “You look like someone who just realized they forgot to defrost the Thanksgiving turkey at three p.m. on Turkey Thursday.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, straightening a cookie that doesn’t need straightening. “But it’s hard to be merry and bright when you’ve got a dead geriatric fiancé on your conscience.”
Lottie’s expression softens. “Don’t feel too bad about that whole people dropping dead at your feet thing. It’s happened to me a time or two as well.”
