His: Tony: The Sabatini Family by Fiona Murphy (sneezy the snowman read aloud TXT) 📕

Blue meets mine. I shiver from the cold there. “While I figured out how to keep you in front of me so I didn't have to worry about you putting a bullet in my head from behind.” The words drop like heavy stones on the table between us.

7

Christy

Ice slides down my back. “Lisa told you.” I don’t know why I bother saying it. My lips are so numb the words barely make sense to my own ears.

A nod. “Lisa told me. She was trying to save your life.”

I can’t take his cold stare anymore. Squeezing my eyes shut, I work to keep air moving in and out of my lungs. He knows I wanted to kill him. That means he is going to kill me. It means he has to kill me.

“So, what? Is this my last supper?”

“Do you want it to be?”

I’m confused.

“You did a piss poor job of trying to kill me. Did you want to get caught? Do you want me to be the one to kill you? One more sin you could lay at my feet?”

Shaking my head, I open my mouth intent on defending myself. I made mistakes sure. It’s not every day you try to figure out how to kill someone. Yet, I can’t find the words. For the first time, I stop and go back to the beginning of the idea. I don’t know anymore.

A bell sounds. He gets up and crosses the kitchen. I stare at the glass of wine in front of me. At least I don’t have to worry about becoming an alcoholic. Liquid courage it is, I sip tentatively. There isn’t the wood taste I’m used to. Once I start, I don’t stop until it’s gone. Reaching across for the bottle, I refill my glass to the top and am almost done with the second glass when he sets a plate down in front of me.

Eyebrows go up at me, but he doesn’t say a word. Just takes the bottle from in front of me. He refills his own glass before he begins to eat.

“I don’t usually drink wine because I don’t like it. It usually tastes like I’m sucking on the wood from the barrel or something. I’ve never tasted wine this good before.” He shakes his head. “What? Not everyone can afford hundred-dollar bottles of wine.”

“It’s thirty-four dollars.” My eyes go wide. “It’s a pinot noir, it’s made with black grapes. It’s not wood you don’t like it’s the tannins from the grapes. Black grapes have less tannins and a stronger fruit of plums, cherries, and strawberries. You could probably get a bottle that tastes as good at ten dollars.”

I shrug, “I’m not usually one for wine anyway. I was too afraid I’d wind up a drunk like my mother.” I can’t hold in a sigh as I chew the stuffed shell. “This is so good. What Lisa said is true—you’re good at everything.”

A small shake of his head. “I didn’t make this. My housekeeper did. This is my sauce, though. I make some up every Sunday and she and I use it throughout the week.”

Glancing around the kitchen again, “So does she live-in? Is it just you in this house?”

A nod. “Just me. This was my parent’s home. I grew up here. My hope was...” He shrugs as he takes a sip of his wine.

Wonder goes through me. I recognize the flicker of yearning. “You wanted a big family.”

He hesitates before nodding. “Yes.”

I remember the article on his wife’s death. It was an accidental overdose of pain pills. A year later, he lost his son. “Your wife didn’t or couldn’t?”

Another sip of his wine as he studies me. “Wouldn’t.”

One word, yet it’s filled with so much pain, anger, frustration. I’m at once jealous and angry toward a dead woman. “I’m sorry.”

Leaning back, he studies me. “You really are.”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Your hatred of me, for one.”

I blink fast. Where did that go? All of the hate that burned through me, filled me up until sometimes I felt like I was going to choke on it. How had it disappeared so quickly? Searching for it inside me, I can’t find it. There isn’t even a residue of it lingering.

Our eyes meet, and he sees my confusion. “If you had managed to kill me, my men and son wouldn’t have let you get far. But if by some random chance you had, you would have offed yourself within about thirty days. You wouldn’t have been able to live with what you had done, killing someone. It would have become a poison in your blood, eating at you from the inside out.”

Throwing back the last of the wine, I struggle to swallow it down. He was right. And now I get his question of whether or not I was trying to get him to kill me.

It appears without me ever seeing him reach for it. It’s a tiny clear Ziploc filled with a white powder. Setting it down on the table, he slowly slides it across to me. “It's uncut heroin. I make it up nice and neat and sweet and put it into your vein. You’ll have the highest high you've ever known in your life. Once you close your eyes, you never wake up again.”

I want the rest of the bottle of wine. My eyes flick to it as I blink to keep the tears from running over. The tiny bag is within reach, the bottle isn’t.

His long elegant hands are steepled in front of him. “Despite what you think, I don't take responsibility for Danny or your crazy mother. None of that had anything to do with me. Whether I existed, or not, your mom would have always hurt you. Because she was in pain and needed somebody else to feel the pain she was going through. Your husband cheating on you, you losing two babies. It had nothing to do with me. I don't take any responsibility for the