Chapter 19

Christian groans as I look down into my lap, intuiting that he’s hurt my feelings, and then he scootches closer to me. “Don’t look like that, Iris,” he murmurs, putting a warm hand on my shoulder, “you’re breaking my heart.”

“I don’t want to be a burden to you, Christian,” I sigh, looking down into my lap. “Honestly, if you don’t want me in your world, you can just…leave me here for months, or whatever. Until it’s safe for me to go. If you don’t want to spend time with me –“

“I never said that –“

“So what?” I say, genuinely confused now, “you’ll spend time with me, but I can’t know anything about your life?” I tilt my head, letting him see just how stupid I think that is.

“Don’t you see that I’m trying to protect you?” he says softly, shaking his head.

“Don’t you see,” I counter, staring at him, “that I’m already involved?” I wave a hand around at the mafia apartment that I’m living in, that I’ve given up my entire life to inhabit.

He sighs, shaking his head again. “Fine,” he murmurs, “you win, Daisy. I can’t say no to you anyway.”

I smirk a little. “It’s not me, it’s logic.”

“No,” he murmurs, letting his hand fall from my shoulder and slide down the length of my arm. “It’s you. So. What do you want to know?”

I take a moment to consider it before I make my choice.

“Tell me about when you were a kid,” I say quietly, thirteen years’ worth of curiosity welling up in me now. “Where…where did you go?”

He sighs and nods, closing his eyes and maybe turning back on memories he’d rather not revisit. As he does, he gives me a long moment to study his face – his high cheekbones, his square jaw. I bite my lip a little, sitting on my hand to deny the instinct to run my fingers across his tanned skin, the line of stubble starting on his jaw.

“They came for me,” he murmurs, opening his eyes, “in the middle of the night. I knew nothing. I thought I was being kidnapped, Iris, it was horrible.” A shudder passes through him and I feel my stomach drop, suddenly horribly guilty for making him talk about this.

God, why am I so dumb? Of course he only has bad memories of that day.

“It wasn’t until I actually arrived at my father’s house that anyone explained anything to me,” he says, his eyes distant. “They brought me before my father and he told me who he was, who I am to him. Told me that my mother took me away as an infant, so that I wouldn’t be raised in this world.” He sighs, shaking his head. “They let me talk to her, about a week later, because I was inconsolable. She confirmed it all. Told me that she was…sorry, ultimately, that she failed.”

“Christian…” I murmur, shaking my head, reaching for his hand, which I wrap in both of mine. To my surprise, he lets me.

“It wasn’t all bad,” he murmurs, raising his eyes to mine, but I sense that he’s…just trying to cheer me up. “I got four brothers, who beat the crap out of me until I could beat them right back. But we had a pool.” He shrugs, like it’s a perk that makes it all worth it.

I give him my best smile, trying to make myself cheerful for his sake. “Do you like your brothers?” I ask quietly.

He laughs, shaking his head and running his free hand through his hair. “As you know, brothers are complicated. But Elio, he’s the baby – he’s great.”

“You’re not the baby?” I ask, confused.

“I’m the middle child,” he says, looking at me significantly. My mouth drops open, confused.

“I know,” he says, laughing and sitting up straighter now. “The five of us have three different moms. Dad…got around. He likes himself a wedding.”

“Wow,” I say, shaking my head. “So, your new step-mom…”

“Bianca is fine,” he murmurs. “She’s very calm. She…likes her Xanex. A lot.”

I grin at this, seeing him smile first. But then he sighs and hangs his head, I think already exhausted by this teeny tiny confessional. Christian, I’m guessing, doesn’t talk about himself a lot – either for lack of opportunity or because he’s been trained not to. Or both.

We sit quietly for a long moment and I let him have his space, studying the top of his head, his thick dark hair, while he stares into his laps and processes…whatever it is he’s processing.

Suddenly, he starts. “Hey,” he says, raising his head with interest. “Do you remember what we used to get to eat at Delgado Five and Dime, whenever we found a spare quarter in the street?”

I gasp, my eyes lighting up. “Churros!” I half-shout, clapping in excitement at the memory. “God, they were so good,” I murmur, delighted, “how did he make them so cheap?”

“I have no idea,” Christian laughs, shaking his head. “But…do you want to make some?”

“What?” I gasp.

“Seriously, I got the recipe,” Christian says, already standing up. “I was thinking about them a couple of months ago – couldn’t get it out of my head – and I asked the chef to try them out. I think he left everything here we need to make them…”

Christian heads eagerly into the kitchen, peering into the back of the cupboards and starting to take out ingredients.

“Wait, seriously?” I laugh, grabbing the wine and following him in. “Do you actually cook?”

“Well, no,” he says, glancing at me and laughing too. “But you do, right?”

“Why would you assume that!?”

He pauses in his search, giving me a long glance over his shoulder. “You had three easy-bake ovens as a kid, Iris,” he murmurs. “You learned the location of everything in my penthouse kitchen today when I was gone. You fed my bodyguards their dinner and you didn’t make them lift a finger. You…know how to cook.”

I laugh again, shoving him to the side. “Fine, you got me, but if you don’t know how to cook, then please get out of my way.”

Christian just grins, obliging me as he sets the flour, sugar, butter, cinnamon, and oil on the counter. Then, as I start sorting through his pots and pans for something to fry churros in, he pulls out a piece of paper from one of the drawers with a lot of ingredients and instructions crossed out and corrected.

“Francisco got pretty close with this batch,” he says, placing the recipe before me. “We can start there, see if we get any closer. At least I won’t be the only taste-tester this time.”

I pause, taking up the recipe and nodding as I read it. “I can do this,” I murmur before grinning up at him.

We get started then, Christian mostly relaxing against the counter as I work – which, honestly, is my preference in the kitchen. He helps, of course, when I need him to get me some stuff off a high shelf, but in general he lets me take control.

As soon as fifteen minutes later, I’m pipping the first batch into the hot oil. “These will be curved,” I murmur, “since we don’t have time to freeze them…”

“We’ll survive,” Christian sighs.

I give a happy sniff into the air above the sizzling pot of oil, loving the smell of churro dough beginning to lightly fry.

Almost as if on cue, a door opens down the hall. I turn and grin to see Frankie walking eagerly to the kitchen.

“What am I smelling?” he asks, looking between Christian and I with interest. “Is it desert? I almost thought Francisco returned…”

“No such luck,” Christian sighs.

“It wouldn’t be luck, Christian, you can just call him and tell him to come back,” Frankie murmurs, stepping close to me and looking into the pot. He gasps. “Churros!?”

“Ya,” I say, grinning at him. “Do you like them?”

“Iris,” Frankie says cheerfully, taking me by the shoulders and giving me a happy little shake. “Churros are my love language.”

“Hands off,” Christian snaps, leaning back against the counter and giving Frankie a glare.

Frankie, grimacing a bit, instantly drops his hands.

I turn to smile at my mafia crush because…well. He might have declared me off-limits because I’m his “sister.”

But no one has that much jealousy in their voice when someone touches their sister.