Page 31 of Masked Don

“Yes,” Enzo says at last, almost to himself, “I imagine you did.”

He stands. I’m so braced for the rejection, for the cruelty, for him to hand me my coat and my humiliation, but that’s not what he says.

“You’re hired, if you still want the job, that is.”

I don’t know what to say. I blink once, hard.

“Live-in,” he says, in a tone other people use for the weather. “You’d start tomorrow. Seven sharp. Three months’ probation, and if you’re still here at the end of ninety days, perhaps we’ll discuss something more permanent.”

“Why me?” My voice comes out steadier than I expect it to. “The last I heard, you were sending people home within an hour of meeting them.”

“The boy comes, too, obviously.” He blows past the question, and maybe that’s a good thing. “As I said, there’s plenty of room. I imagine you’d like adjacent rooms.” A look crosses his face, but it’s gone before I can get a read on it. “But it’s good you’re bringing him. A child should have somewhere stable to live.”

I stand, and at that moment, I want to ask him if he knows. I’m almost positive he does. Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe Matthew just rubs him the right way, or maybe this man has a soft spot for single moms.

The question forms on my tongue, then my lips. But before I can ask it, Matthew speaks. “Can I have a cookie now?”

“I would say you’ve earned it,” Enzo replies. “But that, of course, is up to your mother.”

He turns his attention to me.

“Okay. Cookies. Of course.”

I took the job. Of course, I took the job. I couldn’t afford not to. The money is too good, and this massive house is about the closest thing to a vacation or respite I can offer my son.

Carmine Rossi is waiting for us in the hallway with cookies, two for Matthew, one for me.

“Congratulations,” he says. “And welcome.”

“Word travels fast.”

“In this house, you’re more right than you know.”

I leave holding Matthew’s small hand in mine.

“I think it will be fun to live here,” Matthew says, chewing the last bit of cookie, the massive front doors closing behind us. “And he was nice.”

Nice. There’s a whole list of words I’d use to describe Enzo Accardi, but nice wouldn’t even be among the top fifty.

CHAPTER 7

ENZO

From the window of my study, I watch her go, and I don’t move until the gate has closed behind her.

My father taught me that you learn the most about a person when they think no one is watching them. Posture always shifts when someone thinks they’re out of sight. Bodies tense with anger or sag with relief, and you learn only then how they really felt when they were speaking with you.

Stevie Callahan doesn’t drop her shoulders. She walks down the cobbled path with the boy’s hand in hers, chin level, and if she’s scared or relieved or anything else, she doesn’t let it show.

But she’s tired, that much is obvious. It’s in the set of her spine, the slowness of her step. She’s a woman who works, and when she’s not working, she’s watching out for her son, with little else in between.

But she’s tired in a way that money would fix, or at least relieve. And she’s somehow even more beautiful than she was that night, which is a detail that made it difficult for me to show restraint.

“You hired her.”

Carmine enters without a sound, the way he always does. He approaches me, stopping at my side and watching the empty gate in silence. His voice doesn’t go up at the end of his sentence because he’s not asking a question.

“I did.”