Thin Lies (Donati Bloodlines #1) by Bethany-Kris Page A

her eyes.
    “Yes,”
she said.
    Calisto
hummed under his breath with a sound that came off as understanding and interested
at the same time. Emma felt her invisible walls shudder at Calisto’s vague
offer of sympathy. She was again reminded of who this man was, the person he
was close to, and how he could hurt her with it.
    She
wouldn’t give him the ammo.
    Not
willingly.
    “I
was mistaken,” Calisto murmured.
    Emma’s
gaze cut back to her companion instantly. “About what?”
    “The
bed I thought you made. What I said, I guess.”
    “Actually,
you were right. My unhappiness isn’t your concern. You’re not required to fix
how I feel or make it better. I don’t want you to.”
    Emma
figured putting that out there was better for both her and Calisto. That way,
the man knew she wasn’t up for playing games with him. If all he wanted to do
was try and get closer to her in order to feed information to Affonso, then he
had another thing coming.
    “Not
what I meant,” Calisto said, waving a hand as if to dismiss her words.
“Although, someone telling you the truth might help the way you feel, no
doubt.”
    “How
do you know anything about what I feel?”
    “You
wear your emotions on your sleeve when you think no one is watching. You should
get better at that, ragazza . In front of a crowd, or even with your
family, the mask you wear is perfectly in place at all times. Last week at the
dinner party, no one would have guessed you were unhappy and angry about
everything that was happening around you. But when you’re alone …”
    “It’s
obvious,” she said.
    Calisto
shrugged. “You should know by now that you’ll never truly be alone once you
take Affonso’s last name, Emmy. Someone will always be close behind. Someone
else will be watching. He’ll have different ways of making sure you’re
behaving, interacting with the right people, and keeping up the image that he
wants you to maintain. Better you start acting now like you’re never alone then
to fuck up later and have to answer for something he considers you’ve done
wrong.”
    A
shiver worked its way down Emma’s spine. That was the second time someone had
subtly offered information to her about Affonso’s actions toward women in his
life.
    Actions
suggesting violence.
    Her
stomach rolled.
    “Is
he like that with his other women, too?” she dared to ask.
    Calisto’s
brow furrowed. “Affonso, you mean?”
    “Yes.
His mistresses, too. My father mentioned something to me last week. He said
Affonso had a … taste for pain when it came to women who don’t listen. You just
said something similar. I wondered if that was true. Is it?”
    Silence
answered Emma’s question.
    Then,
Calisto said, “I’ve never seen him hit a woman.”
    “But
you don’t know for sure, right?”
    “I
know he can be a monster.” Calisto’s eyes hardened, but he wasn’t directing his
coldness at Emma this time. “I know he’s hurt women— a woman—someone told
me that once.”
    “I
don’t understand. Who did he hurt?”
    “Someone,”
Calisto answered vaguely, offering nothing else. “What I meant when I said that
you would have to answer to him for your choices after marrying him wasn’t that
he would turn physical with you. I don’t believe he would, with his wife.
People are watching you, and him, Emmy. Affonso knows better than to hit his
wife and leave a mark that might be seen. And there are other families like his
in New York. Families with far more power than he has. One of those families’
boss, Dante Marcello, is known to step into personal business for the sake of a
woman.”
    Emma
didn’t know what to say. “Really?”
    “Honor
is supposed to be the most important thing a man has in Cosa Nostra. The way he
treats his wife and his family falls in line with that. There are men in la
famiglia who never forget that being honorable, that being a good made man, is more important that being your boss’s man. Despite being a boss,
Affonso is