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You know. Providing. Protecting. Taking care of unpleasant little household chores so his wife doesn’t have to worry her pretty head about them, like dismembering a body and scattering the bits into the Long Island Sound.

Somewhere, a 1950s housewife is shedding a proud little tear.

Long story short, he’s taking care of Mr. Hands for me.

…Taking him off my hands, if you will?

God I’m fucking hilarious.

He’s doing this even though I never asked him to. So, no matter what they say, chivalry’s not dead.

Mr. Hands is, though.

Cenzo steps into the cottage, taking up as much space as his brother does as I shut the door.

“I actually really did want to see you,” he shrugs.

“Anything I should be worried about?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but then his gaze slides past me into the kitchen…specifically, to the kitchen table, where all eight of Damiano’s ultra-nerd “I’ve watched Kill Bill too many times” Japanese knives are laid out in a row from where I was just polishing them.

I felt bad about using them to hack off Mr. Hands’ hands and had them professionally sharpened.

Cenzo chuckles. “I was going to say ‘Yeah, the fact that you married a psychopath’, but…” He nods his chin at the knives. “Guess that bridge has already been crossed.” He shrugs. “Anyway, I was thinking that you and I should probably get to know each other better. Also, I wanted to thank you.”

My smile lifts. “For?”

“For making my psycho brother a bit easier to deal with. It’s almost as if you managed to yank out that stick that’s been rammed up his ass since he was, I don’t know, four?”

I grin.

“So he’s always been like that?”

Cenzo snorts. “What, like he was born forty-five years old and disappointed in everyone?”

“Ooo,” I nod as my brows pinch. “Great way of describing it.”

He chuckles. “What can I say. I know the fucker better than anyone.”

The second those words leave his mouth, they immediately tug at a little string inside my head.

Because here’s the annoying thing: Damiano doesn’t really grate on me anymore.

The second that realization filters into my head, I swear I can hear Dr. Fallon telling me to “stop minimizing positive attachment as a defense against vulnerability.” Saying Dame “doesn’t grate on me” is just my emotionally avoidant way of saying “we’re getting along disturbingly well and I really like him.”

A lot.

More than I probably should, given that I spent the first several weeks of our acquaintance actively trying to maim him.

But there’s an annoying little pull I feel toward him now when he walks into a room, or looks at me a certain way. Hell, sometimes when I’m nowhere near him but just randomly remember something he said, I get this warm, irritating as fuck tug behind my ribs.

I’ve tried telling myself it’s only because we share an extremely niche “hobby”.

I mean, real talk: given who and what I am, what are the odds of me ending up with a partner at all, let alone one that I can sit down for dinner with and casually discuss the dos and don'ts of skinning a person while they’re still alive?

Maybe finally having someone I don’t have to hide that part of myself from has tricked my brain into manufacturing feelings that aren’t really there.

If that’s the case, my brain is obnoxiously committed to the bit, because those feelings don’t appear to be going anywhere.