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“Rethink whatever the fuck you need to,” I tell him. “If you want to make Curse your heir then go ahead.”
Uncle Vinny freezes, looking momentarily speechless. A damn rare occurrence for him.
“You would give up your inheritance of the empire we have built,” he says slowly, like he barely believes the words coming out of his mouth, “turn your back on your family responsibility, just to marry the Irish girl?”
We’re still standing in the entry way. Something beyond us catches my gaze. It’s Deirdre. She’s standing beside the kitchen island, a cup of tea clutched in her hands. When her eyes meet mine, I feel physical heat. An erupting throb of sensation.
I have no doubt she heard my uncle’s question.
And I answer loudly enough so that she can hear my answer, too.
“Yes,” I say, returning my gaze to my uncle. “I’ll move aside for Curse to take over if you want. But I will marry Deirdre. That is non-negotiable.” My voice gets lower, my words more pointed. “And no smart man is going to stand in the way of that.” My jaw ticks. “Good thing I know you’re a smart man, Uncle Vinny.”
Our uncle’s face is beet-fucking-red. This conversation probably isn’t good for his blood pressure.
It’s good for mine, though. Every person who admits to my impending marriage, every person who bends to my will and acknowledges Deirdre as my wife, makes me feel like I’m one step closer to everything being right in my world. Valentina’s on board, I got Darragh sorted, now Uncle Vinny. The trickiest person will probably be the bride herself.
But I can handle that.
Uncle Vinny jams his big hands into the pockets of his expensive wool coat.
“Merda,” he mutters. “You know as well as I do that I can’t turn anything over to Curse if I wanted to cut you out. That boy wouldn’t take a fucking shit in the morning if you didn’t authorize it.”
“He seems to shit just fine without my say so,” I reply. I raise my eyebrows at Curse, who’s standing right fucking beside us and hearing everything. But he just gazes steadily back and then shrugs, because we both know that, though the wording was exaggerated, Uncle Vinny is right. Ever since we were kids, when I pulled Curse out of that fire with my bare fucking hands – ruining them in the process – he’s been loyal to me with the kind of quiet ferocity that no amount of money could ever even hope to buy.
“Well, you do what you need to do, Uncle Vinny. And I’ll do what I need to. Starting with marrying Deirdre.” I look over my uncle’s head to catch a glimpse of her, but she’s no longer in the kitchen.
I’m cool. I’m calm. And Uncle Vinny knows he can’t fucking win here.
He lets out a rattle of a sigh.
“Well, you were right about one thing. I’m real fucking smart. You’re a Titone through and through, and I’m not stupid enough to stand in the way of a Titone when he’s got his sights on something that he wants. And I’m also too damn old to start a war with my own flesh and blood, my own fucking heir, over where he decides he wants to stick his fucking dick.”
He rubs his jaw, studying me with hard, dark eyes.
“Just tell me one thing, Elio. You owe me that much. And it’s the one thing I still don’t fucking get.”
I nod. I don’t know if I’ll have an answer for whatever he’s about to ask, but he’s right that I do owe him at least an attempt at a reply. He dragged Curse and me out of the fucking muck and helped make us into men, and that’s gotta count for something. Even if I’m willing to blow it all to hell for the girl I plan to marry now.
“So, I parade these Italian girls in front of you,” Uncle Vinny says. “Girls from good fucking families. Nice racks, nice asses, and they know when to shut the fuck up. Culture, cooking, upbringing, everything. And you don’t give a single flying fuck.” He shakes his head, like I don’t make any sense to him, and maybe I don’t these days. “What else could you possibly want in a bitch?” he asks. “What could that Irish girl possibly fucking possess to send you so out of your goddamn mind? To make you give her our fucking name?”
Yeah. He really doesn’t get it. And I can forgive him for that, because I wouldn’t have gotten it either. Not before her, anyway.
It’s got nothing to do with tits or silence, power or pussy. Nothing to do with any of the things we normally value.
It’s about something ephemeral and eternal. Ruinous and glorious. The exquisite agony in my chest every time I hear her fucking voice. Every time I see those eyes. Get a glimpse of the music that’s inside her.
It’s about something I wasn’t even sure that I believed in anymore. Until her.
“Soul,” I tell my uncle, and it feels so pure, so good and true to say it, that the word comes out like a goddamn prayer. “It’s about her soul.”
Chapter 13
Deirdre
I wasn’t prepared for seeing Elio downstairs just now. I wasn’t prepared for my own reaction to him. When I was in the kitchen, and he came through the door with the other men, it was like a bolt of lightning straight down my spine. It was all I could do to clutch my teacup and gape. I was just with him last night, I literally slept in the same bed as him, but it was like I hadn’t seen him in ages.
The way he fills the space, the way he draws my eye like he exerts some kind of gravity that only affects me is deeply disconcerting. He was with his uncle, whom I’d never seen before, and I didn’t even care one bit. I barely even noticed the boss of the Titone family, the legendary man who raised Curse and Elio.
