We eat in silence for a minute. Reaper pads over and lies down between us, tail thumping against the floor. Adriana ignores him as she digs into the pint again.
“Can I ask you something?” she says.
“Sure, anything.”
“Why a security firm?”
I shrug. “I'm good at it. I understand threats. How people think, how they move, where they're vulnerable.” I take another bite. “And it's mine. Not my father's. Not the family's.Something I built by myself. Something nobody gets to question me about. I run things my way and answer to nobody.”
She nods slowly. “I get that.”
“Is that why you went off on your own? Same reasons?”
“Similar.” She stares at the ice cream. “I spent my whole life being Francesco DiMicheli's daughter. Everything I did was filtered through that lens. The family business, the connections, the expectations. College was the first time I got to be just… me. And I decided I never wanted to go back to being that mafia princess, dependent on my father, living as a chess piece. I hated the scrutiny and the opinion that I’d never survive outside of the family.” She pauses. “I wanted to prove them all wrong. So I built something that was mine. As Adriana Colonna. Not DiMicheli. A person who lived on her own terms and created an existence that was legitimate and separate from the life I hated.”
“And now?”
She rolls her eyes and waves the spoon around her. “Now I'm sitting in a stranger's kitchen at two in the morning, eating ice cream, wearing a wedding ring I didn't choose.” She lets out a humorless laugh. "Life has some sick sense of irony, huh?”
“And a dark sense of humor,” I say.
“The darkest.”
We dig around the container, chasing the last chocolate chips, when she says, “So I met your brothers at the reception. Cillian and Gavin. Cillian seems...” She pauses, pulling her spoon out of the container. “Charming. In a way that feels genuine, which is pretty rare for mafia sons.”
“He is. Cillian's the one who holds us together. Always has.” I scrape the spoon along the edge of the pint. “He owns a bar in Southie called Venom. It's his. He opened it on his own, runs it on his own. Our father hates it.”
“Why?”
“Because it's legitimate. Because Cillian built it without him. Because it proves we don't need the family empire to survive.Although he didn’t shut the door on my father. He’s got the legit business but is still involved with the organization.” I shrug.
“And what about Gavin?”
“He’s twenty-one. Reckless as hell, loyal to a fault.” I think about him at Mom's grave, asking questions he's been holding onto for years. “He's the one I worry about most. He feels everything too much, and he doesn't always know what to do with it. Sometimes I think that’s why he acts out and gets into so much trouble. It’s like he doesn’t know how else to channel all that unresolved emotion.”
“Interesting.” She nods slowly. “You know, he warned me. At the reception. He said not to trust your father.”
I let out a dry chuckle. “Smart kid.”
“He also had bruises on his face. Where’d they come from?”
My jaw tightens. “He gets into things he shouldn't. I'm working on it.”
She doesn't push. And I’m glad because those are places I just don’t want her to go.
“What about Ronan?” she asks. “He seemed...”
“Like an asshole?” I say.
“I was going to say ‘hostile.’ But yes. What’s his deal? Seems like he’s got a massive chip on his shoulder.”
“Ronan's complicated. He stayed when I left. Stayed loyal to our father, or at least that's what he wants everyone to think.” I take another bite, letting the ice cream melt on my tongue before I continue. “There's more going on with him than he lets on. I just don't know what yet. He’s pretty closed off from my brothers, and the two of us don’t really speak at all. It drives the others crazy. I know they wish we’d all get along but… too much has happened.”
Her dark eyes narrow a bit. I can tell she wants to dig deeper, peel back the layers of my dysfunctional relationship with my father and brother. But I guess she realizes we all have skeletons, and maybe some of them should be left hidden. At least for now. “What about the other one? I counted four guys who looked like you at the wedding, but I only talked to three.”
“Wolfe.” I smile. “He’d have never come up to you. He doesn't talk to anyone he doesn't have to.”
“What, is he shy or something?”
