Page 39 of Revenge on the Mafia

“I don’t know. Why do women lose it, cognata?”

She scowled. “It’s almost always because a man has pissed her off.” Her gaze was accusing. Around Enzo, she was courageous. If she was alone with me, she was more cautious. She wasn’t comfortable around me. Not like she was around Stefano, the eternal charmer. Unlike him, I couldn’t be bothered to make the effort.

Stefano chuckled. “What did you do, Nico?”

Asked her three times today if she was going to get to killing me in this lifetime.

I reached for the wine cooler set on the table and uncorked the bottle. “Vino?” Daria nodded silently. I didn’t miss how she moved closer to her husband while doing it.

“Angelo’s in London.” Stefano barked out a laugh and looked up from his phone.

Enzo groaned. “Let me guess… he’s the legal front for their business?”

I took the change of topic and rode with it. “He’s going to be the clean side of it. Antonio is an actual gentleman, and that worked in the business world in Boston. Maybe it’ll work in London. Angelo may look like a gentleman, but he’s hiding a gun under that suit of his.”

“Aren’t we all,” Stefano observed.

I looked at Enzo. Another button had come off. His index finger tapped impatiently for a cigarette while he was probably groping his wife underneath my dining table. “We don’t pretend to be something we’re not.”

Walking over to the drinks trolley, I mixed their drinks.

“How do you know this, anyway?” Enzo asked Stefano.

“Vitale.”

“Why are you kissing my brother-in-law’s ass?”

“Hey!” I picked up the sound of a smack. Turned my head to see Daria had punched him on his shoulder.

He took her fist in his hand and kissed it. “I know he’s your brother, principessa, but he’s still the Don in Sicily. There’s nothing Stefano needs from him that he can’t get from me.”

“You’d be surprised,” I murmured. Stefano glared at me. I ignored him.

The smell of garlic and onion filled the air together with the hallmark scent of saffron. Daria said something. I didn’t register it. Seventeen minutes after I’d warned her, Anna strutted in. I followed her walk from the kitchen to the table. A man could write a sonnet to the rhythm of her hips shifting.

My sister-in-law obviously agreed. She let out a soft sigh and said, “You’re so pretty.” She had good taste. The only reason I let her run all over my house and design it.

My gaze traveled up Anna’s body. Her pinched waist, the curve of her breast, the smoothness of her neck, and her fucking lips I wanted to bite and taste. Nine, nine, seven, four, seven, e. A fucking goddess. “Dull as they get,” I concluded in my indifferent tone.

My brother's eyes burned with inquisitive questions. Daria’s were taking up half her face. The only one I wanted to be questioned by kept her gaze fixed on the table. But oh, she was vexed. Her cheeks flooded with color. She had her teeth clenched tight enough to warrant a dental check. I’d got the reaction I ached for. Passion shimmered in her actions.

Thumping a plate in front of Daria, she moved toward Enzo. Other than being the Don, he was a loose cannon. Pissing him off was never a good idea. She either didn’t know or care, because the way she dumped his plate in front of him… was a plea to have her hands cut off. The thought of it crushed the air in my lungs. But she got away with it. He was distracted watching me watch her. Whirling around, she stormed back into the kitchen. The swing-door swung nine times before it slowed down to a stop.

“Way better than Netflix,” Stefano punctured the silence with delight.

I didn’t know if Enzo said something. Anna was back with two plates in her hands. I couldn’t help it. The ice was melting, and I wanted her fully thawed before the clock struck midnight.

“Spanish girls are fire.” Stefano’s plate landed next to him. Barely. “Not this one, though.”

Daria sucked in her breath. Anna had her lips curled in tightly. She was going to draw blood if she kept at it.

“Don’t mind him, chica.” Stefano’s words irked me.

I wanted her to mind me. But she didn’t even glance my way when I circled around her to my seat. With a stiff upper lip, she marched toward me. When the plate landed on the table, it was a miracle that it didn’t crack into a mosaic. “This one’s a coward.” I thought I’d said it low enough, but the reactions in my peripheral view said otherwise. Anna bristled next to me; her hands curled into fists. I wondered how many men had seen the moles on her right inner thigh.

“I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but have you checked her out?”

Of course I have. A hundred thousand times multiplied by a power of ten. But when I turned to Enzo, he had a suspicious glare and one hand fisted on Daria’s fork, holding it mid-air. He didn’t mean that kind of checking out.