Page 3 of Dirty Pool

Michel had no issues.

He didn’t know anything but the man and woman who he called mom and dad. They were the only parents he ever knew, and the only ones he wanted to know, too. They gave him this amazing life. They gave him the ability to do whatever he wanted and make his own choices about what direction his life would go.

Without them, he would not be him.

How was that not a parent?

Catrina and Dante were the only people who raised him, and the detail that they didn’t share, blood, never factored into what he knew to be true. He loved them entirely.

And they loved him.

So much.

Michel came out of the corridor exit, and right into the parking lot where his Mercedes waited in the warm summer air of Detroit. He stepped out of WSU School of Medicine and gave it one last look over his shoulder, a sense of pride thickening his blood with every step he took carrying him further away from the walls of the college that challenged him every step of the way for his first year of pre-med.

Yeah, some shit was easy.

Others?

Not so much.

But he liked it.

Respected it.

His parents taught him that, too.

“What are your plans for the summer, then?” Catrina asked, bringing him back to the conversation at hand. “Today was your final exam before break, right?”

“It was.”

“And?”

Michel shook his head, knowing there was no way out of this conversation. “And I haven’t decided yet what I’m doing with my break.”

That was a lie.

He had decided.

He wasn’t going home.

Catrina made a sad noise. “Well, okay.”

He knew what his parents wanted—they missed him, and would like to have him home. In a way, he wanted to go back, too, but he’d heard the stories and rumors. Students that went back and got comfortable at home after their first year had a higher chance of not returning for the second. He didn’t think his mother would appreciate him telling her that, though.

But he did miss them.

He missed his family. His cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. All of them. Even his younger sister, as annoying as Catherine could be. Being an Italian through and through meant he grew up in a culture that took family seriously. Large dinners, church every Sunday together, and time spent as a whole unit of one. The closest thing he got to being near his family in Detroit was the Marcello faction of the mafia in the city—the Vannozzo family served his needs when he needed something familiar around him.

They kept him busy sometimes, too.

At least, his dad didn’t mind because Michel was around people Dante trusted, and had some control over being they were an extended arm of his father’s mafia organization in New York. He wasn’t really involved in the Vannozzo’s business here, but they had been hinting lately that if he wanted to get back into a bit of dealing—like he’d done for years in New York throughout his high school years—that they would be happy to provide him with the shit to sell.

Michel was considering it.

He didn’t know what his father would think of that now that Michel was in college, and he was supposed to be putting the famiglia ideals behind him for this doctor dream. He wasn’t really interested in finding out, either.

Catrina hummed under her breath, drawing Michel from his thoughts as she muttered, “Yes, Dante, I’ll tell him.”