Page 112 of Made in Love and Blood

The wind practically took it away the moment she said it.

Vanna.

She’d said it flippantly at her husband’s back after he’d moved a couple of stairs higher. He didn’t hear, continuing away.

As fast as it happened, Vanna moved on. To Carina.

She leaned in, and Carina moved inward, just the opposite way. Frankie took in the two women, watching Vanna’s profile against her stepmother’s cheek. Her lips moved, forming words said so quietly that Frankie strained to hear. She did make out their greetings but more became lost in the breeze.

“Seriously?” Vanna asked slightly louder, her eyes glittering.

Carina nodded.

Vanna’s hand came up fast, squeezing Carina’s side and she kissed her before pulling away. A kiss that landed somewhere beneath Carina’s ear, at her throat.

“Don’t tell him; for as long as you can,” Vanna said.

“I know.”

Neither woman looked at the other as they parted. Frankie wouldn’t realize it until much later, but that was the only time that she saw Vanna and Carina together that evening.

She became distracted by the two men climbing the steps now while Vanna hurried to catch up with her husband in heels that would make the devil’s mouth water.

Well, she did sleep beside one. Maybe that was the point.

“Happy belated eighteenth,” a man she didn’t recognize said, his stride slowing as he passed both Frankie and Carina on the steps.

“And congrats on ditching high school,” Marco Russo, walking alongside the stranger, added with a wink.

The total opposite from his brother, he wore a similar suit, all black from top to bottom, and that was one thing that looked the same. Dark eyes raked her over. The hand that held two gift bags had been painted by so many tattoos she couldn’t tell one from the other. The ink climbed over from under the throat of his dress shirt and stopped where the ridge of his jaw met his handsomely cold face.

That was all he had going for him. One other thing the two brothers shared. His energy bit at hers, though. And not in a good way.

She lost the smile. “Thanks.”

He nodded at her, stopping a step above Carina to lean back and drop a quick kiss to his adopted sister’s cheek. That one, she allowed.

“Sis,” he greeted.

“Marco,” Carina greeted, and then to the other man who had remained silent throughout the entire exchange, she added, “And Anthony.”

“How’s Little Nicky been treating you?” Anthony asked, grinning. “Behaving, I hope?”

Carina didn’t answer.

“Nico is fine,” Frankie said.

Anthony’s chin jerked up slightly, his upper lip curving slightly higher on one side like he’d just got what he wanted somehow and was so pleased about it. Without another word, the two men took their leave to follow the others.

“Knew it,” she heard Anthony mutter, “fucking familiar.”

Marco said nothing but glanced back at her.

She forced herself not to look away.

•••

Three hours later...