Page 30 of Made in Love and Blood

“No,” he assured just as fast, glancing her way and then back at the road. “No, I’m not going anywhere.”

Her brow furrowed as she stared into the ice cream. “I can’t remember the last time you were home for more than a month straight.”

“Your sweet sixteen.”

He remembered.

Very well.

“Oh,” Frankie said, looking up again. “Are you going to miss the tourney or something?”

“Barring nothing comes up that isn’t an emergency or whatever, then no. I will be there come hell or high water.”

“Okay.”

Salvatore cleared his throat and checked the rearview mirror, seeing nothing on the stretch of road. Twenty more minutes, and they’d be home. “Now, the rest. I know you didn’t want a party for your eighteenth or graduation, but we don’t really have a choice. People, important people, expect that there’ll be one. They’re waiting for invitations.”

She pulled a face. “For real?”

“Listen, I’m making this as painless as possible for the both of us. One party for both things closer to graduation, and Carina is handling all of it. Do you know what that means?”

Frankie’s lip curled. “That she’ll be bothering me constantly for things I don’t care about?”

“That’ll be hard to do while she’s in the city for the next month getting things ready.”

“What?” Her head swung his way, making him laugh hard. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah. I mean, she’ll be back at the estate occasionally for a few things, but even she would rather stay at our suite in The Plaza. And she likes the planning stuff, so can we just let her do it?”

Frankie dismissively hummed under her breath. “She likes showing off, but sure, I don’t care.”

“The other thing...”

“Yeah?”

“You turn eighteen in a month. You still have a month to go after that for graduation. It would be hard, but doable, for you to stay at the new penthouse after your birthday if you want to get a start on freedom earlier than you planned.”

“No, I’ll stay with you until graduation. That’s our deal, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the deal, Sunshine. You know I’m going to show up there every chance I get, right? Point out what’s clean and what’s not.”

“Maybe I should take Sissy with me, then you won’t have anything to complain about.”

“Maybe you should learn to clean a fucking toilet because I pay her salary,” Salvatore joked.

“I can clean things.”

“When? How? At what point ever in your life have you done such a thing?”

Before his daughter could reply, a movement in the rearview mirror caught Salvatore’s eye. He barely caught a proper view of the large vehicle coming right up on his bumper, so close that he could make out the shadowy shape behind lightly tinted glass, but he recognized that lifted, blacked-out Jeep. He knew it well enough to already be trying to order through Bluetooth for his car’s system to call Giorgio and deal with his biggest problem.

The vehicle roared behind them and gained Frankie’s notice at the same time the driver swerved around them. It just happened to be that a car was coming in the opposite direction while the Jeep came alongside them, close enough to swap paint.

“What the fuck?” Salvatore hissed.

He hit the brakes but the Jeep’s passenger side on the rear clipped the front of the Mercedes. It took Salvatore too long to realize he couldn’t correct the spin, and he only understood their vehicle had hit the curb and started rolling when Francesca’s screams echoed all around him.

He had two thoughts while glass shattered, metal crunched, and just before he blacked out.