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I didn’t know if I could handle being involved with someone who was in such a perilous world, but there was no choice for me but to try. Life deals us certain hands, and we can’t exchange the cards. If Gabriel was the reward, I was about willing to take on any risk.
15
Gabriel
Stacy was making her sixth attempt to pull herself away from me in the lobby of the hotel, and we had officially attracted attention. Everything was so much more difficult when it meant leaving Stacy’s side. It had taken three tries and two rounds of sex to get us out of bed, and that was only because we’d worked ourselves famished. Packing our bags was hard because every two minutes, we were lost in some conversation, both loosely holding onto whatever we were trying to fold. Even getting down to the lobby was a struggle with our incessant need to be touching as much as was humanly possible as we moved. We’d even been angrily cussed out by a mom who felt we were too inappropriate in public. We thanked her for her opinion by making out the entire elevator ride down.
“I have to get to the studio,” Stacy whined even though she was hanging on to me as much as I was onto her.
“I know. I have to get home.” I didn’t release her, though, and a second later, her lips were on mine again. We were that gross couple, but I didn’t care.
It took an additional twenty minutes, but we did eventually manage to go our separate ways, only after a promise to see each other as soon as possible. We nearly doubled back when I gave her the orchid I’d bought her and sweetly explained that it was “literally the only fucking flower left,” and she was endeared and considered dragging me back upstairs. We both had business to get to, though, so she left, and I checked out of the hotel, complete with a sizable tip, and headed back to our family estate.
I was surprised to see that I hadn’t gotten a single call from Luca or Molly while I was gone, and I hoped that it didn’t mean that Molly had to throw herself on more than one sword protecting me from Luca’s wrath while I was off enjoying a romantic night with Stacy. I’d have to come up with something really good to give her in thanks, on top of still trying to figure out how to get her family some well-deserved time off.
I pulled into the cul-de-sac parking lot that we used to keep all of our vehicles organized in a way that made the job of taking them out at different times easier, and my heart sank. There was a dark green land rover parked in the middle. It was Alessandro’s best friend and our family attorney’s car. Ricky Morietti. He’d moved to California with Alessandro last year when Alessandro married Ricky’s sister
Willow.
It wasn’t that Ricky was that attached at the hip to Alessandro or Willow, but Ricky may have been the only person besides myself who’d see first-hand the moment Alessandro slipped. He was forced in the middle when he had to pick Willow over Alessandro, and he’d already left to go be at Willow’s side when Alessandro finally lost it in Luca’s office, but he’d seen the change in his best friend when we saved him from the Binachi’s trap in San Francisco. He claimed that he didn’t want to miss an opportunity to get to know his niece when he justified moving with them to Cali, but in truth, he was worried about what was happening to Alessandro and how that might affect his sister.
I walked in, nerves rattling. Ricky being back in Philly wasn’t a good sign. I walked through the heavy wood and metal front doors, and what spanned out before me was worse yet. Ricky was there, standing in the foyer, in suit pants, thin dark blue suspenders, and a pale blue button-up, but next to him, in a full suit and looking like he was ready for a day of work, was Alessandro.
“S-Sandro,” I huffed.
Alessandro turned and flung his arms out on either side of him. It was very artificial, like he was a car salesman, and I was his favorite customer. “Gabe!”
He walked up to me and wrapped his arms around me, and I locked eyes with Ricky, and the expression I got wasn’t good. Ricky looked nervous, and the tips of his brown hair were sweat-matted against his forehead. Alessandro pulled away but kept his hands on my shoulders.
“How’ve you been, man?” He leaned in towards me. “Heard you were out with a girl. Congrats.”
I hated feeling like I needed to protect Stacy from the smarmy version of my brother in front of me. “Thanks.” I didn’t share any details, and I was hopeful that Marco hadn’t either. “What are you doing here?”
“Are you dumb?” Alessandro hissed, and where it might have been a joke a year or two ago, it sounded serious and mean. “I heard about the way you fucked up with Anthony Carducci, so I came here to clean up your mess.”
“Sandro,” Ricky growled in warning. Lately, it felt like I needed saving from Alessandro more than he was doing the saving, and I didn’t like it.
Alessandro waved a hand, not even sparing a glance at his brother-in-law. “Relax, Gabe knows I’m kidding. Just wanted to pretend I was the boss for a second.”
The shrill of foreboding that rocketed down my spine and back up again wasn’t a feeling I reveled in. It threatened to buckle my knees. He smiled at me, but it was empty and malevolent, and meant, in no uncertain terms, that Alessandro’s words were anything but a joke. All my life, I loved my dad, but now I was seeing what my older brothers felt so much disdain over. The blatant lack of care for others, the cruel howl of frightening sentiments through the barrel of a humored musing. I wished there was a shower that could wash it off of Alessandro and leave him his old, fresh self again, but I feared no such remedy existed.
I decided no additional interaction with Alessandro was probably best. I was still riding a high from my night with Stacy, and I didn’t want to waste it on whatever alien had replaced my formerly loving brother. I tossed Alessandro a weak smile and then walked around him and up the foyer stairs, headed for the hallway where all of the brothers’ bedrooms had been located when we were growing up.
My room was the only one left in this area. Luca and Molly had taken up the wing my father and his wife used to inhabit, and both Alessandro and Marco had moved out. Oddly enough, almost as if they all knew, none of them had formally cleaned out and evacuated their rooms; for all intents and purposes, they just stopped sleeping in them. As if they all knew that, one day, they’d be in their rooms again.
I walked into my room and jumped at the sound of my door closing behind me. I turned around, and Ricky was standing there, leaning against it.
“Fuck,” I barked. “Why don’t you make any noise when you move?”
“When you’re the Varasso’s family lawyer, you master the art of stealth,” Ricky replied simply. “We gotta talk.”
It didn’t make me feel any more comfortable than the conversation I’d just had with Alessandro had. Ricky and I were acquaintances, at best. The last couple of years before Alessandro had moved out, he started dragging me along with him more when Alessandro, Marco, and Ricky hung out, but even then, I was so dwarfed by their presences that I usually kept quiet.
My brothers were men who lived with me all my life, but Ricky was a different enigma altogether. He’d grown up with the Varassos, and both he and Willow’s dad had given up their freedom to protect my dad. The Varassos continued to look out for Willow, Ricky, and their mom as repentance for what their father did, but Willow stayed away from our family when it didn’t directly involve her relationship with Alessandro, and Ricky was just this kid who was sort of always there. He knew so much about my family and played this huge role in our lives, but I barely knew him. That was enough to freak me out.
I sat down in one of the small, gray armchairs that were against one side of my bedroom wall, and Ricky walked over and glided down into the other. He crossed one leg over the other and clocked me in silence for a moment. I couldn’t quite tell what he was up to, so I just sat with my mouth closed until he’d gauged whatever he needed to.
“It’s bad,” he started suddenly. “Sandro.”
