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"Call it what you want, Less, but you are going to do it," Ciro said, voice growing firm.
"I'd be curious, if I said no, how you'd propose to force me into it?" I asked, sitting back in my seat.
"You'd be on your own," our father said.
"I've been on my own before." Hell, I'd been on my own for practically seventeen years before I made the trip to New York to find my biological father. It was a miracle I didn't die in my crib as a newborn.
"Hey," Gio said, reaching out, putting his hand on mine. "Don't do that. We know you're tough, Less. But you're family. Don't act like you don't want to be."
"I'm not the one threatening to expel someone from said family," I reminded him.
"No one is going to expel you from the family," Gio insisted, holding a hand up to our father. Gio was maybe the only person on the planet who could get away with such blatant disrespect. Because he was the heir. Because everyone knew he did quite a bit of running shit behind the scenes, even if no one was brave enough to say that out loud, to insult our father. "We just need you to understand that we don't have much of a choice here, Less. We're trying to stay in Lorenzo's favor."
"What? We're bootlickers now?" I shot back.
"Listen, shit is shaky right now," Gio said. "If there is going to be a war, we'd much rather be on the side of the Costas and D'onofrios, not the Lombardis and the Espositos. They're all snakes. We'd constantly be looking over our shoulders, never knowing who was out to get us. If all we need to do is have one of us act as a bodyguard and babysitter for a couple months while they figure shit out to avoid all that, don't you think it'd be worth it?"
He made a fair point.
Personal grievances aside, I didn't want to have to align myself with the other two Families. At least not under their current leaderships.
And it was only a couple months.
It was a paying gig.
I was just being a pain in the ass at this point.
It was my speciality, after all.
"You really think I belong around children?" I asked, raising my brow at Gio, daring him to claim that I did. "I'm impulsive and impatient with an anger problem and the vocabulary of a truck driver."
"Sounds like a certain Capo dei Capi I know," Gio said, shrugging. "I'm sure the kid is used to it."
"Fine," I grumbled, pushing my plate back, losing my taste for it. Which wasn't like me. But I hated being coerced into things. I hated it more that the only reason they figured I was qualified was because I had the right parts. If Santiago Costa waved the wanting a woman thing, I'd be the last person on any of their lists to take the job.
"Good. All settled," my father said, rising, moving to walk away. He clamped a hand on Ciro's shoulder, then Gio's. But not mine. "Oh, and don't forget to tell her it's a live-in position," he said on his way out.
"You coward!" I called as he rushed away.
"That was pretty chickenshit," Gio agreed, giving the waitress a wink as she dropped off his food. "But, yeah, he's telling the truth."
"You expect me to give up my entire life to be a live-in babysitter?"
"What life?" Ciro asked, snorting. "Netflix and Chinese take-out?"
"Hey, I have shit going on." And by "shit," I meant a new cult documentary sitting in my queue. And a new place to order in from. Pho, actually. Not Chinese.
But what I did with my life wasn't the point. The point was it was my life. And they would never give up theirs in this way, not even for their beloved Costa Family.
"Do I get a Mary Poppins uniform to wear too?" I griped, reaching for my drink, wishing there was something stronger than soda in the glass.
"I might be able to make the suggestion," Gio said, then choked on his food when I slapped the back of his neck.
"Less, it's a cake job," Ciro said, shrugging. "And the live-in part is not full-time. There will be a room provided for you to keep some personal items in, so in the off-chance that you need to stay over, you can do so comfortably."
"Yeah, the kid probably goes to sleep at like eight or something," Gio said. "You'll still get to eat your take-out and watch your documentaries, but get paid for it."
Alright.
They were starting to make it sound more like a vacation than an actual job.
"Fine," I agreed again, not wanting to sound eager about it or anything, because I didn't want them to think they could agree to shit behind my back like this in the future. "But there's a clock on this. I'm not doing it indefinitely. I will stay on until New Years. By then, they can figure out something else."
