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I set my plate on the table and flag down a waiter with a tray of drinks.
“A glass of champagne, miss?”
I smile and take one in each hand.
CHAPTER 3
Tavi
She’s up to something. I know she is.
Elise has glanced my way more times this afternoon than she has since she came here. I’ve had enough people I’ve interrogated and questioned under my watch to know the look of a guilty conscience.
Like I fucking care if she’s up to anything. I’ve tracked her every move, and she knows it. There’s nothing she’s going to get away with. Still, I pull Orlando aside.
“Angelina say anything to you?” I ask. He’s drinking his third flute of champagne and has a pastry in his free hand. Brother’s been bodybuilding with me for the past four months.
“Cheat day?” I ask, eying the cannoli with envy. My cheat day’s on Friday, a long fucking way away.
He opens his mouth and polishes off the whole damn cannoli in one bite. “What?” he asks around a mouthful of food.
“Jesus, man. You’d think married life would make a guy grow the fuck up already. You look like a twelve-year-old.”
He rolls his eyes, wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, and flags down a waitress. “Grab that tray of cannoli you put in the kitchen, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
He grins at me.
“You’ve got powdered sugar in your beard, asshole.”
He brushes it off and shrugs. “You’re just jealous it isn’t your cheat day.”
“Fuck off.”
So what if I am.
He grabs four shrimp cocktail from the nearby table, skewers them all at once, and opens his mouth. I grab the skewer from his fingers and plop them into my own mouth.
“Son of a bitch,” he says reverently. Normally he’d deck me for stealing food, or try to anyway. But today he’s in a good mood.
“Shrimp ain’t cheatin’,” I mutter. “Good clean protein.”
He grabs another stack and eats them before I inhale those, too. “So what were you asking me about? Something about Angelina?”
“Yeah. Elise looks like she’s up to something.”
Orlando looks across the room where Elise sits with Marialena and Angelina. Marialena holds the baby on her knee and says something that makes Angelina and Elise burst into laughter.
“Looks like she’s just sitting and eating, man. Relax. She’s almost your wife. You’ve got, what, six weeks left?”
I drink my champagne. “Four.”
“Ah, perfect. You gonna take a honeymoon?”
“I don’t know yet.”
A honeymoon is a celebration. This is nothing to celebrate.
A honeymoon gives you space to sleep in and fuck all day long. I don’t need an excuse for that. She’ll be mine, to use however I want, whenever I want.
I don’t know why that knowledge feels so hollow, void of any joy it should bring me. Instead, knowing that I’ll have her as my ready-made fuck toy feels like nothing more than an obligation.
I shrug it off.
I shrug everything off.
Romeo walks over with Mario, our youngest brother. “Alright, boys. We’ve got two, soon to be three, of the Rossi boys married.” Romeo’s voice is louder than usual and his cheeks flushed. Someone’s been in the limoncello again. “What’re we gonna do about this player?” He slaps Mario’s back affectionately. Mario laughs and tucks his head, clearly taking this as a compliment.
“You ain’t gonna do nothing about this playa,” he says in his best Boston gangster accent. “This playa fuckin’ loves tappin’ tail he doesn’t have to provide for and all that.” He gives us a shit-eating grin and sips his drink.
Santo saunters over, his gaze cold and calculating as always.
“You boys hear about Regazza’s property?”
“Fucking Regazza,” I mutter. Elise’s late father, who drove his family to near ruin, died right here in The Castle after double-crossing us, something she doesn’t seem to hold against us.
Yet, anyway. The jury’s still out.
The Regazzas didn’t seek retaliation after the truth was outed, but relocated to Tuscany, as far away from our family home in the Italian city as possible. Last I heard, they’d relocated again to Lombardy, east of Milan and as far North from Tuscany as possible.
“Squatters taking it over, man,” he says. “It’s a fucking dump.”
“Which property?”
“He owned a few retail locations near Copley.”
“No shit?” Romeo mutters, his eyes half-glazed. Romeo oversees operations and calls every final shot. Orlando’s the group heavy, the one who closes deals and takes lives, whenever the situation calls for it. I’m the group strategist, the one who makes business decisions and advises The Family.
So all eyes come to me.
“You’ll inherit that property, Tavi,” Santo says coolly. He takes a joint out of his pocket and rolls it between his fingers, but knows better than to light it. Mario will join him out by the garden. They’ll get high before they take a woman—or women—for the night.
I don’t touch the stuff and barely drink except on special occasions. I like to be in absolute control of myself.
