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NICU
My brothers, Tatum (our consiliere), and Sebastian (our half brother from a decades-long, illicit affair my father had had with another woman), convened at my penthouse apartment in the Time Warner Center. My father, in his infinite wisdom, had locked down the top floors of both towers when the edifice was being constructed, and split each floor into two apartments. Luca and I shared one floor. Alex and Nina lived in one apartment in the other tower, with Tatum in the penthouse next door.
We used to meet at Alex’s place before he and Nina hooked up. This was after years of pining after each other while we all pretended we didn’t see anything. Nina was Tasa’s best friend and our next-door neighbor in Sunnyside, Queens, so we’d known her most of our lives. She may not have been Romanian mafie, but she was practically family.
Once Nina was ensconced in his apartment, Alex got absurdly territorial, so we moved our operations to Luca’s apartment. Now that he and Cat had been official for a few short weeks, we’d been kicked out of there as well. His exact words were something to the effect of, “I don’t want my fiancée to be inconvenienced by the likes of any of you.”
When I asked how the fuck we’d be an inconvenience, his ludicrous answer had been, “She’d have to get dressed, wouldn’t she? I like her best naked.”
Considering the lengths I’d gone to bring them together, I wasn’t about to push back. From the get-go, I’d seen how he reacted to Cat at our engagement party. He bit my head off simply because I didn’t agree with him that she was gorgeous and that I was a lucky bastard to have her as my future wife.
After that, I watched carefully. At one point during the weekend, I caught her slipping away to the lower level of his country home, where we’d hosted the engagement party. Luca was working out downstairs in the gym. She’d disappeared for a while and came back upstairs with flushed cheeks, confirming that something was going on between them. Afterward, I went out of my way to ignore her while pushing them together every chance I got.
If Luca was now acting like a possessive dog over a bone, so be it. It was a hundred times better than when I was engaged to her. My penthouse was my comfort zone, so it was a sacrifice to have my brothers trampling around in my space, but it was a price worth paying if it kept Luca and Cat happy and preoccupied.
Preoccupied being the pertinent word here. With eyes on each other, they weren’t paying attention to either me or Jewel, thereby giving me space to pursue her. Because our first night together would not be our last, that much I vowed to myself. She’d blown off my texts and calls, so I’d decided to back off and give her time to get over the guilt of fucking me. But I was starting to jones for her like a drug. So I was plotting. Cat and Luca’s engagement party was coming up, and she wouldn’t be able to get away from me there.
Alex, Luca, and Sebastian had arrived and settled in by the time Tatum showed up. Sinking into one of several leather couches positioned around a coffee table in the sunken area of my living room, he came straight to the point, “We have a problem on our hands.”
“What? Another virgin fell for you?” I quipped with a cock of my brow. I’d recently opened an account for him on Insta as a joke, and he took to it like a fish to water, which was surprising because Tatum was notoriously private. But every mafie and mafia girl under the sun now followed him. He was fucking perfect, the closest to a hero an impressionable girl in our world could have, dominated as it was by criminality. Add his pristine Anglo looks to the mix, and anytime he posted a selfie, he was inundated with heart and kiss emojis. Pity the guy shied away from being touched.
“Haha. Not funny,” he replied. “This is serious, frate. Cristo has been ‘drunk-grieving’ Simu’s death. Acting out is not unexpected. Problem is, he’s been threatening to retaliate by gutting you.”
Taking a sip of my Turkish coffee, I waved away his concern. Tatum focused on the risk in any situation, which was why he was so good at what he did, but I wasn’t a daredevil for nothing. I wasn’t about to be cowed by Cristo’s drunken ravings.
“The rules of engagement are clear, and Simu’s death was as clean a kill as they come,” I reminded him. “He attacked Luca because his plans to marry Cat and utilize her to become the Popescu ?ef were ruined. He had to be eliminated. End of story. Hell, it’s not like Luca didn’t put a cleaver in Simu’s back right before I shot him between the eyes.”
“As true as that may be, Simu was the Popescu consilier and Cristo’s closest confidant. I’m sure Cristo wants to carve Luca into pieces, but he’s off-limits now that he’s Cat’s fiancé. The man is a prick, but he’d never hurt his sister. Which means his focus has turned entirely on you,” elaborated Tatum.
Tatum was rarely wrong. He wasn’t wrong this time either, but I just couldn’t be bothered every time Cristo had a fit about something. Our rivalry went back years, from the time I’d fucked his girl, Una. Rightly so, he lost his shit. Technically, it wasn’t my fault. They’d been on and off for years. Who could keep track? If she wanted to fuck me, I only assumed they were off.
But the shame rose anyway because I’d fucked her during one of my episodes. I was still learning to manage my energy, and during the occasional setback, someone either got fucked or killed. I shrugged. Guess it was lucky she lived, since she was now Stegan’s woman. Unfortunately, fucking his girl, inadvertently or not, had solidified Cristo’s rage toward me.
“Cristo might talk trash, but he knows better than to touch a hair on my head,” I replied.
I got it. Tatum was only doing his job, but I didn’t need anyone watching my back. I was the protector and enforcer of our family. I took care of them, not the other way around.At least, not for years, and I didn’t want to go back to those days when they took turns watching me.
Alex spoke. “Nicu, you better not antagonize him unnecessarily. At least, not until the worst of his grief blows over. I know you two constantly needle each other, but that man is in a sensitive place right now. He lost his sister to a man he hates, and he lost his closest friend to his biggest rival. This isn’t about beating up a bunch of low-level Popescu soldiers for the sake of riling him up. Simu wasn’t just anyone. He was their consilier.”
I bowed my head in deference to my oldest brother and ?ef.
“Don’t get down on Nicu, Alex,” piped up Luca in my defense. “That little fucker needs to be taught how to shut his mouth. He can’t go around disrespecting a Lupu.”
Both my brows lifted. This was a new development. Until recently, the status quo between Luca and me was to fight. Alex had his own problems with Luca, and Tatum stayed out of it as much as he could, only taking Luca’s side when Alex and I ganged up on him. I always thought it was to play peacekeeper, but it turned out Tatum had known Luca’s secret.
It was a bombshell of a secret. It turned out Luca wasn’t our parents’ biological son. My mother took Luca in after her beloved sister died giving birth to him. True to form, Mama loved Luca like her own. My father, though? Not so much. The man I looked up to as a god had tortured my brother, taking out his insecurity about his infertility on his adopted son. None of this made any difference to Alex or me. Mama made him our brother, and that was enough for us. It had also killed any squabbling between us.
Sebastian asked, “How real is Cristo as a threat if he knows he can’t kill Nicu?”
Alex, who had been the first to suggest bringing our half brother into the family business, liked that Sebastian asked questions. It demonstrated his eagerness to learn about the dynamics within our world. Growing up with an American mother and an intermittent Romanian father, he wasn’t raised to learn the subtleties of our world.
“If Cristo keeps running his mouth, at some point, we will no longer be able to ignore the disrespect. However, I don’t want to have to bring it up with Nelu. He’s only going to defend his son, as the future leader of the Popescu clan. With Luca and Cat’s wedding coming up, we’ve finally settled into a productive working relationship. Despite Simu’s death, tensions are at their lowest point ever. If I approach him about this, it will only come off as an insult.”
My gaze wandered over my apartment, occasionally pausing on different wall hangings and paintings hung throughout the large open space. Although modern, the decoration was the most Romanian-inspired of all my siblings. Looking around, I wondered what Jewel would think. I fully intended to bring her here at some point. The sooner, the better. I wanted to watch her curious eyes alight on different elements in my apartment. Her face had been like an open book the few times she relaxed around me.
I wasn’t worried about Cristo. Scratch that. There was one area he could best me in. He could try to seduce Jewel. He couldn’t win in a physical fight or a shoot-out, but the man was attractive and could turn on that fake-ass charm of his when he needed to. I never understood it, but then again, I wasn’t a woman. And with me accidentally fucking Una, it would be the first thing on his mind.
Alex turned to me with a warning. “Which is why I want you to stay as far away from Cristo as possible. The less you see of each other, the less of a chance you’ll provoke each other.”
