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"Which is?"
"That you support my wedding and the consolidation with the other families that I am aiming for."
"But that’s not the only reason you are marrying her, is it?"
Luca and I exchange glances. Massimo has always been quick on the uptake. If it weren’t for the fact that he’s too smart a lawyer and very good at what he does, which is to ensure that my men don’t land in prison, I’d have him more involved in the strategizing and planning of our operations.
It helps that our parents had sent all seven of us—including Seb and Adrian—to the US to receive top-class education. It’s what came of having a mother who was American. Although, the way she’d taken to the Mafia way of life, and subsumed herself in the old ways, you’d often forget that she was Texan by birth.
"Well?" Massimo scowls, "What’s behind this sudden rush to marry? What kind of alliance are you actually seeking through it?"
"It’s something Luca and I talked over before you got here."
"Good thing, then, that I got in here before you spilled all your secrets." A new voice interrupts me. I turn to watch Adrian my half-brother, and only one of the two other people outside of my immediate family whom I trust, walk in. "What did I miss?"
"Nothing," I murmur. "Now, all that’s needed is for Sebastian-asshole-Sovrano to join us and—"
"Someone mention my name?" Seb walks into the room and I groan. I walk over to the bar, seize the whiskey bottle and top up my glass.
"Drinking alone,stronzo?" Seb prowls over to the bar. He bypasses the bottle on the counter, to walk around to the other side. Then, he bends down, and when he straightens, he holds a bottle of only my most expensive whiskey. He opens it, then snatches a glass and is about to pour when I caution him.
"That will cost you,testa di cazzo," I growl.
"Why? Aren’t celebrations in order?" He smirks, "I am just getting started, is all."
Of course, he'd overheard our previous conversation.
"Eavesdropping again,fratellastro?"I address him by the Italian word for stepbrother, hoping it will irk him, but this time, he doesn't take the bait.
"The door was open, fratellastro."He smirks.
"Why are you here anyway?" I glower at him.
"Family meeting." He glances around the space, "Surely, you didn’t think I would stay away."
"You weren’t invited."
"I am here now, aren’t I?" He pours liquor into a tumbler, then grabs five more and places them on the table. He proceeds to top them up. With my whiskey. Mine.
A growl rumbles up my chest.
He fills up the glasses, then glances around the assembled faces. "What, no one joining in the festivities?"
Next to me, Luca shifts restlessly. "Seb…" he warns, but I throw up a hand.
"No, let him be. He’s right, after all."
"He is?" Luca glances between us, his gaze wary. Seb and I don’t agree on much. It’s not only because he is the closest in age to me, older than even Luca, while being my stepbrother. My father had had a mistress, a woman much younger than him who had borne him two sons. When she had died in an accident, he had brought Seb and Adrian over to our house. Seb had been five, and Adrian only three when my father had asked my mother to take them in and take care of them. She hadn't refused. Whatever her thoughts were about the situation, she had kept them to herself. But she’d had a big heart, and not once, had she allowed Seb or Adrian to feel like they weren't her own sons. But while Adrian had bonded with us instantly, Seb is...one of us and yet, he isn’t. Maybe because he was older than Adrian when he joined us, so it was more difficult for him to adjust to living with us. Or perhaps, he is conscious of the fact that he grew up dependent on us. And then there's the fact that he is my father's bastard son, which means my father will never accept him as the next Don. Something he resents, even as he acknowledges that he couldn’t have survived without us.
"You are part of the family, Seb," I murmur. "You always have been."
"Just not good enough to ever have a chance at becoming the Don, though?"
"There is only one Capo," I lower my voice to a hush, "and that’s me."
He raises his glass. "To the wedding of the one and only Capo," he says in a voice which sounds sincere.Testa di cazzo!Not that he means it.
I move forward and tip some of the alcohol into my glass. The others crowd around the bar as each of them reaches for their own glass and raises it.
