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Gus picks up on the second ring. “Yo, Laz.”
“How much time will it take you to make half a dozen packets of fake birth control pills?” I tell him I’ve just sent him a picture, and I wait while he checks it out.
“You want knockoff birth control pills? There’s no profit in those.” Gus makes fake boner pills for a living and sells them on the internet. The man is minted.
“I don’t want knockoffs. I want fakes,” I explain. “All of them sugar pills. Can you do that?”
“Sure, why not. Aren’t you married now? Why is your wife on the pill?”
“Never mind about my wife. Just get me the pills, and fast. And don’t tell my brothers about this.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I hope you’re a daddy real soon.”
I smile as I hang up the phone. Yeah, I hope so, too.
We need to come up with a plan so Mia doesn’t have to marry Drago Lastra or any other man. Maybe this isn’t the sort of plan she’d envision, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
* * *
By Wednesday evening,the fake birth control pills have been taped behind the print in Mia’s room for two days. She’s fertile right this second and the knowledge is making me crazy. I’m itching to get my hands on my girl and fuck her into next week and back.
But do I have the opportunity? No, because here comes my brother with Drago Lastra.
They arrive promptly at eight in the evening, Lastra holding a bouquet of red roses. He’s a tall, somber-looking man with heavy-lidded blue-gray eyes and a suit precisely tailored to his frame. A heavy silver watch glints on his wrist, and he murmurs a polite hello to everyone. He’s been elbow deep in men’s guts while they scream their dying screams, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. Under Giulia’s expensive lights, Lastra looks domesticated.
Almost, but not quite. There’s still something sharklike in those blue-gray eyes, and my hackles are all the way up.
Mia looks stunningly beautiful. She’s been worrying at her lips with her teeth, but her matte red lipstick is perfect, and her long lashes are dark and silky. Her hair is pinned up with a few loose strands falling softly around her face. The short, silky red dress rustles across her skin. It’s got spaghetti straps, and I know, Lastra knows, Faber knows, everyone fucking knows that Mia’s not wearing a bra. The sexy dress clings softly to her body in such a way that she may as well be naked.
“Miss Bianchi,” Lastra murmurs, offering her the red roses while he devours her with his gaze.
I roll my eyes. Roses, what a cliché. I want to smack them out of his hands and throw him out of this house.
Though she doesn’t want to, Giulia is watching her like a hawk, and Mia has to accept the flowers and say a polite word of thanks. The red roses match Mia’s slip dress and lipstick so perfectly I feel like Giulia and Faber coordinated these details over the phone.
While we eat dinner, Faber makes polite conversation with Mia that sets my teeth on edge, but it’s nothing to what Drago Lastra makes me feel every time his gaze latches onto my woman. I’m gripping my cutlery like weapons. Yes, Miaisbeautiful. Congratulations for figuring it out, Lastra. Now stop fucking staring at her.
Giulia talks on and on about Lastra’s homes, his cars, his luxurious lifestyle. He’s been divorced twice but Giulia laughingly waves that off as “clashes of personalities.” I’d put money on the fact that his ex-wives are terrified of him, and they ran from the man as fast as they could.
My wife glosses over his criminal activities and his violence. I haven’t been innocent in that department myself. Who at this table hasn’t beaten someone with their fists, a blunt weapon, a high-heeled shoe? Even Mia’s punched a boy in the face. But Lastra’s violence is on a whole other level. The rumors alone should be enough to make any loving mother stop and think before getting carried away with wedding plans, but apparently Giulia just doesn’t care.
At the end of the evening, Mia looks overwhelmed and confused, but Giulia is beaming.
“Mia and I will show you out, Drago. Come along, Mia.”
Mia gets reluctantly to her feet and follows her mom and Lastra to the front door.
“What do you think of Lastra?” Faber asks me from the other side of the dinner table.
“He’s too old and too dangerous for Mia. She’ll marry that man over my dead body.”
Faber gazes speculatively at me, and I realize he’s picked up on my anger and jealousy. It can’t be hard, seeing as I’m finding it impossible to rein it in.
“My, my. Aren’t you protective all of a sudden. Are those paternal instincts kicking in? Is there some good news you’d like to share with me?”
“Not yet,” I say through my teeth, my anger doubling at the thought of screwing my wife. Not in a million years, and especially not after what I’ve just witnessed tonight, the cold, heartless bitch. “I’m hoping I’ll be able to announce some happy news very soon.”
“See that you do.”
