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If only her luck canceled out my bad luck outside of playing games, too.
The back door crashes open, tensing my muscles. Both me and Angelo reach for our guns, our fingers sliding off the grips when we see it’s only Cas who darkens the doorway.
“Seems like there’s been a Christmas miracle,” he says dryly. “Guess what fuckwit just turned up?”
I stare at Tor Visconti through a haze of cigar smoke.
He stares back.
“Can you get food poisoning from mashed potatoes?” I ask Angelo blankly. “Because I must be fucking hallucinating.”
Tor regards the vodka in my fist. Confusion sweeps through his gaze. “Might be the paint stripper you’re drinking. And what happened to your knuckles? You fall over or something?”
“Rafe—”
Ignoring Angelo’s warning, I set the drink down with one hand and swing for his jaw with the other. His head snaps back as a littleoofescapes his lips. He rubs his cheek and looks up at me, a mixture of humor and admiration dancing in his eyes. “Rafe throwing a punch? Fuck, maybe I’m the one who’s hallucinating.”
Behind him, Benny gives me a thumbs up of approval.
“Rather Rafe than Gabe, I suppose.” Tor glances to the cigar room door, as if my brother’s going to burst in at any minute. “You gonna set him on me later?”
“Tell them what you just told me,” Cas says calmly. He sinks into an armchair and rests his forearms on his knees.
Tor takes his sweet-ass time. He reclines in his chair, plucks a cigar from the humidor and holds it up to the dim light. With a nod of approval, he slides it into his top pocket and pins me with a half-lidded stare.
“I’ve been on vacation.”
Beside me, Angelo’s temple vein ticks so loud I can almost hear it. He clears his throat. “You’ve what?” he asks quietly. Calm-before-the-storm quietly.
“Mm. Didn’t want to miss Christmas Day, though. Hey look—I brought gifts.” He grabs a bag from under the chair and sets it on the table. Pulls out three bobblehead figurines in floral shirts, wearing garlands around their necks. “This one’s Rafe, this one’s Angelo, and this is Nico.” He flicks mine so it starts swaying side-to-side, then flashes me a lop-sided grin. “They dance, see? Don’t worry; I’ve got them for all of you.”
I’ve never been in a room of Viscontis so silent. Disbelief consumes me. It feels like the fucking floor is breathing. My stare rakes over him, trying to make sense of it all. He’s got a month-in-the-Maldives tan and is wearing a bright white T-shirt to highlight it. His ink spills out from the collar and the cuffs, and I realize he’s not even wearing a fucking watch.
Nico breaks the silence. “So, just to be clear: when the port exploded, you left the wedding, got on a jet—”
“Believe it or not, I flew commercial,” Tor interrupts. “That was a fucking adventure in itself.”
“—to a different continent, and have spent the last month sipping on margaritas under a palm tree and getting your dick wet?”
Tor rubs at his smirk. “I’m more of a mojito man myself. And I wouldn’t say I got my dickwet.But there was this one girl…” He shakes his head, raking his teeth over his bottom lip. “Fuck, she was something else.”
More silence. This time, it’s the click of a safety catch releasing that interrupts it. At the corner of my eye, Angelo’s Glock winks in the light. “That’s it,” he growls. “Get up.”
My hand flies out and pushes down on the barrel, so he’s aiming at the dancing figurines instead of our cousin’s temple. Tor doesn’t flinch; he just slides his gaze up to mine expectantly. Yeah, seems like he missed the memo about me not being the one that fixes things anymore.
“You better start talking,cugino,” I say, as calmly as I can muster, “because I won’t intervene the next time he raises his gun.”
A few heavy beats pass, thick with tobacco and expectation. Slowly, the smirk falls off his lips, and his reddened jaw hardens.
“I had no idea the cunt was going to do it,” he growls. “You know what he said as I walked out the door to your wedding?” He glances up at Angelo. “Tell the Dip Clan I want peace. Fuck—he really had me fooled. I’d spent the month after you popped a cap in our father trying to reason with him, and I thought he’d finally come round.” His stare darkens on my brother. “I told you from the jump,cugino,I wasn’t going to choose between the two of you. But the moment the port wentboom,I knew I didn’t have a choice anymore.” Falling back against the seat, he rubs absent-mindedly at his jaw. “And I knew my life was going to change forever.”
“So you sat on a sun lounger for four weeks,” Angelo grinds out.
Tor’s indifference doesn’t waiver. “Yeah, I did. I knew I had to choose a side, but I wasn’t going to hang around and watch you kill my brother. So, I got out of your way for a little while.” He runs his tongue over his teeth. Curls his fists on the armrests. “I’m assuming you’ve…taken care of it?”
Angelo cuts me a look; I give him a small shake of my head, signaling not to tell him Dante’s still alive. Fuck, Tor is—was—my best friend. My best business partner and confidant. Maybe it’s because I feel betrayed by his sudden absence, but I’m wary of telling him.
Jerking his chin to show he understands, my brother changes the subject. “How do we know we can trust you?”
