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My stomach drops to the ground as I enter the foyer. The familiarity is no longer a solace, it’s a pain of what I thought I had. A pain for the little girl who was lied to. My eyes shoot up the grand stairs and I wince.
“The pope has blessed the house and we got it cleaned for you. I know you don’t want it, but it’s yours.” I ignore him and make my way through the hallway and to the family room, where I hear chatting.
It pauses when I stop at the threshold, and all of a sudden I’m a child again, looking up to my aunts and uncles like they’re my superheroes. This could go one or two ways. They could hate me, kill me, or they could take me in and guide me. I don’t know which is worse.
“Bubba.” My aunty, Gio’s mama, pulls me into a gentle embrace, kissing the top of my head. She was closest to Mama. Always around, cooking and baking together.
I squeeze her back and go through each of them before finally taking a seat on the lounge in the center of the room. The veryone Mama used to sit on. “I’m sorry for what happened and how it was handled.” I place my hands on my lap, straightening my shoulders. “Unfortunately, he didn’t give us much choice and managed to ruffle the feathers of the Bratva, there was no way around taking him off them.” No one speaks, and I go around the room, meeting all of their eyes. My uncles are old school. When I say old school, I mean in every single way.
“You are to take over now, Ruby Rose. There’s no getting around the fact, you know that, right?” My uncle ends in Italian. I knew this was coming, and in the back of my mind, I think I knew there was no way I could escape it. I don’t have the luxury of choices. I have the luxury of death, murder, crime, and the family I have around me.
“I understand, yes.”
“Good,” Uncle Tommy says, leaning back against the leather chair and resting his ankle on his knee. “You know there’s no escaping, baby girl, and we love you. We are your family. We do not claim Victor’s choices nor did we know what he was doing. We thought you were his child.”
My aunty sniffles, wiping her nose. “Your mama would kill him herself.”
“What do you need me to do?” I ask them all, looking around the room. “I think I have a few soldiers still on, but I will need to source one I can trust implicitly like I did Val—”
“—fucking Russian.”
I ignore his stab at my best friend.
Gio enters farther into the room, sitting on the armrest of my chair protectively. “We will get that handled. You need to bring your family back here and take back that throne before the vultures slither in.”
“We know you can do this, Ruby Rose. You are far better than Victor was. You gained respect on the streets, respect you worked to get just by being yourself.” Uncle Tommy stands,buttoning up his jacket. I gaze around the room at the rest of my uncles and aunties, the commissioner who nods in agreement.
He speaks. “This is agreed upon within the commission too, Lala.” They all share the same somber expression, but they’re right. I can take this. If anything, I want to just to slap it on Victor’s rotting corpse that I can.
“Okay. I will do that.” I watch as they all leave, except Gio, who is staying behind until we have men stationed back on the property. Walking toward the fireplace, I toss in a few pieces of wood and kindling, taking the matches off the mantle and striking up the flame before flicking it in.
“I need answers on Mama, Gio. It doesn’t make sense why someone would kill her. I know Victor was a monster, but he didn’t do this. I know it. Everyone knows it.”
He comes up behind me, holding a freshly poured glass of tequila. I smile up at him, taking a sip of the honey liquid of Don Julio.
“What about Skully? We don’t know much on him, so I have a few people working on tracking him down. No one can hide that well.”
Turning around, I take a seat on the mantel just as my phone vibrates between my boobs. “Shit.”
“Answer it. May as well rip off the Band-Aid now.”
I swipe the arrow across my phone. “I know.”
“Ruby, I’m going to fucking kill you if you ever pull that shit again.”
“Sorry.” I wince. “I got a text from Gio, Wicked, and you know—”
He breathes out a deep breath, and guilt takes hold of me. I should have probably texted him when I got here. “I know. What happened?”
“Looks like we’re moving in here.”
“Mmm. Figured as much.”
“Blood in—” I stare off in the distance. “Blood out.”
Wicked is silent for a few seconds. “Baby, this is probably a good thing. I know you’re not feeling that right now, but you should take back the power he tried to steal from you.”
“I know,” I answer, looking up at Gio. “They got the house cleaned and soldiers are being transferred here as we speak. I’ve got a lot of work on my shoulders, so I’m going to have to spend the next few days trying to find a nanny since I always had Mama.” I hold my breath. “Are you going to move in too?” Wicked and I have never defined anything with our relationship, mainly because neither of us has had to. We simply existed inside one another whenever the other was around, as if no time had passed.
