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“And?” Gio asked.
“And?” I snapped. “Seriously? You expect us to hand over one of our girls on a silver platter?”
Gio’s brows rose a bit at that, but a lifetime of knowing the fuck told me he wouldn’t rise to the bait. Very little got a rise out of Gio Morelli.
“No, but I figure that there might be a girl around who might be interested.”
“You can’t be fucking serious,” I said.
“What? Renzo’s a decent enough looking guy. He’s stable. Can provide a good life. There are worse men. Besides, I can see his logic.”
“How?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not just Primo and your sister,” Gio said. “It’s Santi and my sister too,” he reasoned.
I hadn’t thought of that.
The situation had been entirely different.
Lorenzo’s brother needed a bodyguard for his young son. Gio’s half-sister, Alessa, had been the choice for the job. She was the only woman in our Families working in a official capacity, and everyone thought a girl would be the best bet since Santi’s son had just lost his mom.
And, yeah, Santi and Alessa fell in love and got married too.
I guess I’d never seen it as a treaty between our Families, since the Morellis had always been allies.
But to an outsider like Renzo, I guess I could understand what he was getting at.
“Why us? Can’t he go for a D’Onofrio woman instead?” I asked, knowing I was being irrational about this. Especially when I thought I had finally put it all behind me.
“Prolly ‘cause there’s not one old enough right now,” Gio said, shrugging. “Speaking of girls. Hear you got yourself one finally.”
“Avery,” I said.
“A Lombardi.”
“By marriage,” I said, shrugging. “I guess that’s not good enough for Renzo.”
“I’m expecting an invite to the wedding,” Gio said. “So, when the rumors start spreading, what am I saying?” he asked, looking at Lorenzo.
“That everyone is thinking about it,” Lorenzo said.
To that, Gio smirked. “Guess it’s something that you could be thinking about a good, long while,” he said, knowing our game. “Alright. Just wanted to check.”
With that, he was gone.
“Are we?” I asked.
“Are we what?”
“Really thinking about it?” I asked, most of the anger gone, leaving only a sense of helplessness about the whole situation.
“Look, I’m not forcing anyone to do anything. You know that. But if the word gets around in the Family, and someone decides that, yeah, they would be interested in the arrangement, who are we to say no?”
“Who the fuck would be interested in that arrangement?”
“It’s a big Family, Milo,” Lorenzo said. “Cousins, second cousins, kids of former capos. He never said it had to be immediate Family for us. If someone out on the fringes wants what he’s offering, who are we to stop her?”
I guess that was fair.
And, yeah, it was a massive Family. There were people I hadn’t seen in years. Hell, since I was a kid myself. There were just too many of us, and sometimes the connection was slim to begin with, so we never stayed in touch. Who’s to say what kind of lives they were living, how willing they might be to marry someone just to have it easier?
Wasn’t it Avery who’d said something about not blaming her mom for choosing to be with Frank? About how people did what they felt they needed to do to survive, and who were we to judge?
“Alright,” I agreed, exhaling hard. “Any word on the Cosimo shit?”
“Yeah,” he said, surprising me. “Sit. It’s a lot.”
It was.
But that was a story for another time.
Avery - 5 months
“Listen, the curtains are not toys, boys,” I said as Billy and Joel started swatting at them with their adorable freaking paws.
In their defense, these particular curtains had some decorative edging that, yeah, probably did look like a toy to them.
They’d done well with the move into the whole house. You know, save for the curtain thing. And their tendency to knock breakables off of high surfaces.
I’d gotten good at gluing things.
And finding replacements that weren’t so fragile.
Luckily, Emilio was a pretty ‘go with the flow’ kind of guy. And, sure, he liked all the decorating I’d done in the house. But, well, he was a guy. He probably didn’t even notice when a set of porcelain vases were traded out for metal ones.
The living room had a new addition to it. Which is where I picked up and moved Billy and Joel to so they left my drapes alone. They had a pretty, very aesthetic, understated cat tree to play on that led to some also carefully placed hexagonal shelves on the wall that looked like decor, but were just extra play places for the cats to get some energy out.
“There. That’s better,” I told them, looking out the bay window onto the street.
Winter was coming hard and fast, the holidays just around the corner.
I would be lying if I didn’t say I was absolutely childishly excited for it.
