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I shove a bite of delicious chicken cooked with artichokes and tomatoes into my mouth and chew with gusto. Not answering him. N. O. T.
Under the cover of the table, Atlas shifts his arm. His hand settles on my knee, but it doesn't stay there. He starts sliding those thick fingers up the inside of my leg.
I squeak.
"Did you meep?" Orion asks.
"Will it offend you if I deck your brother?" I ask Atlas.
"No. I'll hold his arms for you."
"Not necessary." I level an ire filled glance on Orion. "I've taken down bigger men than him."
All three men growl. In unison. Excuse me while I expire from arousal. "You know, I'm not attracted to your brothers, but that growl in stereo? Seriously hot."
"You should never have been put in a situation you had to take a man of any size down." Atlas makes the pronouncement more appropriate for a different era, but his brothers nod in agreement.
All three men look ready to take on my past.
My inner feminist takes a nap and I revel in all this testosterone directed toward my protection.
Atlas doesn't even grumble about my comment regarding the hotness of his brothers. He's too busy looking furious about my past. He knows about Lenny and he hates I was put in the position I was.
I hate it too, especially on the anniversary of my baby's death. But I despise it as much for Lenny. He deserves to be happy and his life in Detroit was a lot of things. Dangerous. Chaotic. Uncertain. Happy was not among them.
"Newsflash, it is the twenty-first century, gentlemen. A woman can take care of herself," I am compelled to say. Even if knowing I don't have to is sweet like honey to my soul.
"Not my woman."
"Your caveman is showing again."
"You mean it ever goes into hiding?" Orion snarks.
Zeus shakes his head, like his brothers are too annoying for words. My father used to do that when Rocco and I were acting up and feeding off each other.
These men are all adults, but the dynamic is so precious, it hurts.
I don't get time to dwell on that heart pain though, not with Atlas's hand moving inexorably higher on my thigh. Another inch and he's going to feel my soaked panties.
I'm regretting my decision to wear the short sweater dress with thigh-highs and no tights. I'm way too accessible to that wandering hand.
"Why a nightclub?" Zeus asks.
Ah, we've reached that part of the evening. The grill-the-new-girlfriend over dinner phase.
"It is what I knew."
"You worked in a nightclub before coming to Portland?" Zeus probes.
I'm adept at avoiding answering questions I don't want to, but there's not harm in answering this one.
"I did the books for the nightclubs my husband and his father ran." Both the ledgers the government saw and the real ones. "I couldn't help learning a lot about the business side of things in the process. When I left, I knew my best chance at making the life I wanted would be running a nightclub."
It wasn't what I wanted, but it was what I knew. The only thing I knew that could make the kind of income I needed to take care of both me and Lenny. Unless I wanted to start my own criminal enterprise and without the support of a syndicate, that option was way too risky.
"Considering how many fail in the first year, you must be good at it." Zeus doesn't sound like he's giving me a compliment. "Do you have silent backers?"
"Not that it's any of your business, but no, I don't. Nuovi Inizi is 100% my responsibility." After paying ahead five years for Lenny's care, I invested the rest of the money I drained from Tino's accounts in the Cayman Islands in Nuovi Inizi.
