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Theo sighs. “Guys, c’mon.”
“Nothing, Boss.” Tizio, head of the enforcers, says with the kind of smooth touch most would declare case fucking closed.
The De Luca family aren’t most.
Theo’s shaved off his beard, but the curated stubble says it’s coming back. I’ve heard rumor his beard makes him scarier. I disagree, he just is scary, no matter what.
We’re all deadly. The three of us, Christian, Theo, and, of course, the head honcho himself, Leo. I’m fucking deadly, like I say, but I wouldn’t get in a fight with any of those three.
If anything hits anything with what we’re messing with behind their backs, poking into things, following leads—we just might face the brunt of their ire. Even if we’re doing it for them.
Still . . . Theo’s instincts have kicked in. “Is there a fuckin’ difference between me not needing to know and simply not wanting but probably should?”
“Hoping it’s the first.” I run a hand over my close-shaved beard and ignore the bite of anger in Tizio’s look.
He’s just generally pissed since his friend got caught up in something. It’s a don’t ask until you’re told situation.
Theo takes us all in, then nods, settling on Nicolo. “Got anything to do with your pretty birdy?”
“Deniable plausibility,” Nicolo says. “Boss.”
Theo sighs. “My fuckin’ Snowflake, love of my life who’s about to fuckin’ give birth to my second kid, is a scary creature made of hormone. She’s worried about her new friend, one Avah, so I said I’d checkup since I needed to work.”
I pull on the chain around my neck, a habit when I’m uneasy, and that unease has squat to do with his words.
Everything to do with a dark-haired beauty I barely remember.
Shit.
“See, this is the thing.” Theo drops his voice like the dead have ears. “I didn’t need to be here. You three can do this shit in your sleep. You’re family. Maybe not De Luca by name or blood, but you three are De Lucas all the same. We know it. You know it deep down. Heart and soul. So, why the fuck am I here?”
Tizio has already discreetly called our cleaning crew to take care of the aftermath. So, we wait, and I kinda get the feeling under the low-level ire, Theo’s glad to be away from hormones for a moment.
He protects Blake with his life.
A man would have to have a death wish to think of harming her.
Same with Mia. Same with Scarlett. Same with Avah.
Those who’ve made that mistake.
Never lived to tell any fucking tale.
But family warms something in me, whether I want it warmed or not. This is, for me, a good place to belong. With these people.
And I don’t want anything warmed because something at the very back of me, right at my subconscious, it fucking isn’t okay with the missing girls. Or the crews that keep popping up.
Still, we don’t need to work with certain factions.
For us, we have options, some more convoluted than others, but options are options.
It’s just . . . if the wrong skirmish starts and we had the wrong fucking end, skirmishes can lead to war real fast, and De Luca painted the villain of the piece.
We don’t want that.
None of us do.
“Selling drugs to kids,” Tizio says. “A De Luca always has words.”
