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ChapterOne
Lorenzo
“Maria, turn around. No, the other way.”
“Why?”
“Shh. Can you not use an inside voice to save your life? Laura’s over there.”
I watch my sister do the opposite — of course — of what I ask. She cranes her neck to see the head of the Russian bratva’s wife. She’s standing with a friend and — oh, fuck us — one of her sisters-in-law.
“Put your damn hand down, Maria.”
“They’ve already seen us. It would be rude not to say hello.”
I keep from rolling my eyes, instead turning to Maria’s husband, my brother Marco’s best friend.
“Can’t you control her just once?”
He practically snorts.
“Hi, Maria. Matteo, Lorenzo.”
Laura’s voice couldn’t hold more disdain for my name and Matteo’s if she tried. But she’s warm to Maria. Who wouldn’t be? Despite being a Mafia daughter — we hate the term Mafia princess — Maria is the kindest and sweetest person you’ll ever meet. Unless you’re one of her brothers. Fuck my life.
Maria ignores Laura turning her nose up at Matteo and me, greeting her warmly.
“Hi, Laura. Hi, Christina. You’re Michelle, right? I remember meeting you at Laura and Maks’s wedding reception.”
The woman with the dark honey-brown hair darts her gaze from me to Matteo to Laura before settling on Maria before she nods. She remains quiet when Christina greets us.
“Are you here seeing the new release, too?”
She sounds friendly, but I know she’s trying to determine the threat we present. I’ve already spotted their bodyguards. None of their husbands or cousins-in-law are here, but these guards are the most trusted men the bratva’s Elite Group has. It surprises me that none of their immediate family is guarding them. It raises my hackles and makes me wonder if the men are in the midst of some dastardly plot against us. I am not paranoid. I swear.
“Yeah. It looks so good, and I gotta admit that man is hawt.”
Maria grins over her shoulder at Matteo, who pretends to scowl. She nudges him with her shoulder. She’s the sweetest and kindest person you’ll ever meet, at least to everyone but her brothersandhusband.
Her comment gets a smile from Michelle, but it drops the moment she realizes I’m watching her. I need to stop staring because now Laura and Christina are glaring at me. But this woman is way hotter than I realized when I saw her at Laura and Maksim’s wedding reception — a parade of New York’s wealthiest and most influential, which included all the syndicate families. She was pretty from a distance. Up close, she’s making me wish my jeans were looser.
In a normal world, we might suggest sitting together even though we pre-purchased our tickets and already picked out our seats. I’ve known Maksim and Christina’s husband, Bogdan, since they moved to America nearly twenty years ago. I went to school with them. I’m the same age as one of their brothers, Nikolai, and one of their cousins, Pasha.
But we don’t live in a normal world. We live in one where kids who used to play on the same soccer team then took physics together now carry guns to shoot each other if provoked. Laura says something else, but I miss it. I’m too lost in thought about how much I wish I were anyone else, so I could talk to Michelle. They walk away, and Maria nudges me.
“We’re getting popcorn.”
There’s no offer to see if I want any. I know my sister. She doesn’t share movie theater popcorn. You could lose a finger.
“You mean Matteo is getting you popcorn and sticking to his Thin Mints. I’ll get my own popcorn, thank you very much. Yours has so much butter it’s soggy in five minutes.”
“I know.”
She grins the same way she has since she was a toddler. You can’t not smile along with her. Even Mafiosos like Matteo and me still find it infectious.
“Bambi, be nice to your brother, and maybe he’ll let you have a sip of his Icee.”
Maria rolls her eyes and looks down her nose at me.
