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“Blue is gross. I only like cherry.”
Bambi. Matteo used to call her that when we were all kids. It’s short for bambina. He stopped calling her that when she beat him at the fifty-yard dash, and all the guys laughed at him. Now that they’re together, he calls her that all the time. It’s sweet. As I watch Michelle glance back at us, I can’t help but wonder what I would call her if I had the chance.
We follow the women and their guards into the theater. Of course, we all wind up sitting in the top row. That way we have a wall at our backs. But we’re at opposite sides. None of us knew the other would be here. We naturally put space between us and anyone else. Now I understand why I couldn’t buy out the row. Gauging from Christina’s expression, she’s thinking the same thing. We must have bought our tickets at the same time.
The previews are running, and I notice Michelle get up. She tries to signal a guard to stay, but the man just follows her. Maks would kill the man — literally — if he didn’t stay with the woman. But it doesn’t stop me.
“I’m going to run to the restroom really fast.”
I lean over and whisper to Maria. It’s no accident that she sits between Matteo and me. I close my recliner and hurry down the steps. I leave the theater on the opposite side from Michelle. She doesn’t notice me as she heads to the restroom. I figure we still have about ten minutes before the movie starts. I nod to her guard, Mikhail. He narrows his eyes at me. Whatever. I beat the shit out of him a month ago when he tried to lift some product at a drop off that didn’t involve the Russians. He wasn’t as smooth as he thought, slipping in among some Canadians.
I duck into the restroom, and time it so I come out just as Michelle does. The way the restroom entrances face each, she can’t help but see me. I smile at her, and she blinks one too many times before she returns the smile.
“Hi.”
I keep the greeting soft, knowing Mikhail is trying to inch closer.
“Hi. You’re Lorenzo, right?”
“Yeah.”
She remembers me. Why does that please me so damn much?
“You’re Carmine’s cousin.”
Fuck me.
“Yeah.”
She just nods. Carmine was the black sheep of our family for years. I couldn’t stand him. It never came to blows because our parents would have killed us, but I loathed him. Secrets I never imagined came out when he started dating his wife. Shit I didn’t know about our shared grandfather and his paternal grandfather. It explained so, so much about why he acted the way he did. But before that, he did some fucked-up shit. He always put our family first, but it often made things way worse. And way worse included Laura and Christina’s other sister-in-law, Anastasia.
“He helped Katerina’s sister.”
“He did.”
Maybe she doesn’t think Carmine is the devil, and I’m not entirely guilty by association. Maksim and Bogdan have another cousin, Misha, who married a Russian woman. When some men with a death wish kidnapped Maria, they took the sister of Misha’s girlfriend as well. Carmine saw her when we freed Maria, and was relentless in helping Katerina’s sister even after Maria was safe. It was the first time we realized his heart wasn’t pitch black. It was just seriously bruised.
That family has as many tentacles as an octopus. Maksim, Aleksei, Nikolai, and Bogdan Kutsenko are all brothers. They have two cousins, Anton and Pasha Kutsenko, from one side of the family and Sergei and Misha Andreyev from the other side. I remember Anton danced with Michelle twice at the wedding. I remember thinking he was a lucky man. I remember wondering if they were going home together that night. But she left with Laura’s sister.
I’m trying to come up with something to say since I approached her. I’m usually not at a loss for words. But I’m like a teenager who can’t string a sentence together because he’s too busy drooling over the hot girl in class.
“I know Gabriele’s wife, Sinead, went to law school with Laura. Were you in the same class?”
I don’t know why that came to mind. But I guess it’s better than standing here with a blank expression.
“Yes. Sinead and I both pursued criminal law while Laura chose corporate law. But I had an opportunity to shift, so I took it.”
“Shift?”
“Yes. I spent a year as an ADA. I hated it. Maybe if I lived somewhere other than New York, it would have been fine. I spent another year as a criminal defense attorney and didn’t like it any more than that. I got a lot of guilty people off. My conscience couldn’t take it.”
Her eyes widen as she realizes what she said. She knows who I am just like she must know who Maks is. She’s come to terms with her best friend being married to the head of one of the most powerful syndicates in the world. I don’t know who she represented, but Maks’s family and mine are exactly the type of people who are guilty as sin, but nothing sticks to us. Go figure.
“So you chose to go the corporate route?”
“Sort of. Philanthropic. I represent non-profits. Mostly charities.”
“Charities get sued?”
