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Lucio grunted and put his phone down just as he turned onto Atlantic Avenue. The huge stainless steel colored sign proclaiming Courthouse and Public Safety was hardly romantic, but romance was simply a means to an end, and I already hadhis agreement. I laughed silently. I hadn’t given him any choice. Lucio ignored the parking restrictions, knowing the car would be recognized by the local cops and ignored, and between us we both bundled Alessandro through the door, and up the stairs.
Judge Nolan’s clerk met us as we approached his chambers, but I barely took in her instructions as we were shown into a small room. Lucio took one look around, noted the single entrance, then positioned himself outside.
Then we were alone.
Alessandro took a few steps away from me and turned his back. “He needs to die.”
The first words out of his mouth weren’t what I was expecting, even if our thoughts aligned. “He does,” I agreed, knowing he meant Rocco. “But I need to know who is loyal to him. The only way to know for sure is to keep him alive for the moment.”
“But surely without him, the Irish would back off?”
“Today, possibly, but I don’t believe for one minute he doesn’t have his own team in place. I need to know who.”
“And you plan to ask him nicely?” His eyebrow quirked.
I chuckled. “Caro mio, I never ask nicely.”
“You probably never ask,” he said and just like that, the humor left his face. I took a step to close the distance between us, but the door opened, and I turned fatalistically at the sound of Nonna’s cane hitting the tiled floor.
“Let me see,” she snapped an order to Gianni and I cringed, but Alessandro turned nervously as well. I shot a grateful glance at my brother, who was clutching a bag I hoped would help.
Nonna was around seventy-eight, but insisted, as she never had a birth certificate to disprove it, that she was five years younger. My father had backtracked her details once to the convent she had been born in, and we were confident of her age, give or take a few months. Not that anyone ever contradicted her. Her gaze took in a nervous Alessandro with his cheap pants,a coffee-stained shirt, and one shoe, and she smiled. Like, honest to fuck, nearly beamed.
“Dario?” Nonna prodded.
I jerked, realizing my lack of manners, and hastened to introduce them. Alessandro knew what he looked like but didn’t lower his gaze. If anything, he raised his chin again and my pants grew tighter. Not that I had suffered from a lack of interest since I’d met him. Nonna turned to Gianni and held out her hand silently for the bag. “Both of you wait outside,” she instructed, and barely hesitating, I obeyed.
Gianni opened his mouth, but I shook my head and grabbed my phone. It was ridiculous texting when we were standing together, but I had no idea who could overhear us. Gianni nodded and quickly messaged me. “No intel on the shooters. 1 dead but think 2 guns.” I nodded but he was already texting again. “He agreed?”
I sighed, then replied. “But b4 he met Nonna.”
His eyes lit up just as the door opened to the judge’s chambers and Cecil Nolan stepped out. I walked over, my hand outstretched. “Thank you.”
He inclined his head and shook my hand. Cecil Nolan was very old school. My father had actually saved his life over twenty years ago outside a courthouse in Staten Island when he’d found out a Mexican cartel had put out a hit on him. They’d had a weird relationship after that. Judge Nolan would never accept money from the family, nor would he ever be persuaded to look the other way, but if he could ever help by altering his schedule to fit us in for something like this, he would. He was also fair. The punishment always fit the crime, and he was very interested in giving young people second and often third chances. He would also advise on purely theoretical scenarios, so long as you treaded very carefully.
I treated him with the same respect my father had.
“Your groom to be?”
“Is getting changed.” I nodded to the room. “My grandmother is helping him.”
“Brave man,” Judge Nolan commented dryly. “I thought you were getting married this afternoon in a formal ceremony?”
“Change of plan.”
“And fiancé, so I understand from what my clerk has told me.” He ushered me into his office, ignoring Gianni other than a brief nod. “You will appreciate my concern.”
“I’m as equally concerned,” I said, knowing the judge wanted to make sure Alessandro wasn’t being forced. “But for his safety.” And my sanity.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “I see. So, you are switching to a formal blessing later perhaps?”
I knew he understood and was glad I didn’t have to answer as the door opened. My breath caught as both Nonna and Alessandro walked in. His head still held high, he had clearly survived whatever Nonna had put him through. I had no idea where Gianni had gotten the pale cream shirt, dove-gray vest with the same purple thread running through it as the pants and while I acknowledged it was perhaps a little loose across Alessandro’s chest, I certainly wasn’t complaining. Fresh-faced and looking so damn young, his damp hair curled in tendrils around his face where he’d obviously tried to wash it. I had no idea how he’d managed in the space of five minutes with no bathroom, but I was in awe anyway, and possibly for the first time, I really looked at him. His slim body I had seen many times now I thought about it, generally disappearing through doors, but I took a moment to appreciate the pale olive skin, the almost jet-black, too-long hair that fell past his shoulders, his clear brown eyes flashing with fire that lit up parts of me I was still trying to tame, and for the first time, I noticed a dusting of freckles across his nose.
I nearly groaned out loud. Good thing the judge had hastened to greet him, and decided unashamedly to grill him to make sure he wasn’t being forced into anything.
I mean, he was, but that was hardly the point, and it was for his own good.
I’d always imagined I would marry a woman, despite not having a sexual preference, because marriage was a political alliance in my world and not often a choice. But Alessandro seemed to almost shine, and he lit up my body in a very unexpected way. The five families would be dumbstruck, and it would show I wasn’t to be intimidated. Understatement. Alessandro walking down the aisle was a delicious fuck you to them all.
