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I did what I did because I have a rapidly approaching expiration date. But it’s not tomorrow. Or the next day, or even next week or next month. And pretty soon, I’m going to be chained to Dante, for however long I have left.
Suddenly, that sounds way, way more daunting a prospect than it did earlier when I was fueled by bravado and impetuousness.
I swallow weakly as I drag my eyes from my hands up to my brothers’ faces.
“I won’t apologize for what I did, okay? It would be obscene for her to marry Dante.”
Gabriel shoves his fingers through his dark hair. “Neither of us disagrees with you there, Tempest.”
“Well,” I shrug. “Now she’s not. Problem solved.”
“Except you’ve just stepped in front of a bullet.”
“Yeah, well…” I chew on my lip and look down again. “After it’s official, I’m sure you two can find a way for me to…you know…”
Alistair laughs coldly. “To what, Tempest? This is mafiaoathshit!” he hisses. “What, you think Gabriel and I can haggle better terms, or add provisions to the contract?”
I smile weakly. “I mean, you…can, right?”
When they’re both deadly silent, my heart plummets.
“Guys—”
“Tempest, we’re not talking marital law or alimony here. In fact, we’re not talkinglawat all,” Gabriel mutters. “This is above and beyond that. A blood marker isfinal. Period. Full stop. Do not pass go, andfuckcollecting your two hundred dollars.”
My skin prickles as a cold sensation slithers down my spine.
“You just sold your soul to the devil, Tempest,” Alistair murmurs darkly. “And there is nothing that Gabriel, or I, or you, oranyone elseon God’s green Earth can do to stop that now.”
6
DANTE
“So, you get agoomar. Easy.”
I groan, shaking my head as Vito chuckles. Lying in the pool lounger next to mine, he grins around his cigar as he deftly lights a wooden match and brings it to the finely cut tip. The cherry catches and glows orange before he drops the match into the ashtray perched on the side table next to him, beside his glass of Fernet Branca. Then he leans back in his lounger to gaze out over the pool and at my back garden.
Vito, aka Don Vito Barone, head of the Barone mafia organization, was always like a second father to me. Well, more like a fun uncle in the beginning, I suppose. But when my real father and mother died when I was barely fifteen, Claudia sixteen, and Bianca only two, that fun uncle very muchdidbecome a father to all three of us.
Vito took us in and raised us right alongside his two blood sons, Carmine and Nico. He gave us all a good life and used his influence—and his wealth—to get Claudia and I into Knightsblood University, and Bianca into the School ofAmerican Ballet at Lincoln Center when it was clear that she was a very talented dancer.
I grew up fucking around with Carmy and Nico whenever my dad dragged me along to the Barone house when he was doing work as Vito’s personal tailor. Given Don Barone’s sense of style and love of fashion, my father was over alot. So it never felt odd after my father’s death when Carmy and Nico went from being my friends to me and my sisters’ unofficial brothers.
When it…happened…they mourned Claudia and wanted vengeance for her death as if she were their own flesh and blood. I know they’d give their lives to protect Bianca just the same. So would Vito, without flinching.
“Seriously, agoomar. That’s your solution to this bullshit.”
Vito grins as he puffs on the Cuban. I glance over at him and resist the urge to chuckle at the sixty-five-year-old man in the tiny black speedo sprawled next to me.
The older Barone is a tanning junkie, even if Carmine, Nico, Bianca, and I have all tried to impress upon him the concept of skin cancer. Whenever we do, though, Vito just starts waxing eloquent about the glory of Rome and superior Italian genes.
For years, Vito was quite happy sunning himself on the oversized patio of his luxury midtown penthouse—with orwithouta comically small speedo like the one he’s currently wearing. That is, until New York continued to grow around him, and his newer neighbors started to complain about the naked Italian guy sipping Montepulciano and bronzing his ballsack for them all to see.
Apparently, even highly connected and lethally dangerous mafia dons bow to the pressures of multi-million-dollar co-op boards. Who knew.
Anyway, Vito’s go-to spot for sunning himself these days is my pool.
…I’ve made the speedo mandatory.
