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“They are using you, sorellina.” He points to Nico and Bash. “Don’t you see that? You can’t trust them. Don’t you think it’s weird they’re suddenly being nice to you when they find out you’re about to be the queen of the goddam Triad! They tried to kidnap you!” His pitch increases, yelling by the end of the sentence.
Nico doesn’t give me a chance to reply. He’s back to swinging. Dom strikes him back, and they fall on the floor, taking a vase and a painting with them. Dom gets on top of him, getting a good hit in before Nico swings pounds into Dom’s face. Bash and Tony pull Nico off of my brother.
“You’re dead!” Dom screams, pointing at Nico as Tony pushes him back. “Fucking dead! Do you have any idea what the fuck you’ve just done? Of course you do!”
“What exactly do you think I did?” Nico taunts.
“You claimed her, you fucking idiot. She wasn’t yours to take!” Dom screams, Tony still pushing him back.
“Are you fucking kidding me!” I yell, hearing enough of his sexist bullshit. “It’s the twenty-first century! I’m an adult, I can do whatever I want—”
“That’s not what I mean, and no,youcan’t, Anya! How do you not get it?” he asks me incredulously.
“Why don’t you enlighten me, then?” I throw my arms up, exasperated by my idiot brother.
“When you decided you were going to take the Triad back, your life was no longer your own. You have a duty now. You’re going to be the leader of the Triad, Anya. You can’t justbewith whoever you want. This isn’t some fairy tale fantasy and”—Dom points at Nico, always with the pointing—“heknew that. He knew better!”
“What are you going on about?”
Now I’m confused.
“Where are your loyalties now, Anya? Where’s your allegiance? To the Outfit? To the Triad? Or to the Cosa Nostra? To him? To the Triad, he’s a fucking outsider,” Dom asks.
I flinch back like he had just slapped me. I wasn’t expecting that.
He had a point. I’d never even thought about how this might affect the Triad if I succeed in taking over. Or how it would affect my relationship with the Outfit. The Outfit and the Cosa Nostra are at peace at the moment, but that could change at the drop of a hat. Nico and I aren’t married. Neither of us are obligated to choose the other. There is no alliance between any of our houses.
Dom thinks I’ve betrayed him.
Nico
I could see the wheels spinning. She doesn’t know the answer. Fuck, I can tell she’s fighting back tears. We’d really have to work on that if she was going to become the next leader of the Triad. Don’t get me wrong, she can cry to me all she wants, even if it breaks my heart, but she can’t do this in public. Not as a boss. Not in our world. She didn’t strike me as a crier, but I’m guessing it’s different when it comes to her brother.
“That’s what I thought,” Dominic says, taking a breath before looking straight at me. “You had no right to take that from her.”
“Don’t you dare question my loyalty, Dom,” she says firmly.
I can tell what he said hit a nerve.
“Think about it,” Dominic utters as he storms off back upstairs.
After a few hours of cooling off, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in this office with Dominic fucking Violante. I’d just spent a majority of that time trying to rein Anya and her overthinking in, so there wasn’t actually any calming down on my end.
I get it. She values her brother’s opinion highly, much to my dismay, and she’s never fought with him before. She doesn’t want to have to choose. I don’t want that for her, either. Selfishly, I hope she isn’t second guessing us. I left her in our room once she tired herself out and fell asleep. I hear the door click, and it breaks my train of thought.
Dominic walks in, looking as annoying as ever. I want to gut the fucker, but I can’t; that would just hurt her more. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
I get up from Bash’s chair and gesture to the seat in front of me for Dominic to sit. I walk over to the bar cart and pour us both a glass of whiskey. I walk back over, whiskey bottle in hand, and place our glasses on the desk before taking a seat. We sit in silence for a moment. Only when both of our glasses are empty Dominic opens his mouth.
“You can’t have her,” he says simply, as if his word was God.
Who does this fucker think he is? He’s not capo yet, and he sure as fuck isn’tmycapo. I don’t reply right away. I pour us both another glass and take a sip, savoring the taste.
“That’s not up to you,” I tell him.
“She’s not your whore. Now you’ve gone and fucking ruined her.” I roll my eyes at his statement. Fuck, it’s going to be hard not to take another swing at him.
“I know she’s not a whore. I respect and admire her greatly. The only person in this room that’s degraded her today is you.”
