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“Where are the kids?” I take a seat in front of the desk.
They both turn to me with eerily similar grins.
“We dumped them with Toph and Kat for the night. Or a few nights, but they don’t know that yet,” Daniella informs me, mischief shining in her blue eyes.
I shrug. “Toph can handle them.”
“How did it go?” Christian asks curiously.
“Fine.”
Daniella rolls her eyes. “You can talk about it. Four years of marriage and you’re still trying to keep shit from me.”
“Because it doesn’t concern you,tesoro,” Christian tells her, his voice silky smooth and soft in the way it only ever is with his wife.
Sometimes it’s hard to think that he’s still the same man I knew four years ago. He’s changed so much, and in a good way. Every smile, every look at his wife humanizes him more, very much unlike how he used to be. I’m glad—one of us should be able to live with their soul intact. Christian’s family saved him. Dany gave him a reason to live that wasn’t tied to his responsibility to the family.
“Stop saying it doesn’t concern me,” Dany says, agitated. “I am your wife. It’s as much my family business as it is yours.”
“You have absolutely no business calling the family business your business,” Christian retorts, his voice rising slightly.
Dany has always been the only person that could rile him up, make him lose his edge. His kids manage to do so on occasion, as well.
“That doesn’t make any sense!”
I interrupt before the argument can progress. “Are we going to talk about the Bianchis or not?”
They both turn to me, and Daniella’s eyes immediately brighten at a chance to be involved.
“The Bianchis? The family that owns at least a quarter of the buildings in Manhattan?” she asks.
Christian shoots me a scowl.
“We were going to have to tell her eventually. You’re taking her to the anniversary party, right?”
“Still,” Christian murmurs, turning to his wife, who is waiting to be brought into the conversation. He sighs. “We’re going to the annual Bianchi party in three weeks.”
“That sounds fun. Why are we going? You’ve never shown an interest before,” she states.
“Mr. Bianchi and our father used to be close when he was alive. But after he died, I never really had any interest in keeping up the relationship.”
“Until now,” Daniella says, her blue eyes inquisitive. “You want something from him, don’t you?”
I smile. Christian groans.
“More like need,” he mutters.
“Our new base of operations,” I tell her. “We need a building large enough to house the new casino we’re planning to open, with a big enough basement where we could conduct our more… unsavory activities.”
Daniella rolls her eyes. “And Bianchi has that?”
Christian replies, “Like you said, he controls a quarter of the buildings in Manhattan. He has a building in Bayside that would be ideal for what we’ve got planned, in a neighborhood that would bring in a lot of traffic.”
“If he was close to your dad, he should be willing to sell the building to you, right?”
“One would think,” Christian says darkly.
“We met up with Bianchi a week ago and asked to buy it. But the old man’s dead set on giving the building to his future son-in-law, instead. According to him, the building has a lot of sentimental value.”
