by Lux Miller
Mike’s mouth falls open and his eyes widen. It suddenly registers in my mind what he’s thinking and I gasp. “Mike! With Luca… you thought I was…? With? Ew… he’s like a brother to me!”
His mouth snaps shut suddenly as he shakes his head. Then he gets a completely different kind of concerned look on his face. It’s fatherly and his eyes crinkle at the corners as he narrows them at me. “Wait, what? You had sex with Luca last night?”
I groan, nodding as my entire face burns. I hide my neon face behind my hands and lower my voice so that it can barely be heard and hopefully only by Mike. “Yes. You thought I’d fucked Dante?!?”
Mike shrugs his shoulders and looks away, bouncing his leg nervously. “I… I didn’t know. It wouldn’t be the first time they shared a woman, though last time it was Luca who slept with Dante’s girlfriend and not the other way around.”
Narrowing my eyes at him, I shake my head. “I didn’t sleep with Dante, though. I wouldn’t. Like I said, he’s like a brother to me… wait, what? Luca...with Dante’s girlfriend? You know what, I don’t think I want to know.”
Chucking, Mike shakes his head too. “Sorry, miss. I just assumed that what the guys were saying was true.”
I shiver as I think about what Mike is implying. “The guys? They’re saying I’m sleeping with both? The same guys who assumed I was available to anyone who wanted a ride?”
Mike nods. “Yeah. I told them they were full of shit. That Dante wouldn’t do that to Luca, despite the past. And that you were pretty hung up on Luca. I guess I know better even though the men aren’t convinced. Then with the panic last night, I just… I assumed you’d had sex with Dante and didn’t want to get pregnant.”
Shaking my head, I let a nervous laugh bubble out of my mouth. “Well, you were right about one thing. I don’t want to get pregnant. Not right now. Not when I’ve just realized I’m catching feels, when he’s healing from major trauma, and in general when his father hates me with every fiber of his being…”
Mike sighs softly, “Well, I don’t know much about feels, and while it’s true he’s healing from an attempt on his life, Matteo doesn’t hate you, Emily. I’ve known him over half my life. He’s a proud man, and he doesn’t do well with change, but he doesn’t hate you. He fears you.”
Now I’m giggling as I shake my head quickly. “Now I know you’re lying, Mike. Matteo doesn’t fear me. There’s no reason for him to. He could squash me like a bug or have one of his lackeys do it. I pose no threat to the man.”
Raising one eyebrow, Mike lowers his voice, “You really don’t see how much of a threat you do pose to him, do you? Luca is smitten with you. Matteo thinks that you will stand in Luca’s way of becoming the strong leader that he has raised Luca to become. Right or wrong, Matteo was raised on the mafia ideal that attachments equal weakness.”
I hold one hand up at Mike and he trails off as I do. “Wait… Matteo is married and has at least three kids. Why would he think love is a weakness?”
Mike cuts his eyes at me. “What Matteo and Bianca have is… hard to explain. They care for each other. Matteo would move mountains for her, but I don’t think they love each other. I take that back. I think Bianca loves Matteo and has learned to do so after thirty years of an arranged marriage, but Matteo doesn’t love her. Not for a lack of wanting to, but because he doesn’t know how. He’s too worried that loving anyone will make him vulnerable to attack.”
I nod as I understand his unspoken meaning. “He thinks being vulnerable is the same thing as being weak. That’s such a… sad existence.”
Mike nods slowly, brushing a hand over his chin. “I know. He’s gotten so paranoid, especially with the attacks. He’s always been protective, but lately, it just seems like he’s out of his mind with worry. Bianca and Noemi are under twenty-four hour guard and he barely lets them even leave their home. Noemi has gotten so resentful. But he thinks that the enemy will come after them to paralyze him.”
Worrying my bottom lip between my teeth, I ask softly, “Is he wrong?”
Mike shrugs. “That I can’t answer, but I don’t think whoever is responsible for the attacks is doing it to get to Matteo. I think that whoever is doing this is trying to prevent Luca from coming to power. The first attack. The reason we’re here - it was meant for Luca too. Luca is a powerful man, a dangerous man, and dare I say it, a better leader than his father could ever hope to be.
“If Luca claims the throne of New Orleans, he will be a formidable ruler. Taking him out now would cripple the Barresi family. Matteo and Enzo may officially outrank Luca, but everyone knows Luca is the head of the dragon and has been for a decade. You take out the head and the empire falls…”
I let Mike’s words sink in for several moments before I change the subject. “Could you not… tell anyone about what I bought last night? It was a solution to a problem that came from a bad decision. And Mike…?”
Mike looks down at me, his eyes soft instead of angry as they were before, “Yeah, Miss?”
I laugh, “First of all. Call me Emily. Second of all, you need to know that I…”
My words die in my throat as a scrub-clad nurse appears in the doorway to the waiting room with a clipboard in her hand. She calls out, “Barresi?” Every face in the dimly lit room turns to gape at me and Mike as we stand up and walk over to her. I can feel their eyes boring into my back as she pulls down the mask that covered her nose and mouth and motions for us to follow her.
Mike nudges me along in front of himself as he steps behind me to block most of the lookie-loos from staring. Once we are beyond the double-doors that lead to what I hope is the recovery area of the outpatient area of the hospital, Mike bursts out laughing behind me. This causes the nurse to whip around and stare at both of us incredulously.
I stop moving as the nurse focuses her withering stare on us. I feel like melting into a puddle in the floor as I imagine steam billowing out of her ears. She may not be a decrepit old ninny, but she’s not amused by Mike’s sudden outburst. He calms himself to a low chuckle as I turn around and look at him.
Shrugging, he slaps his knee, “Sorry, but there was a woman out there who was so caught up in staring at you with her mouth hanging open that she didn’t notice her kid whip it out and take a leak on one of the chairs. I told you that the name would draw attention. We should have checked him in under an alias.”
I hold both of my hands up in surrender. “Dante made that decision. He’s as stubborn as his brother and father. And since he’s the boss, there wasn’t much I could do to make him stand down.”
Mike raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean since he’s the boss? Dante isn’t a boss any more than I am. For that matter, truth be told, Dante doesn’t answer to Luca the way I do, either. Luca is my boss, but he’s not Dante’s.”
Shaking my head, I stare at Mike as surprise creeps up over my face. “What do you mean Luca isn’t Dante’s boss? You said he was essentially number three in the family…”
Mike shrugs, lowering his voice. “Now is neither the time nor place to discuss mob politics, but you need to know. Luca will be his boss eventually, but Dante isn’t technically mafia. While I’ve called Luca the heir apparent to the empire, it isn’t something passed down like a crown. It’s earned…”
A shiver slides down my spine as his meaning becomes uncomfortably clear. The nurse leads us to a small cubicle in a row of a dozen and motions us inside. She scolds us for talking and reminds us that people are here recovering from surgery. I nod at her sheepishly as she stomps out of the curtained-off room.
Mike sits on one side of Dante while I sit on the other, a stiff silence between us as Dante snores softly. He’s still sedated, but the nurse advised us he would be coming out of the hazy sleep soon. She warned that he may be groggy and may say things that might be a bit on the unpredictable side, so she wanted us to be present in case he said something sensitive.
The nurse didn’t specify what she meant, but honestly, she didn’t have to. Even
I understood her meaning without expounding upon her simple statement. According to Mike, Dante’s not a part of the crime syndicate and while I assumed he was, he still knows things most people don’t.
I tilt my head to the side as I eye Mike warily. “I guess I should be used to secrets and lies by now. I seem to encounter both more often than the truth. So tell me, how would Dante…” I bookend my final words with air quotes, “...earn it?”
Mike’s eyes widen. He chews his lip and I realize I’ve never seen the man look so nervous before. His entire mood seems off today. At first, I thought it was because he assumed I was bumping uglies with Dante. That air has been cleared and he’s still acting weirdly guarded. I open my mouth to tell him so when a groggy voice causes my stomach to drop.
“I have to kill someone…”
I gasp as my gaze drops immediately to the man laying in the hospital bed between Mike and I. It’s so matter-of-fact that it feels like he’s bullshitting me. His piercing green stare penetrates straight to my soul, and I know in an instant that he’s not joking.
Swallowing, I bring my eyes up slowly to meet Mike’s. He sighs heavily and nods in agreement with Dante. “While it’s slightly more complicated than that, that’s the first step…a hit on a target called by your intended superior.”
I drop my eyes back down to Dante who yawns, then winces as he shifts his right arm, which is encased in enough gauze to rival an Egyptian mummy. I lower my voice and stare at him. “You have to… you will? You already know you’re going to murder someone?”
Dante nods slightly. “I’ve known since I was fifteen what would be expected of me. Luca is against it, for the record. He says that the family business has destroyed the souls of enough Barresi men. That thing that happened the night we met? It was supposed to be me. Luca doesn’t know it, but I was there because I was ordered to be there. My father is not a man to leave things to chance. He always has a plan, a backup plan, and a contingency plan for the backup plan. He’s like a bad gambler who can’t help but put two bullets in the gun for Russian roulette…
“I kinda chickened out. Luca has tried to protect me from the legacy of my birth from the time I could talk. I let him take over when I choked. He’s a good bit older than me, so he had a head start on becoming the prodigal son. Most people think he’s just trying to be better than me, but the truth is, he doesn’t have to try. He just is. And it’s not because he’s good at what he does. He’ll never admit it, but he’s not the bad guy. He’s a good guy with a bad job to keep even badder people under control.
“The family business claimed him when I was ten. He was never a happy-go-lucky kind of person, but he used to be… different. He’d take me fishing. He taught me how to ride a bike. He used to pin me down and fart on my face to get my slice of cake. Father was always busy as my grandfather’s right-hand man… but the night my Pa got pinched, it all changed.
“Our Father became the acting Don since the only way my Pa will leave Angola is in a body bag. Luca became a made man, trading in the rest of his childhood for power. Luca will tell you he set out to make his bones that night, but he’s a fucking liar. Not with what happened. No man would intentionally…”
Dante trails off as Mike makes the most disgusting noise of indignance that I’ve ever heard. My gaze snaps to his, and my eyes widen as he avoids looking at me. Whatever Dante was going to say, it’s clear that he’s certainly not going to do so now. He’s clammed up tighter than a Bayou fishing net. Dante sighs and lifts his arm slowly, “So I hear I’m part bionic now?”
I exhale with a nervous laugh and nod, “From what I hear, yeah. Your hand is more metal than bone now.” An unsettled calm washes over the three of us as it gets eerily quiet. Several minutes tick by on the school lunchroom style clock that’s attached the wall over Dante’s head. Nobody says anything and nobody looks at each other until another nurse pops into the room.
She nods at us, and smiles at Dante. “Well, Mr. Barresi. Since you’re awake, how is your pain level?”
Dante shrugs. “It doesn’t hurt as bad as getting shot by assassin’s bullets, so I guess that’s a positive.” He flashes the nurse a charming grin, and she nods slowly as she writes down his response on her clipboard. “So on a scale of one to ten, one being you feel fine and ten being the most intense pain of your life, where are you right now?”
Smirking, Dante chews on his bottom lip before responding, “Which one will get me your number?”
The young nurse’s face blanches. She’s caught completely off guard by Dante’s advances, and it’s painfully obvious that this fish ain’t biting. She shakes her head. Though she’s unable to keep the blush from creeping up along her neck and finally blooming across her cheeks, she somehow manages to tactfully turn him down before scurrying out of the room. In a not-so-quiet voice, she demands to be relieved of returning to his room.
Dante gives a little shrug as he grumbles, “Just trying to take my dick for a dip before taking care of business.”
I make a gagging noise and cut my eyes at Dante. “Honey, you don’t need to try to seduce a woman that isn’t interested. I’m sure there’s plenty of women who would… you know… do whatever it is you need done.”
Dante smirks at me. If I wasn’t thankfully immune to his charm, he’d probably have me wanting to drop my panties. “I know, but sometimes I want a challenge. Besides, did you see the perky ass on that one? It was screaming about how nicely it would have taken my--”
I lean down over Dante and clamp my hand over his mouth before he can finish his sentence. “Don’t even finish that thought, much less that sentence. You can engage in all the freaky sex you want, just don’t give me details… besides, it’s not like you’re in any condition to be tapping ANY ass, nurse or otherwise… you sir, need to go home and rest that wrist.”
Dante’s eyes flash to mine. “Yes, ma’am. But I need you to take me somewhere first. And before you ask, yes, I mean on the way home. I have some business that I have to attend to tonight…”
NINE
Now that Dante’s sedation and pain medication have largely worn off, he’s not nearly the Chatty Cathy he was before. In fact, Dante is even quieter than Mike was earlier. We’ve been riding in the backseat of one of the family cars for what seems like hours, though I know we just left the hospital few minutes ago. Mike is staring at the road from the driver’s seat, and Dante’s nose is buried in his phone in the back. He’s furiously attempting to text with his left, which is mostly resulting in him inventing new combinations of swear words like twatknocker and fuckfrenzy.
I do my best to stifle the giggle that spills out at the latest creation, but my attempts are in vain. Seeing a grown-ass man like Dante creating a new language because he can’t text is both gut-bustingly funny and heartbreakingly sad. “Dante, what is so important on that phone that it can’t wait?”
Dante huffs and hurls his phone into the front seat. “Nothing.” He flops back against the seat and winces. His wrist is gingerly cradled against his body, so I’m guessing his reaction is to his still-not-quite-fully healed shoulder. It’s mostly healed. He’s able to use it now and has gotten surprisingly fast at swimming laps, but throwing himself back against an immovable object like a two-year-old in a tantrum was probably not the brightest idea.
I nudge him gently and freeze when he turns his cold gaze on me. “What I said earlier. That was—”
I narrow my eyes at him and shake my head before he can really begin his thought. “Dante, don’t. I’m not an idiot. I know it was privileged information, and the last thing I’m going to do is run to the stupid high-society publications. I’m not a girl looking for glory.”
Dante narrows his eyes right back. “I was going to say that it could be misconstrued, but I guess it’s reassuring that you aren’t itching to sell my brother out…”
Groaning, I throw both of my hands in the air and flop back against the unforgiving seat myself. “Y’all have some serious hang-ups about the shit you b
labber about. If you don’t want me knowing, don’t tell me. I haven’t shared any of your secrets with anyone who didn’t already know them. Four months of silence on my end and you’d think I’d earned a little fucking respect.”
I slam my arms across my chest and turn my back to Dante as the car Mike is driving eases into a long, winding driveway in front of a statuesque home I’ve never seen. Manicured gardens surround the looming columns of the French influenced architecture that is obvious throughout New Orleans. The home itself is modernly modest as it stands guard over the picturesque setting.
I may be silently seething inside right now, but the sheer beauty of the building takes my breath away. I press hands to the window as my eyes roam over the grandeur that meets my gaze. I feel like a kid in a candy store that just stares in wonder the first time they see it - like they’ve never seen anything so amazing in their lives.
