Family Treed

by Pauline Baird Jones

  Only his dad hadn’t said much about Nell. Alex had thought that was good. Now he wasn’t so sure. His family had long experience with bad dudes. He got it. They were worried. Only they didn’t know Nell.

  Neither do you.

  Okay, so he didn’t know her know her, but she’d grown up in Wyoming, not a Mafia princess. And they weren’t engaged or anything. He liked her. Liked spending time with her. Liked kissing her. Wasn’t ready for more.

  What if she wants more?

  He mentally shrugged that question away.

  What if you want more?

  That was harder to shrug away. The way she attracted kids was a bit crazy, but seeing each other was a long way from having kids together, something he’d managed to avoid with his first wife. No question her relatives were a big tick in the negative column, but other than trying to kill her a couple of times, they’d not seemed that interested. Was this dinner a sign that change was coming? And if it was, why? Curiosity or something more? He glanced over at Nell, wondering how she felt about it. But she had her back to him, her head tilted back a bit as she listened to Calvino flap his jaws. She’d said she didn’t need family bad enough to get mixed up with Family. But it must be a little tempting. Since her parents’ death, all she’d had was Sarah.

  Family. He knew all about family. He had a big one. They annoyed him, but he’d give his life for any of them.

  Commit a crime for them?

  That question was harder to answer. He’d have thought—no. But he’d learned some things since Nell exploded into his life. His family had a few secrets that Alex had realized he didn’t want to examine too closely. Granted Nell didn’t have the history with this bunch that he did with his family. Did she have the need? Stupid question. Of course she did. Who didn’t need family?

  She shifted, giving him a look at her profile. She’d managed to get up to speed on her poker face in a short time.

  Maybe it came natural.

  “That’s some seriously bad blood,” his siblings had all managed to say or imply about Nell. The blood might be bad, but the packaging was nice. He’d thought her ordinary the first time they met. Until she smiled. Maybe that’s when he stopped thinking. Or he’d matured. He found her quiet charm, the hint of mischief in her eyes, and her sense of humor a real turn on. Maybe he had matured.

  There was another reason she was hard to walk away from. If he left, this bunch would eat Nell alive. The lamb among the wolves. Silent, subdued by their surroundings and the bad guys, she looked like glass about to shatter.

  You’ve underestimated her before.

  She was a lot tougher than she looked.

  What else did she hide that well?

  He knew the facts of her life. His family had made sure of that. It all appeared straightforward, but what if it wasn’t? Just how far could he trust her? He knew he couldn’t trust them. Her family had already cost his family Uncle Charlie. How far was he willing to go for Nell? How much was he willing to risk for a woman he’d known for a couple of months? It wasn’t like he was in love with her or anything. He liked her, that was all.

  You sure about that?

  “You look like—” the old geezer’s voice was thin and cold, his accent heavier than Junior’s.

  “My grandmother,” Nell cut in, her voice polite, but chilly. “I’ve heard it mentioned a few times.”

  Aleksi smiled with what might be real amusement. “You must forgive an old man for seeing ghosts.”

  There were more than ghosts thickening the atmosphere. Nell smiled politely at the old man, but she didn’t look that forgiving. Because Alex knew how warm her smile could be, this one chilled him. Gave him a picture into what she could have been had she been raised a Mafia princess.

  What she was now?

  Aleksi’s gaze traveled to Nell’s hands, lingered there for too long. Did the old goat know she had St. Cyr’s ring?

  The old man finally broke the tense silence. “Dimitri, you have not offered our other guest a drink.”

  Apparently this was permission for the groups to merge. Normally he wouldn’t have minded the attention from two beautiful women. His life hadn’t been normal since Nell knocked him down.

  Dimitri arched a brow at Alex when he was close enough. “What can I get for you?”

  Evidence that will stand up in court? “Same as Nell, thanks.”

  “Religious scruples?” Mirabelle asked it lightly. “Or are you afraid to drink with us, cousin?”

  “My parents were killed by a drunk driver.” Nell’s tone was carefully cleansed of emotion and tone, but her gaze held Mirabelle’s for at least a twenty count. Mirabelle looked away first.

  Score one for the ex-librarian. Or mafia princess wannabe?

  The wise geezer’s gaze shifted Alex’s direction. “You’re—”

  “Alex Baker,” he said, bracing for some kind of reaction. Was that the real reason he’d come? As a stand in for Uncle Charlie? Was that why his dad had given him the, “I hope you know what you’re doing” look?

  The old man’s mouth widened in what might have been a smile. Alex took the chilled bottle of water from Dimitri, glad the top was still sealed. Almost his lips twitched as he recalled meeting his ex’s family for the first time. Seemed it was always a risky business. Not that he was meeting this family for the same reason.

  Nell’s gaze started to track his way.

  “Do you like my house?”

  She blinked, then looked at the old man. A short pause, then said politely, “It’s very grand.”

  “I heard you grew up in a log cabin or something.” Mirabelle gave her a bright, fake smile.

  Nell took her time responding. She’d have been good in an interrogation room. Or running a crime empire?

  “Or something.”

  The old man snorted. Bitchy exchanges were probably his mother’s milk. A hint of color warmed the sharp, cold lines of Mirabelle’s cheekbones.

  Before the silence could turn even more uncomfortable, a burly guy in an ill-fitting white jacket and a loosened tie appeared at the other end of the room and cleared his throat. “It’s ready, boss.”

  Alex hoped the food tasted less fancy than it smelled. And that his siblings didn’t turn out to be right. He hated it when they were right.

  The dining room was like something out of a bad comedy—without the funny part. Nell sensed there’d been some reshuffling in the seating. Even if Sarah had come, it wouldn’t have been boy-girl-boy-girl unless another guy had been expected. Nell didn’t feel bad at upsetting the seating. Sarah wouldn’t have liked the girl cousins and wouldn’t have been afraid to show it. The cousins probably had a hitman on speed dial.

  The two Afoniki’s, not unnaturally, sat at the head and foot. Nell expected to be seated next to the old man, or away from both of them, but that’s not where Dimitri steered her before taking his own seat. Instead she found herself sort of across from Cinzia and to the right of Dimitri. Alex got the seat next to the old man, but he didn’t feel close to her, even though he was on her side of the table. Was the distance physical or something more? The look in his eyes when he’d met the old man made her wonder why he’d really come here tonight. Was this more about Uncle Charlie than her? They hadn’t been dating long enough to know.

  Unbidden words from her dad bubbled up from the past, the most cynical words she’d ever heard him utter. “Everyone has an agenda, sweetie. Not a big deal, unless their agenda rolls over yours.”

  When she’d been separated from Alex, when they’d steered to the bar, she’d felt adrift in a cold sea and had had to resist mentally latching onto Guido. Didn’t seem smart to trust him without knowing his agenda. But—did she convict them all of being bad? Her dad and mom had been raised knee deep in crime and had managed to be honest citizens. Other than lying about who they were for thirty years. Sharp longing for what she’d had made her heart clench. Sarah was great, but she missed family, missed belonging, missed the innocence of not knowing her parents had b
een wise kids. Finding out all the crap had felt like she lost them again. Was it possible to find—not that because it was gone forever, but a sense of family again?

  She’d looked into Ellie’s family, hoping for normal there. Not a huge shock that her grandma’s parents had died about six months before she disappeared. Had the noxious Antonio held her family hostage to keep her from bolting?

  Probably.

  Was she here because she couldn’t figure out how to say no? Or because she’d hoped against hope that she’d find family again?

  Maybe.

  What was her agenda? She heard her dad ask the question inside her head. Followed by silence because she didn’t know. Between the Family and Alex—who was rich in family—Nell felt more alone than she had when looking down at her parents’ graves.

  Trying to escape her tangled emotions, Nell looked around. It was kind of apt that Cinzia and Mirabelle were each framed by tall, narrow windows. The heavy drapes were held back by gold cord with thick tassels. Rain blurred the glass, and turned the irregular, but insistent flashes of lightning into changing art pieces.

  The room was big, chilly, and as overdone as the rest of the rooms she’d seen. Matching dining chairs lined the walls, in between all sorts of fancy crap, like pedestals with urns and busts of no one she recognized. A pristine white tablecloth covered the table top. It was littered with china and crystal and gold-plated utensils. She noticed Guido watching her. He grinned and winked, as if he shared her feeling that it was all a bit much.

  “It’s very grand, isn’t it?” Mirabelle’s voice was kindly, patronizing. She flicked a glance at each of the men, as if seeking their approval for her fake kindness. The kitten look wasn’t bad, but the back of her eyes were soulless.

  “Very.” Nell held that dead gaze as long as she needed to. But…she shouldn’t have come. These people had different rules than hers. Like alternate reality different.

  “What did your parents do while they were…away?” Cinzia asked delicately, before lifting an exquisitely cut crystal glass to her blood red lips.

  If she was pretending to care, she was better than Mirabelle, not as good as Guido.

  “Mom was a Wal-Mart checker and dad fixed cars.” Did they think she’d be embarrassed by their honest labor? They’d walked—well, run—away from their families, from all of this. Had chosen ordinary over crime-fueled money. As far as Nell could tell, they’d never looked back.

  “How…enterprising…” Cinzia finally managed.

  “It was better than being dead, which seems to have been their only other option,” Nell pointed out, a bit dryly. Someone—possibly someone in this room—had tried to kill them. That someone had believed they had killed them until Nell made the mistake of moving to New Orleans sporting a familiar face.

  The old man, still in his wheelchair, crouched at his end of the table, a faint gleam in his old eyes from, Nell presumed, the undercurrent of contention. His happy place was probably everyone else’s crap zone. He waited for the first course to be served before speaking.

  “So. Claude.” He played with his bad guy ring, turning it so that the green stone caught the light from the massive chandelier. He looked up, his dark gaze first meeting Nell’s, then moving to spear Mirabelle. “I had hoped he’d make our little dinner.”

  “Claude?” Nell wasn’t happy to realize she’d said this out loud. Did the old man know Nell had the St. Cyr ring? He could. Bad guys always knew things they shouldn’t.

  Into a small silence no one seemed to want to break, Alex said, “Claude St. Cyr. The heir.”

  “Oh.” At least she wasn’t the only to mess up the seating.

  Nell had sort of expected someone—or someone’s lawyer—to show up demanding the ring. Only no one had. Surely this Claude wasn’t afraid she’d declare herself the evil overlord of the St. Cyr crime empire? He couldn’t think the ring totally trumped the legal crap could he? She stared hard at her plate, pushing food she didn’t recognize from one side to the other.

  “He wanted to come,” Mirabelle said, a thread of iron in her voice. “But business is business.”

  Had any of them really wanted to come? It all felt wrong and so not neutral ground. More like sticking your head into the Wolf’s maw.

  “What troubles you, little cousin?” Guido asked

  Nell smoothed the frown and decided to overlook “little.” The accent helped it not sound totally condescending. “I just thought it would all be more—” Nell had meant to say Sopranos, but Alex coughed, covering his mouth with his hand. So they were all pretending they weren’t a bunch of bad-a crooks? Okay. “….there would be more rivalry between you all. Competing business interests and all,” she finished, a bit lamely.

  “We all run in the same social circles,” Mirabelle said. “And we’ve known each other for forever.” She gave Dimitri a special smile that seemed to indicate the knowing had gone pretty far. Or she hoped it would “I’m a bit surprised you haven’t popped up in our circle, cousin? Now that you know.”

  Nell could arch her Botox-free brows and did. “I was at the Children’s Center fund raiser last Friday night.” Nell’s smile was fake guileless. “I thought the food was particularly good. They should always use that caterer.”

  Mirabelle blinked a bit. Not that Nell was surprised she didn’t know Nell had worked the event as a wait for Sarah’s company.

  Dimitri grinned, looking almost human. “The food was especially good that night.”

  “How odd to think we were all there and didn’t know each other.” Cinzia fluttered her lashes at Dimitri. “So kind of you and Aleksi to bring us together like this.”

  Clever. Not everyone could use the high ground to look better—and down on—someone. Mirabelle’s fingers curled into claws. Good thing they were on the other side of the table. If a cat fight broke out, Nell did not want to be between them.

  “It was our pleasure,” Dimitri said, like he meant it.

  Pleasure? They were enjoying this? Because destroying lives and amassing ill-gotten wealth wasn’t enough of a buzz?

  “Family is important,” Guido said. He smiled at her and for a second she forgot he might be a bad guy and returned the smile. His lids drooped a bit, as if to mask a sudden gleam of satisfaction. So he was pretending to like her, but why? She had nothing they could possibly want.

  “Family is everything,” the old man said flatly.

  Okay. Nell addressed her attention to her food as little murmurs of assent rippled around the table.

  “We’re all hoping this won’t be our only meeting, Nell. May I call you Nell?” Cinzia asked, like she really wanted to know. Mirabelle gave a slight, very slight snort.

  “Of course.” Nell didn’t mind, though she’d prefer they didn’t call her ever.

  Dimitri appeared delighted, giving each woman a look of approval. The two women basked in their turn, then engaged in some polite staring when his attention moved on. Did they have hopes for a dynastic marriage with him?

  “We’re so looking forward to introducing you to your friends, Nell,” Guido said, his amused glance seeming to read her thoughts and confirm them.

  Dimitri lifted his glass. “To Nell. She was lost, but now is found.”

  Not exactly something to celebrate. A month ago, she would have hated the attention. Okay, she still hated it, but she hid it better. She hoped. Alex lifted his water bottle, a bit ironically, it seemed. Her gal cousins didn’t look thrilled at the toast. Of the two, Mirabelle had the harder time hiding her discontent, but at what? They were actual mafia princesses. Nell wasn’t even a wannabe. Nell stole a peek at the old man. Afoniki looked like a shriveled slug sitting there watching them. His pale eyes gleamed with what might be pleasure, but why? What was it that tickled his evil fancy? Why had he invited her here? He’d have a reason, even if it was a crazy old, bad guy reason.

  “Thanks,” Nell muttered, then looked down at her plate. “This is delicious.” She hadn’t actually tasted it yet, so she sho
ved a small bite between tense lips, so it wouldn’t be a lie—and the thin edge of the wedge.

  When the silence had turned a bit tense, Dimitri broke it. “Since our last meeting, I found time to read your book.”

  Was she supposed to be impressed he’d managed to work his way through a children’s book in just under a month? Nell had learned not to ask, “Did you like it,” but hadn’t come up with an alternative yet. It was Mirabelle who saved her, though Nell was pretty sure she hadn’t meant to.

  “You wrote a book?”

  There was polite disbelief Nell had managed to write a book and the implication that only one book was not something to brag about.

  “She writes children’s books,” Guido said, trying out another intimate smile on Nell, “about an artichoke.”

  A pregnant pause while they processed this. Another while they tried to figure out what to say about it.

  “Do you write under your own name?” Cinzia asked, managing to be bitchy without sounding bitchy.

  “Just my last name,” Nell said. Mirabelle opened her mouth but Nell forestalled her. “Whitby.”

  Nell had chosen to use her last name as a sort of homage to her parents. Of course, when she did it, she didn’t know the name was as fictional as her artichoke. Her world shifted under her feet. Had done that a lot lately. She took a drink of her water to hide it. Don’t let them see you sweat, her dad used to tell her. If she sweated now, it would form icicles on her skin and they’d for sure see it.

  “You could take the family name,” Guido said.

  “That would pop you out of the pack,” Cinzia added.

  Which family name? And how flattering they thought she needed popping out.

  “Or you could marry,” Dimitri put in smoothly.

  In the suddenly weighted silence, the lights flickered ominously and the explosion of thunder rattled the chandelier and table glassware.

  It really was a dark and stormy night.

  Nell knew Dimitri watched her, but didn’t know why. Was he mocking her because her parents’ marriage probably hadn’t been legal? That the name she used wasn’t hers either?