Old Flame: Dante’s Story: (Morelli Family, #8)

by Mariano, Sam

  My jaw drops and I shoot him a look. “You just called me old again. You’re the worst shopping buddy ever. Keep saying mean shit to me and I’m not gonna buy you lunch when we’re finished.”

  “That’s okay,” he says. “We can just head back to your assisted living facility. I’m sure they’ve got food there, right?”

  “Just applesauce,” I offer back. “Sometimes we get Jell-o cups for a treat.”

  “Do you think we’ll even have time to eat?” he asks, checking his watch. “Don’t old people go to bed at like 5 o’clock?”

  For that one, I swing my handbag and hit him in the arm with it. “Shut your stupid mouth, Alec.”

  He grins at me. “What?”

  I roll my eyes and walk ahead of him. “I changed my mind, I don’t love you. You’re like the younger brother I never wanted.”

  “Aw, don’t be mad,” he says, falling into step beside me and slinging an arm across my shoulders. “You know I’m just messing with you. You’re still young and hot. My brother probably wouldn’t have kidnapped you if you weren’t.”

  “That’s terrible. You’re all terrible.”

  Alec nods with mock solemnity. “Yeah.” He barely misses a beat, then says just as casually, “Now, let’s go find you a pretty dress to wear to my dad’s funeral.”

  28

  Dante

  Our conflict with the Castellanos family comes to a quick and jolting halt when Adrian finds our missing sister holed up in some suburban house with none other than Salvatore Castellanos. His dad, the boss, was shot dead in the scuffle, apparently; I don’t have all the details yet, but I know that Salvatore Castellanos is the next boss of their family, and given my little sister has apparently been warming his bed behind all our backs, he’s as interested in peace as Mateo is.

  There are still a lot of unanswered questions, but a ceasefire brings a measure of relief to all of us. It means we can finally rest a little easier, not worrying there’s some fucker with a gun around every corner, poised to take us out. It’s too soon to tell if there will be any ripples from other syndicates who might be waiting in the wings, watching the conflict and hoping for a show of weakness so they can attack. Just in case, I tell Xander I still want him to cover Colette’s first day back at work—but I don’t tell Colette about it. I trust that we’re in a good enough place she wouldn’t try anything fucking stupid as soon as she gets out of my sight, but it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on her just in case I’m wrong.

  For the first time in far too long, Colette stands beside me at the bathroom vanity as we both go about our morning routines. Her side of the sink is cluttered with all sorts of shit as she gets ready for work—new makeup and hair products and mysterious female shit I can’t even put a fucking name to. Thank God Alec was the one who had to go shopping with her and not me.

  As Colette winds her hair around a hot iron, she glances over at me in the mirror and says, “I hate to bring this up, but I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on today and I was hoping to get the invoice together for the flowers for your father’s funeral. Should I bring it home or email it to Mateo, or…?”

  “You can bring it home. I’ll give it to Mateo myself.”

  Colette nods, releasing the lock of her hair. It falls in a long, dark curl beside her face. “I think you’ll like the casket spray I designed. I did a lot of research and went all out. Imported these really delicate, beautiful flowers from a supplier I’ve worked with before in Italy. They’re purple, but keep an open mind; purple is a color associated with royalty, not girls. That’s what I was thinking when I ordered them for your father. Like, a fallen king. Anyway, they’ll complement the white roses and chrysanthemums really well. It’s a beautiful arrangement, I’m pretty proud of it.”

  “I’m sure it is,” I tell her, like I give a damn about flowers.

  “I figured I could bill him a little extra for the imported flowers, too,” she adds with a sly little smile. “I thought it would make you happy to overcharge Mateo.”

  At that, I crack a smile. “You know me so well. If there’s an asshole tax, make sure you give him that, too.”

  Colette grins, putting the hot iron down and mussing her carefully curled hair with her fingers. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  We fall quiet for a couple minutes while I comb my hair and she does her thing. When she spritzes perfume on her wrists, I know she’s about finished with her routine. “Speaking of things we don’t want to talk about,” I begin, glancing over at her.

  Colette sighs, her shoulders drooping. “Let me put my perfume away first.”

  “Can’t you just keep it on the sink?”

  She shakes her head. “The steam from the shower isn’t good for the fragrance.”

  “Well, God forbid we make the perfume uncomfortable,” I remark as she ignores me and heads toward the walk-in closet.

  When she comes back to the bathroom, she shoots back, “Hey, you care about how your alcohol is stored, I care about my perfume. Now, what dreadful thing do we need to talk about?”

  “This is your first day back in the outside world alone,” I point out.

  “Are you worried I’m not adequately dickmatized to send out into the wild by myself?” she inquires. “I’m not an idiot; I won’t run screaming to the police station, I promise.”

  “It’s not you I’m worried about,” I tell her. “Since you will be in the outside world, that means the people from your old life will have access to you again.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “That can mean complications,” I state. “You fell off the face of the planet and no one knows why.”

  “Well, my fiancé died in a tragic ‘car accident’ on the day we were supposed to get married,” she points out, her gaze hardening slightly. “It probably would’ve been stranger if I had been out painting the town red. I don’t think it’s odd that I’ve disappeared for a little while to mourn.”

  “It’s not, but it probably is strange that you didn’t attend his funeral or visit his family or… whatever the fuck. I don’t know what your relationship with them was like, I don’t want to know, but knowing you the way I do, I assume you had attachments there.”

  Since I said I don’t want to know, she crosses her arms over her chest and mean mugs me, but doesn’t confirm or deny.

  I never wanted to see this fucking thing again, but I open the unused bottom drawer on the right-hand side of my vanity and draw out the engagement ring I took off Colette’s hand the first night I brought her here. She loses a shade of color at the sight of it and my jaw locks. I have to work to unlock it so I don’t sound angry when I tell her, “You might want to return this.”

  Colette stares at the ring for a long time. A long fucking time. The rock I hate looking at just sits there in the palm of my hand and she doesn’t touch it. I notice her taking her breaths more deliberately, like she’s having a hard time. Finally, she turns away, bracing her hands on the vanity and tells me, “Put that away.”

  I close my hand to cover it up so she doesn’t have to look at it. “His family might—”

  “Then we’ll mail it to them,” she snaps. “I don’t want to see it, Dante. Don’t show that to me ever again.”

  Her response is enough that I put the damned thing back in the drawer. “All right. I’ll handle it,” I tell her.

  “I can’t believe you kept that thing in our bathroom,” she states, still not looking at me.

  Cocking an eyebrow, I ask, “Do you not want it in the house? It’s just a ring.”

  “It’s not just a ring, it’s…” Trailing off, she shakes her head. Finally, she regains enough composure to tell me, “I’ll buy a nice sympathy card on the way home today. I’ll fill it out for his mom with an apology for disappearing and everything and I’ll drop it off when she’s not home.”

  “Do you know when she’ll be out of the house?”

  Colette shakes her head.

  “All right. I’ll get someone on it. When she leaves the
house tomorrow, I’ll have someone drop it off. You don’t need to deal with it yourself. I like the idea of a card better than you actually being around those people, anyway.”

  Sighing heavily, Colette shakes her head again, I think this time at herself. “Jesus. How am I supposed to refrain from thinking about this when it keeps coming up?”

  “It’s just for now,” I promise her. “Once we deal with this initial bullshit it’ll be over and you won’t have to think about it anymore.”

  “She will,” Colette states. “Her son is dead, Dante. She’ll never stop thinking about that.”

  “Don’t take that road, Colette,” I warn her. “Don’t think about that shit.”

  “How? When it’s my fault he’s dead, how am I not supposed to think about it? I didn’t merely break his heart, I cost him his life. I’m the nightmare girlfriend that every mother fears her son will encounter someday.”

  “Well, I don’t have a mother, so it doesn’t matter now that you’re with me,” I tell her, lightly, considering what I’m saying.

  Meeting her own gaze in the mirror, she states, “I’m going to Hell.”

  “A week ago you thought you were already there, so I guess we’re making good progress,” I tell her.

  She slides me an unamused look in the mirror. Our business here is pretty much concluded. I still need to coach her on what to say in case anyone stops in to the flower shop wanting to ask her questions, but now’s not the time. Sonja is cooking us breakfast, so we can finish talking while we eat. Since she didn’t have a full blown panic attack and she seems more or less okay for now, I leave her there to finish collecting herself and head to the closet to retrieve my jacket.

  ---

  My father was a polarizing man, so I guess it was inevitable that his funeral would be uncomfortable. I was in a preemptively pissy mood on the way to the funeral home because I know all of my siblings agree with Mateo on this one, but the joke of a service only made me surlier. Normally, it would go without saying that Mateo would give the eulogy. Not only because he’s Dad’s heir and the head of this family now that he’s gone, but because Mateo is the best talker. He can spin bullshit effortlessly, so we all know he could’ve put together a nice speech for Dad in no more than a few minutes.

  That makes it doubly fucking insulting that he refused to. He told me I could do the eulogy since I’m the only one who liked the guy, but he knows I’m not a talker. There’s no chance I’m going to stand behind a podium like some kind of stuffed suit and address a room full of people with a heartfelt fucking speech.

  Alec ends up doing it, just to keep the peace. It’s a generic eulogy that could’ve been about anyone and all it does is piss me off. No one but me even cares that Dad is gone, and they’re not willing to pretend otherwise.

  When we get to the gravesite, I case the place to see where I want to stand. The funeral director bows his head respectfully and gestures for me to join my siblings on the left side of Dad’s coffin. Alec, Francesca and Mateo are already gathered on one side of Dad’s coffin. Our Uncle Ben flew out from Vegas and he stands on that side with the family. Consequently, his son Vince has defected from the family side of the coffin and he stands with Mia on the opposite side of Dad’s coffin.

  Colette’s hand gently grips my bicep and I glance back at her to see what she wants.

  “We should probably walk, we’re holding up the line,” she whispers.

  I flick one last glance at the family side, then grab Colette’s hand and haul her over to the side where Vince and Mia are instead. Vince flicks me a brief look of surprise that I’m standing with him instead of my brother, but it’s crowded over there anyway.

  Salvatore Castellanos lacks no fucking audacity, so he stands beside my sister on the family side of the casket. I still can’t believe this shit. A Castellanos should never be present at a Morelli funeral. It’s a fucking travesty. I might like the additional money my brother brings in, but I’m not wild about this aspect of his leadership.

  We’re the stronger family; we should take advantage of their weakened state and eliminate our competition, not invite them to join forces with us. Sal was next in line, but he hadn’t taken over his family the way Mateo has ours. Our dad dying does nothing to weaken our empire because Mateo was already the one running things, but it’s not the same for the Castellanos family. Antonio was the boss in every respect, so his death leaves them vulnerable until the new leader establishes himself. Now would be the perfect time to pounce and take the rest of them out, but instead Mateo gives their new boss his blessing to marry our fucking sister.

  Misreading my general grumpiness, Colette leans her head against my shoulder and caresses my arm in a comforting gesture. My gaze remains steady on Sal until he feels my stare. Finally, his gray eyes meet mine across the casket. It’s not the time or place for a stare-down, but once we lock gazes neither of us looks away until the pastor starts speaking and asks everybody to bow their head in prayer. I’m compelled by respect for my father, and Sal is compelled by being a good Catholic boy, so we both give up our ground for the moment and bow our heads.

  29

  Dante

  After the burial, everybody heads back to Morelli mansion to eat and commiserate. There are far too many people to fit at the formal dining room table, so Mateo had tables set up in one of the drawing rooms and the maids are bringing out food to serve buffet-style.

  “Should I help?” Colette inquires, watching Maria and her daughter Cherie bring out dish after dish for the assembled mourners.

  I like the idea of her assuming the wifely role and pitching in to play hostess since no one who lives here is bothering to do the job. Francesca won’t leave Salvatore’s side, like she’s afraid if she does one of us will kick him out. Alec is single so he doesn’t have a girlfriend to play hostess. Mateo doesn’t care about this, so his live-in girlfriend is treating my father’s funeral like a fucking social event instead of a funeral she should be hosting. It’s a load of bullshit. Same way the women take care of dinner on Sunday nights to make family dinner more loving and personal, they should be the ones serving the food and playing hostess at our father’s funeral.

  “Yeah,” I tell her, glad that she’s volunteering. “Someone in our family should be doing it. Doesn’t seem like anyone else plans to step up.”

  Colette nods, smoothes down the front of her modest black dress, and follows after Maria and Cherie to see what they need help with.

  Once she’s gone, I look around for some adequate alcohol to make dealing with my family a little easier. I only have to circulate around the room once to realize that while my brother has a few cater waiters circulating with alcohol, none of them have the good stuff.

  I know he has the good stuff in his study, so I slip out to get myself a real drink. There’s a bathroom just outside the drawing room for guests, and just as I’m walking past, as luck would have it, I run into someone I’ve been meaning to talk to anyway.

  Mia Mitchell isn’t paying attention as she exits the bathroom. Her head is down as she rummages through her small handbag. Since she’s not looking where she’s going, she’s moving slowly, so there’s no urgency in deciding what I want to do. As I saunter closer, I take a moment to look her over while she digs around in her bag.

  She’s all dolled up for my dad’s funeral, her blonde hair curled and falling around her shoulders. Colette has worn a dress in a similar style to the one she’s wearing before, but not to a dignified event like a funeral. It has a skimpy black slip underneath and a sheer overlay so it can pretend to be modest, but the shape of her body makes that impossible. The material clings to every dangerous curve and I can’t help wondering how many times my brother has stolen glances at her already when he was supposed to be mourning the loss of our father. Given the way this dress looks on her, I’m betting a lot.

  Vince is fucking stupid. He should take away her make-up and make her wear flannels and sweatpants around Mateo, not let her doll up like this. T
he fucking kid knows Mateo was already attracted to the girl when she came to the mansion dressed like the help on a day off.

  Then again, I bet her ass looks good in sweats, too. That probably wouldn’t work.

  Since she hasn’t looked up and noticed me in the hall yet, I go ahead and announce myself, offering a slow, dark smile. “Elle. What a nice surprise.”

  Mia’s gaze snaps to mine at the sound of my voice. Her blue eyes widen in alarm and she takes an intuitive step back. “Dante. Hello.”

  “I’m glad to see you,” I state.

  “You are?” she asks, sounding incredibly confused.

  “Mm hmm.” I grab her arm and haul her back toward the bathroom.

  Her instincts for self-preservation kick in a few seconds too late and she grabs for the door frame as I haul her ass back into the bathroom. “What are you doing?” she asks, trying—and failing—to hide her panic.

  “Cameras,” I state simply, jerking my head toward the hallway. It’s common knowledge within the family that my paranoid brother has every room and every hallway under careful surveillance—everything but the bathrooms. “I want to talk to you alone.”

  “I don’t think—” she begins uncertainly.

  I cut her off. “We don’t keep you around to think, sweetheart.”

  She’s still gaping at me when I haul her back against the wall and lean over to lock the closed door. “You are so rude,” she informs me.

  I move in on her and bring the palm of my hand down hard against the wall beside her head. She jumps, fear leaping to her blue eyes as she looks up at me.

  “What do you want?” she asks warily, holding my gaze.

  I don’t know why it’s so fucking exhilarating to scare the shit out of her. Scaring women for shits and giggles isn’t really my thing, but there’s something so vulnerable about this one. It’s like she has a natural perfume that wordlessly invites the predators closest to her to sink their teeth into her. I can kinda see why my brother enjoyed fucking with her to begin with, he just should’ve stopped before he got addicted.