Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
As subtle as I could, I turned to face the backyard, not putting it past her to be able to read our lips.
“Remember the coffee shop we all hung out in?” he asked.
“Yeah, run by that Traveler chick,” I said, nodding. She’d been, as August had claimed, ‘One of those raging feminist witch chicks.’
“Yeah,” he said, nodding.
“What? He’s down there to see her?” I asked, brows drawing down.
They’d been oil and water, constantly fucking snapping at each other. He’d claimed he couldn’t stand talking to her. She’d called him a ‘cocky prick.’ And, well, she hadn’t been wrong.
But none of it ever hinted at something more between them. And that had been a long-ass time ago. The last time any of us had seen Traveler was when Mass and Cammie got married, and she’d come up. Alone. Just for the night. I don’t think I’d heard her name since then.
“Something like that,” Santo said. “Look, he didn’t explain, but he said he had to go, and that something was going on with Traveler. That’s all I know.”
“Christ, Santo, did you at least ask for more?” I asked, raking a hand through my hair.
I mean, in this family, it wasn’t exactly unheard of for one of our guys to go off on some mission to save some girl. But you had to get approval from the boss first. You couldn’t just take off, on your own, doing fuck-knew what.
First, because that was a good way to get yourself killed.
But also because that shit didn’t reflect well on the organization as a whole.
“Believe me, I tried. Even tried to talk him into waiting to talk to Luca, but he said there wasn’t time, cut the line, and won’t answer now.”
“Fuck,” I hissed. “Why am I just hearing this now?”
“I just heard about it about ten minutes before you got here,” he admitted. “I did text you.”
But I’d been busy with Savannah. Then trying to talk some sense into my cock after.
“All that shit, that was around the state capital, right?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
At least it wasn’t far if we needed to go and track him down.
“Okay. I will text Luca that I need to talk to him after food. But we keep this between us until I talk to him. Not Dante, not Ma. No one else. You know how that shit goes. And it’s already bad enough that this is coming third-hand from me,” I added, giving my tone a bit of an edge.
Because, yeah, I was closer with Luca. In age. In experience. Just in general. But Dante and Santo and even August were all Made men too. They needed to know when to nut-up and talk to the boss directly. Even when the topic would be uncomfortable. Even if it felt like it was going to be choosing between the Family as a whole, and our nuclear family.
“Yeah,” he agreed, ducking his head, humbled enough.
I had my feelings on how my younger brothers still had a lot of growing up to do, had some experience they needed to get. But I also had to acknowledge that a lot of that was my fault. I was always protecting them, always keeping them from completely falling on their asses.
It was something I was going to need to stop doing.
They had to become the men I knew they could if they weren’t living in my shadow.
With that, I shot off the text to Luca, then made my way back inside.
“Anyway, I was just telling Dante here,” she said as Dante rolled up his shirtsleeves, exposing black and gray ink that covered him damn near everywhere under his suit, “about how beautiful Savannah was. Even looking pale and tired.”
“Ma…” I said, shrugging off my jacket, and rolling up my sleeves too. Because our mother liked putting us to work when she was doing a lot of meal prep.
Santo put himself on setting the table.
Dante was making the garlic bread.
So that meant I was on salad duty.
Our mom took even green salads seriously. No ‘sad salads’ in her house. She wanted them full of at least three greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, carrots, and some sort of cheese or meat. Usually both.
“No, really,” she said, looking at my brothers, ignoring me. “She’s this lovely creature. Blonde hair, green eyes, this megawatt smile. And she is so sweet. Had kind words for everyone. So full of apologies for the wait, even though everyone knew she was only working with one good hand, and was doing her absolute best.”
“Mother,” I tried again, but she twisted her face into a mask of utter innocence.
“Yes, dear?” she asked.
“Stop planning my wedding,” I told her.
“Oh, darling, I am way past the wedding. Sunflowers, so many sunflowers, by the way,” she said. “I am already thinking of what you will name your babies.”