“Cheers.” I tilt my bottle back and enjoy the icy cold beer on my dry throat.
Fuck it. A man is allowed to chug alcohol when the world he escaped half a lifetime ago is together again, bigger, glitzier, richer than ever before, and all packed into the same room as his wife. And for a solid ten minutes there, he couldn’t find her.
I’ve lived a life where the woman I loved was taken. Brutalized. Murdered. All because I dared to claim her as mine. That kind of trauma doesn’t go away just because Timothy Malone the Second is dead.
“You seem tense. You okay?”
I cough out a crackling laugh. “It’s like you were reading my mind.”
“Yeah?” He steps closer and turns until his shoulder brushes mine, then he studies the dance floor. His daughter and the woman he kinda loves. Felix and Christabelle and their sweet baby, Zora. Micah and Tiia. Cato and… some woman he probably shouldn’t be near. “You don’t normally get this way when the New York mafia is in town. Why tonight?”
“It’s not the New York Malones I worry about. It’s who they bring with them.”
He scans the outer perimeter and the dozens of black suits. Eagle eyes. Muscled builds. Guns hidden expertly amongst them. They’re on duty, but they’ve been ordered to blend in so the others—Aubree’s family—don’t notice them so much.
I’m not entirely sure they’re doing a good job.
“You mean the guards?” Fletch drops a hand into his pocket and rocks onto the backs of his heels. “I mean… I guess. Felix doesn’t normally travel with this many, right? He concerned about something?”
“Probably his wife and kid. Every time he unlocks a new level of happiness—marrying Christabelle, then making a baby—he creates a larger target and something he’s not willing to lose. I doubt he’ll go anywhere ever again without bringing an entire entourage with him. And I can’t even blame him. I wish Minka would accept a security detail.”
Amused, his smirk glistens under party lights and flickering candlelight. “She’s not allowing it?”
“Not yet.” I sip my beer and stare warmth into the side of her face. “But I’m working on it, and I got her to agree to move to the house. We’re closer to safety than we were yesterday. Tim will do the same for Aubree now that she’s talking babies.”
“Not even her babies, though. Or his.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I follow the long line of Minka’s neck, down to her exposed shoulders and noticeable collarbone. Her tits reallydolook amazing in her gown, and her hips are perfectly sculpted. But I focus mostly on the tiny heart tattoo behind her ear.
She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. The smartest. The bravest. But those are her strengths, ridiculously obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes. It’s her softness that holds me captive. The stitches keeping her knee together, hidden beneath her gown. Her blood, a literal death sentence if she doesn’t medicate three times a week. The tattoo… a moment of rebellion, and likely done immediately after infusion, while she rocked a headache and sleepiness. Because I guess she wanted the ink more than she wanted the rest.
“Whoever Tim assigns to Aubree will keep an eye on Minka, too. Which comforts me. But they’re not always together, and now she’s friends with that other one.” I peel my gaze from Minka’s delicate shape and cast it across to the harder, louder Sophia Solomon on the fringes of the dance floor. She’s discreet in how she moves. Classy. But her husband is nothing more than a pole, and she’s putting on a show just for him.
“Checkmate?”
“It’s not like I hate her or anything. But, fuck, she stresses me out.”
“She’s no one’s damsel.” He’d know. I wonder every single day what he owes her in exchange for the favor she gave him—killing his ex-wife’s killer. “She needs no security, because she’s her own. If she and Minka are hanging out, I expect Minka’s pretty fuckin’ safe.”
“Mmm.” Unimpressed, I scan the room, slowing as I pass familiar faces, even if I can’t quite name them. Then I stop on Estefan Cordoza, and right beside him, Anthony Agosti. “That’swhy I’m tense.”
Curious, Fletch follows my gaze and looks the crowd up and down. Because of course, it’s not just Estefan and Anthony. It’s Estefan, Anthony, Anthony’s wife, Anthony’s not-so-secret mistress—neither of whom wants to be here—and Anthony’s second-in-charge, Raphael Barbaro. Plus the suits. So many fucking guns packed into a single room.
“I know Cordoza’s face. Who is the other guy?”
“Agosti. He used to be a figurehead in New York back when my father was fucking everyone over. But a few years ago, shit turned sour. Anthony’s son was dating—” I shift my focus in Sophia’s direction, then past her to her sister. “A woman named Michelle Mancino. Mancinos were another powerful family.”
“So the son of one family is dating the daughter of another. Normal, right?”
“Normal enough. Till he pressed his luck and tried to take something not freely given.”
Fletch grits his teeth. “Oops.”
“Dude ended up eating lead… or dirt. Or something. Lix said her father took care of it. Not supposed to do that.”
His brows furrow over honeycomb eyes. “Not supposed to kill a guy who thinks consent is optional?”
“Not supposed to kill a guy who belongs to another powerful family. There are rules about that sort of thing. But old man Mancino did what he did, Michelle went on with her life, safe and happy. And Agosti—Anthony,” I clarify, nodding toward the group hovering in the shadows. “He was told to suck it up and get over it. Cordoza made an exception to a well-established rule, all because Michelle had long before captured his…” I intend to sayhisheart. But does he have one of those? “She captured his admiration.”
