“Not just efficient.” I looked over my shoulder at Ronan and Kevin in the middle of the living room. The way Ronan loomed over his partner, the way Kevin was so compliant to him, like it came naturally, even though Ronan looked like he was ready to flay Kevin apart with his eyes. “He’s ruthless.”
Ronan’s mouth twitched into a smirk and he tipped his chin toward the door.
“That’s a word for it, Foster. That’s a word for it.”
Chapter Two
Sage
“Are you listening to me, Sandro?”
I closed my eyes to hide the way they twitched and offered my father a slow nod. Licking my lips, I forced my eyelids open so as to not disrespect him by looking away while he spoke to me. “Yes, Father.”
“Si, Padre,” he corrected.
I internalized my sigh. “Si, Padre.”
I sometimes wondered if my father remembered I was an adult. I know he was present when I turned twenty-one. He’d given me my first drink, though that had actually happened long before I turned twenty-one and had started a habit I struggled to break. There was only one thing that kept me sober, kept me distracted. And that was the cause of this conversation. This argument, rather, we’d been having for three weeks.
“You cannot just disappear the way you did,” he told me for the millionth time.
“I told you I was going away for New Year’s.”
“You have responsibilities.”
“It was a holiday weekend.” I ran my fingers through my hair, the thick and dark waves a little longer than I normally wore them. I’d been out of my mind since getting back to the city from the cabin, since walking away from Foster Thomas Golden. Drinking, fucking, sleeping—all things I’d excelled in since I returned home. My own kind of self-care, apparently.
“Sandro!” My father slammed his hand down on the table, rattling the glasses half full of Chianti.
“Si, Padre,” I said softly, sliding my hand toward my wine glass and hooking my fingers around the ornate crystal stem. I slid it back toward me and raised it to my lips, taking a larger swallow than one would consider socially acceptable.
I fucking hated Chianti.
“You’re nearly thirty…”
Oh, so he did know I was an adult. I could cross that off the list of things in my life that were murky and unclear, leaving easy things like my morals, my ethics, my sexuality.
I closed my eyes and saw Golden spread-eagle on a rubber sheet-covered bed, then I poured the rest of the wine down my throat and set the glass down with a little more force than necessary. That earned me a warning look from my father, which I dared to ignore. Instead, I refilled the glass as close to the rim as I could manage without sloshing any wine over the edge.
Waste not, want not.
I took a drink and then rubbed my fingers down my throat, chasing the syrupy taste into my stomach.
“…responsibility, Sandro. You need to do more.”
I’d missed a substantial chunk of what my father had said to me, which would no doubt prove problematic in the future, but I hoped I could bluff my way through.
“What about Giorgio?” I asked, thinking of my father’s right hand. He was a better choice to take over things than me anyway. He’d been working with my father since they were both getting started. I had no doubt my father trusted Giorgio more than he trusted me, and rightfully so.
I was a liar.
A thief.
A murderer.
He didn’t know about one of those three, though, and I intended to keep it that way. For as much as I had tried to stay out of the things my family did behind the scenes, I couldn’t say I’d made it out of the life clean. When I’d been younger, I ran around for my dad—and Giorgio—collecting on debts and paying visits to people that needed to be visited. I knew what the Rosetti name stood for and what we were meant to be about.
I just didn’t want it.
