“Compensation.” Lucien fills his glass. “I wanted to make sure it stayed out of the way of Nico Donahue and whatever he might be monitoring—until tomorrow, of course. I took the liberty of placing it in a bank I know to be extremely discreet.”
“But I didn’t earn this. I can’t just—”
Lucien flips his hand, shooing something away. “Deny’s family paid me this money. I didn’t ask for it, but this is normal, what people do when you let them know about one of their own. It is worth a lot to them, to their family, their business, their reputation. And what I knew, I got from you. So, you did.”
I stare at the paper, afraid to go further. After having nothing for so long, that much money is almost terrifying. Matt’s hand squeezes my thigh, comforting.
A while ago, Matt got close to beginning one conversation about compensating me for what I did at Summit House. I repeated what I told Jordy—freely givenmeans just that.
But Deny. Nothing I gave to Deny, nothing I suffered at his hands, was freely given. Nothing at all.
“You can find a good purpose for it, even if it is something you don’t want, Theo,” Lucien says. “But that money is yours. Your name is on the account. You are the only one who can do anything with it. I couldn’t get to it if I tried, and if you try to send it back to me, or Deny’s family, you will find it can keep rebounding into that account endlessly.”
I stare at Lucien, understanding maybe why Jordy sighs so much when he talks about his godfather. Once Lucien sets his mind to something, I doubt it moves much. Once, I joked with Bishop and Jordy that Lucien makes me think of that line fromMuch Ado About Nothing,when Beatrice tells Don Pedro his grace is too much to wear everyday. Lucien is a lot.
“Thank you.”
“You are most welcome for something I deserve no thanks for. The other account is what Deny took from you over the past two years.”
“What?” Lucien says it so casually the word jumps out of my mouth.
“You never should have had to give it up, Theo. I despise a loan shark, and this thing between Nico and Deny was even worse. So it’s back, with interest as well as a modest sum for your trouble. I cannot fix that part with money, as I know, but it’s something. Deny’s family insisted. I’m afraid they think I’m quite angry at them.”
“I don’t know what to say, Lucien.”
“Deny was up to his own games, I am afraid. He heard about the franchise from Nico and from doing some enforcement work for him on others, not just on you, Theo. Deny thought he could use my good name for a money-laundering business. Or something worse. Not to mention he tried to get Jack involved as well. He thought he was smarter than all of us, apparently.” He scoffs, and I smile, glad Deny is gone. It still leaves Nico, but Nico hasn’t ever punched me in the kidney.
“Lucien, I—”
He puts up a hand. “If that’s a protest, I wave it off. Deny hurt you. And he tried to make it look like I was doing business with him I was not doing. That money you also earned, Theo. All of this has been behind the scenes. Deny will get what is coming to him after the meeting tomorrow, so this is what I can do for now.”
“Okay.”
Lucien smiles, as my tucking the folio to the top of my place setting has made his entire day. Beckoning the waiter forward with our meals, he leans back. “Then let’s just say this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. That, and if you can make a cannoli like my grandmother, I might marry you.”
“That’s not going to be negotiable, Lucien, cannoli or no.” Matt cuts in with a squeeze to my thigh and a smile.
“A figure of speech,” Lucien shoots back. He and Matt continue to talk as I eat and stare at the papers on the table linen.
In my mind, I make plans to put cannoli on the menu at Maxine’s by the end of the week.
“You okay, sugar?” Matt asks me as we lay in bed later that night, tangled in a mess neither one of us cares about or is in a hurry to clean up. My eyes want to drift closed, but I’m still keyed up thinking about dinner and the meeting with Nico tomorrow. Matt rubs my thigh as if he senses he needs to make me come again before I can turn my brain off and go to sleep, so he’s starting the slow build. “I know Lucien is a lot, but his love language is gifts, I think. He is the ‘if you have more, build a bigger table’ school of thought. You would have offended him if you didn’t accept the money.”
“Yeah. Jordy warned me about that part of his personality.”
“You worried about tomorrow?”
Thinking, I hum lightly and run a hand over Matt’s chest. He catches it and kisses my fingers. “Not worried. Just . . . lots of things. A little overwhelmed. A little sad, I think.”
“Do you want to know more about the plan? Will that help?”
“I have the general idea. Jack said I need to act clueless for Nico’s benefit, so it’s best I really am a little clueless. I trust you. I just don’t want it all to blow up in my face and rebound off you or your family.”
Matt scoots on his back and pulls me to lay on his chest as a pillow. “Did you know my grandmother took care of me, when I was young? My parents were out of the picture early on. It’s a special relationship, grandparent and grandkid. Don’t let this mess with Nico or Deny dim those memories, sweetness. I always had this fear about what would happen if my grandmother got frail or when she couldn’t take care of me. She was so much older than all my friends’ parents.”
“Is that what happened?”
Matt flashes me a smile, his hands toying with my hair. “No. She was in a car accident before she was ever close to too old. She was full of life until the end. Taught me a good lesson to not worry about shit you can’t change.”
