“Oh,” she said, staring into his eyes, her head cocking to the side. “I’m sure you did. And it’s what Giovi Spataroattemptedto do. He failed. As you can clearly see.”
Luca was just beyond me, and he too was watching their interaction with rapt attention.
“To take a wife, such a terrible thing to do.” He ticked his mouth, shaking his head. Full of false pity. “And such a faithful woman.” He glanced at the cross around her neck. “I do look forward to a dance with you tomorrow evening. All for a good cause, ah?”
She looked him up and down. “My, what a gorgeous suit. Custom-made?”
“Ah—” At this, he glanced at Lothario. “A gift.”
“If I didn’t know any better—” she smiled, and I saw something flash in his eyes: anger “—I would have mistaken you for a Fausti. It seems that this giftwas made by the same tailor that makes my husband’s suits. A fine, fine man. One of the finest hands in Italy, I’d say.”
“You would know, Ballerina,” he said, recovered. “You have fine taste. I am flattered.”
To use the Fausti tailor, one had to know a Fausti. He catered to our family only. This told me that not only did Lothario arrange the meeting, but he’d gifted the suit to Dionigi.
Lothario had turned to stone, but his eyes burned and were aimed at my wife.
Scarlett’s gaze went over Dionigi’s shoulder, out in the hall, to where Eunice made hand gestures to get her attention.
“If you will excuse me. I would say that this has been fun, but—” She sighed, and a few men laughed.
She flew out of the room, met by Eunice’s gesticulations toward the other side of the house, where the women were.
My kids.
Leaving the poker game behind, I met them out in the hall as they started for the other side of the house.
“Tell me,” I said.
“Ohhh, nothing,” Eunice said, her voice higher pitched than normal. “Kid stuff.”
She sent Scarlett a look under her fair lashes, one that she hoped Scarlett would catch. Scarlett was too busy keeping her eyes averted from mine. Her cheeks were flushed from anger. Touching her would mean an electrical shock.
The men’s poker game had been dark, full of smoke and whiskey fumes, crude jokes and boisterous laughter. The women’s side flooded out any scent of cigar smoke and replaced it with a garden of flowers, tea, and light laughter.
At odds with this picturesque sight was a mound of boys fighting, my brothers’ sons on top. A few mothers hovered around, arguing with Juliette, Rosaria, and Carmen.
Before I started plucking bodies from the mound, I noticed my son sat on a strange woman’s lap, a crown on his head, and in her other arm, a little girl around Matteo’s age with a tiara. My mother-in-law watched in fascination.
“What the fu—” I stopped myself from saying the word.
The room was too bright and airy. It almost seemed like a sanctuary. All of the flowers might wilt and the chocolate melt.
The boys were easy enough to dislodge, and after I did so, they were hauled off by either the girls who came to help, or their mothers. All but the boy who had been underneath them. I had no idea who he was, or how he got to be underneath my brothers’ sons.
While I’d been plucking boys from the pile, Scarlett had taken Matteo from the strange woman, handing her back the crown.
“We should get together soon!” the woman called after her.
This crowd seemed to fizzle out after the hoopla had been neutralized, but it still left me feeling as if something wasn’t right.
Pulling Scarlett to the side, taking Matteo from her, I demanded to know what the fuck was going on.
She almost huffed. “Words comeafterthe fight for the Faustis!”
“Scarlett,” I said, a clear warning in my voice.
“What, Brando?”
