I know how she feels.
Miller takes me to one of the side entrances, already thumbing through his phone to order a ride as we go.
“You don’t have to leave the party,” I tell him. “I can just…”
I can just what? I don’t want to go home, where Mom will freak out at me. She’s probably already gone into my room to remove my computers like the first time she found out aboutCute Crims.
You’re going to ruin my career, she’d said to me.If my superiors ever found out my son ran this site—
How would they?I’d shot back.No one even knows I’m your son.
It was the only time I’d dared raise it. And she shut down completely, like a computer unplugged from its power source.
Miller shakes his head. “I’m not going to leave you alone right now, Teddy. I don’t know what’s going on, but Jack and Sandro havebothdisappeared—and the Castellani guards are still here.” He nods toward where Nate is hanging onto Freddy. “I think we’re probably better off together right now. Besides…” He sends a dark look back toward Roxanne Rochford. “I can’t wait to get out of here.”
CHAPTER42
SANDRO
I wakethe next morning with my whole body aching, but my face is the worst. The last time I felt like this was after the Bernardi knife attack—but no. This is worse, because at least back then I was high on morphine when I woke up.
This morning I have to make do with a few over-the-counter painkillers. The sight in the bathroom mirror looks even worse than it feels, though I know from experience that the swelling will go down.
A wild idea hits me—wild because even yesterday I would never have done it. But today, things have changed. And I want to make sure theystaychanged. So I take a selfie and I send it to Jack without comment, just as I used to do in the old days.
I even change his name in my phone fromJacopoback toJack.
My face hurts. Myhearthurts. But perhaps I have this one thing to hold on to. A friendship, revived. Not what it once was, but with the possibility of getting there.
I hope…
A few seconds later a receive a return selfie from Jack, who is definitely worse off than me, I decide. I justseemworse because of the scar. I chuckle at the follow up text:Miller tells me I’m not allowed to play with the rough kids next door no more.
I’ll get my Mom to talk to him, I text back, although his mention of Miller only drives home to me how alone I am.
A flash of Teddy’s lips on mine last night, as I pressed him against the wall. Even now I want him. It was an act of incredible self-control last night not to make good on my suggestion, and take him right there, despite the self-hatred coursing through me.
I wait a while, but there are no further texts. Johnny Jacopo is, apparently, a busier man than I am—or he’s getting chewed out by his boyfriend. I shower, keeping my face under the lukewarm water until the ache dulls a little, and then I dress and head down to the study to check the day’s morning mail.
No rest for the wicked, after all.
A knock at the door makes me turn. Wilson is standing there, looking—for him—weary. He doesn’t even react to my fucked-up face. “I beg your pardon, sir. Your mother has arrived. Unannounced.”
* * *
“Don’t make a fuss, Mamma,” I snap, jerking my head away from her probing fingers. We’re in the grand salon, the morning light unfortunately bright. The second she saw my face she burst into a flood of angry Italian, demanding to know who had dared touch me, and then demanding to know what foolish thing I’d done to deserve it. “It was a good, honest fight, and it’s not your concern.”
She presses me into a chair and takes a step back to look me over, critical. “Of course it’s my concern! I’m your mother.” We’ve been down this same track over and over. Before I can spit back that I’m a grown man, she goes on, “And Don Morelli will not make a deal with a hothead, not if he thinks it will harm his own business.”
“Why would I care what Don Morelli—” I stop dead. “Cazzo,” I say softly.
“Yes,” my mother agrees.
“I…”
“Forgot,” she supplies. “Obviously.”
Luca D’Amato, the Morelli Don, will be attending a dinner at Redwood Manor tomorrow night—and it’s actually slipped my mind. My one chance to impress him, to press for an alliance, now that my father is dead.
