Both Ringo and Ellie eyed me with suspicion. They’d taken seats on the chairs instead of the couch where Allie and I sat. Loppa pulled out a chair from the dining area and sat with his eyes on the windows behind Allie and I.
Ringo angled his chair closer to Ellie in such a way that he could cover the hill’s sloping view.
Notably, Ellie moved her chair farther from him.
Undeterred, he shifted the chair again, bringing it an inch closer.
She turned her whole body away from him. Interesting. Their silent argument spoke volumes. The bastard had hurt her, or lied to her. But she wasn’t running from him, yet.
Frustrated, Ellie blurted out, “I don’t fucking believe this. First Johnny, now you two. What are the odds?”
“Considering who our grandfather was?” Allie pointed her question at her twin.
“You’d think the whole world was run by thugs.” Ellie threw one hand out from her tightly crossed body. Even her legs were crossed.
“Thugs? That’s all you think of me?”
Ringo sounded wounded, but he wasn’t. That was sarcasm. I’d lived with him long enough to hear the difference.
Allie cleared her throat, interrupting what her sister was going to fire back at my nemesis… and my best friend.
In the back of my mind, I knew why he took that marker. It wasn’t for the challenge like he claimed. He’d taken it as an excuse to follow me and take out any hitman stupid enough to try to kill me. Our scuffle in the parking lot was just that, a scuffle. One of many we’d had over the years.
My wife carried the conversation. “Okay, since Ellie isn’t up to speed, here goes. His father is a politician.”
“A.K.A. crook, no doubt,” Ellie muttered.
Loppa snorted, then murmured to Firenze, “I think both of them are smart women.”
“What did he call me?” Ellie asked Ringo.
“Smart.” Ringo’s translation quieted her. She twisted to send Loppa a silently mouthed, “Thank you.”
Loppa grinned.
“And he’s trying to increase his hold on the… shall we say, more ingrained elements of non-political power in this country by setting up an arrangement with the Conti family.”
For an outsider, she was astute.
“Arrangement? Try murder.” Ringo’s clarification was not welcome. I held up a hand to silence him but he was having none of it.
“The black widow of Tuscany, my friend.”
Allie’s skin flushed red.
Ellie’s eyes bounced between the three of us. “Wait a minute. By arrangement, you mean marriage? But I thought you two…”
“Precisely.” I waited for the gravity of the situation to clarify in her mind.
Her eyes narrowed on Allie. “Did you know he was a mobster when you said ‘I do?’”
“We didn’t know the marriage was legal.”
Ellie practically screamed out her frustration. “I don’t fucking believe you. My sister, the huge planner, doesn’t know that Vegas weddings are one hundred percent legit?”
Allie set the piece of paper in her hand back onto the table. It was a particularly graphic photo of the front seat of Adelmo’s car. Blood streaked across the seat where one of the bullets missed hitting center mass.
“Let’s start there. Why did you agree to marry someone who could do this?” She pointed directly at the blood splatter on the seat.
