“Not there,” I tell him, nodding to a cushioned stool. “Use that instead.”
“What’s wrong with the recliner?”
“It’s broken.”
“It looks fine to me,” he argues, kicking it. “The stool doesn’t look half as comfortable.”
“Sit there anyway.”
He grumbles under his breath but walks to the stool and makes himself comfortable on it before turning to open his laptop. “I should probably feel sorry that you got shot,” he says, not an ounce of pity in his voice. “Anyway, I’ve been scouring the surveillance footage of the area where you were shot, but so far, I've come up empty.”
“Do you have any idea who shot you?” Matteo asks from his spot.
“I could come up with a list of people who hate me and run out of paper. This family alone probably has the entire city wishing death on us, not accounting for the people who have personal grudges with me." Still, one name keeps popping up no matter how I look at it. “There is someone I suspect.”
“Who?”
“Marco Bortelli.”
Matteo’s brows furrow in confusion at the name. "Why the fuck would the son of a rival family in Boston want you dead?" And then his eyes narrow on mine. "Fucking hell, Antonio, what did you do?"
I was reckless. It’s always been a known fact that Matteo is the most responsible of the Rossi brothers. As the new don and heir to our father, he had to be responsible in ways the rest of us didn’t. Even so, I knew my limits and the lines I couldn’t cross. I am, after all, hiscapo.
“I joined a game, invite only,” I tell my brother, watching as his eyes flare with surprise and rage. “It’s a poker game with high stakes. At first, I wasn't going to accept the invite, but since most players are members of organized crime families, politicians, and other influential people, I figured there wasno harm in networking with other powerful men. As your underboss, of course.”
“Oh, fuck that! We both know that's not the only reason you accepted. You are a fucking adrenaline junkie who revels in chaos.”
He’s not entirely wrong. Sure, I joined to network, but I also love the rush and the high-stakes nature of the game. Still, I'm always careful about how much I gamble. I may be reckless in some ways more than others, but I am smart about how I go about these things.
Well, maybe I wasn’t so smart that night, gambling with the likes of Marco Bortelli. I should have known the man would be a sore loser. Enough to want to blow my head off.
“The game is supposed to be neutral territory, and most of these men don’t give a fuck about losing any amount of money.”
“Clearly, someone did,” Matteo grumbles before turning to Enzo. “Check the financial situation of Marco Bortelli. Let’s see if he has vaults of money he can afford to gamble away.”
“On it,” Enzo says, fingers flying over his laptop.
“The fucker used his father’s prized antique car as collateral to play the game, but I was feeling charitable that night, so I told him I would take a hundred thousand dollars if he wasn’t willing to hand over the car.” I run a hand over my beard as I bring that game night back to mind. “He accused me of cheating. I remember him foaming at the mouth and crying about how I had somehow cheated, so I simply told him he had two weeks to pay up, or I would collect the debt from his father and expose his gambling addiction.”
“Smart,” Matteo snickers. “Very smart of you to threaten a cornered dog. What the fuck did you think was going to happen? Of course he was going to bite."
“Clearly not hard enough. He missed.”
“And yet, here you are. In bed. With a hole in your fucking leg.”
“Touché.”
"If you two are done bickering, I've found something," Enzo says, turning his laptop to face us. Matteo steps closer, and we both stare blankly at the series of numbers flashing on the screen, none of which makes sense. Lorenzo shakes his head and turns his laptop away. "I won't bother explaining everything. The short story is that Marco Bortelli should not be gambling anything, let alone his father’s antique car.”
“He’s broke?” I ask, surprised. The people who manage the game state they're careful about the people they invite to play, but it seems they didn't run a proper background check on Marco. “I know the fucker shot me, but I need solid proof before I can act. This isn’t enough, but it’s a start.”
“I’ll look into it,” Enzo says, getting up to leave. He glances at the recliner and shakes his head before leaving. Matteo does as well, after leaving me sharp instructions to sit still and not do anything reckless as I wait for them to investigate. I probably wouldn't get past the gates anyway, with the level of security in this place, so I lie down and try not to think of a woman with blonde hair and the prettiest blue eyes I have ever seen.
Still, she slips into my mind.
As does the memory of the first time I stopped thinking of her as Luca’s sister and as something…more.
I don’t like myself when I’m around her. Not the way my brain short-circuits when I catch a glimpse of those blue eyes, like two pools reflecting the sky. I get lost in them, and it fucks me up that I can’t function around her, so I do shit like I did this morning.
