“Mr. Ricci,” the man called once he was in earshot.
The atmosphere changed in an instant. Ranieri and Nico moved away from each other and stared after me as I shoved the floatie in their direction and waded to the shore.
“It’s the boss,” the man said, holding the phone out to me.
I swallowed hard. Out here in paradise it was easy to forget about Amante and his plans for us and the reminder was like ice through my veins.
“Sir,” I said into the phone as I turned away from my pack and made sure I had my mental threads under control so that Cini and Nico couldn’t hear what I was saying.
“Elio, how have you all been doing?” Amante’s question was nonchalant, like a concerned father checking in on his children, but I knew better.
“Fine, sir, we are making strides with your mission for us.”
Calling my relationship with Cini a mission left a bitter taste in my mouth, but if Amante truly knew just how much I cared for her I knew he would use it against me.
“Good, good…” Amante trailed off before finally getting to the reason for his call. “I need you and your men to do something for me while you are down South.”
“Is he serious?” Ranieri asked as he watched me pack a duffel bag.
Amante had tasked us with meeting a potential business partner who just so happened to be vacationing on the same island as us.
Which was a complete crock of shit. There were a lot of coincidences in life and this was not one of them.
At least now I knew why he had agreed to let us go on this honeymoon so easily, only insisting on choosing the location. He was going to get something out of it.
“You can’t just go by yourself, El,” Ranieri continued as I ignored him, focusing on tying my tie and making sure I looked the part of the mafioso I had always been even if the term was growing increasingly foreign to me. “We don’t know anything about this Mr. R guy that Amante wants you to meet with. It could be an ambush.”
I glanced up at him in the mirror I was standing in front of and I found my pack mate’s eye filled with a craze that I understood all too well. He was having flashbacks to the night Alesso had died. There were too many similarities, but I also knew that if we didn’t do as asked then it would be our girl who suffered. At least I could go into this knowing that Amante and whoever the hell this guy was had something nefarious up their sleeves. “I know, but I’m also not leaving Cini here on her own with just those bastards in the other room.”
‘Then take me with you,’Cini’s voice filled my mind and I realized she had been standing in the doorway to the bedroom reading my lips as I spoke.
I scoffed at how ridiculous of a request that was.‘Absolutely not. There isn’t a chance in hell that I will take you into danger like that willingly,peanut.’
Cini’s lips twisted with impatience and she let out a huff of air before she crossed the threshold and came to fix my tie which was more than a little lopsided.
“We can split up, Elio. You take me and Dante and Nicky can stay here with Cini. Hells we can put them on the sailboat again or something if you really don’t want them around Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,” Ranieri continued, oblivious to the conversation I was having with Cini.
‘Why do you have to do what he asks anyway? Why can’t we just run away from here and start all over again with just the five of us?’Cini asked once she’d finished straightening my tie and pressed her palms flat into my chest.
Realizing I wasn’t actually listening to him, Ranieri made a noise of frustration in his throat and threw his hands up in the air. “And you two aren’t even listening to me. I swear we need a safe word or something so we know when someone’s having a psychic walkie talkie session.”
“Mango,” Nico said as he entered the room dressed similarly to me.
“What?” Ranieri asked, confused by the seeming randomness of the word.
“The safe word should be mango,” Nico clarified as he gently tugged Cini away from me.
‘Me next,’he told her, making sure I could hear him as he held up his own tie for her to fuss over.
“You aren’t going with me,” I said but he ignored me, his dark eyes on Cini as her slender fingers fiddled with the dark blue material of the tie.
“You don’t get to decide that,” Nico replied simply. “Amante said you need to bring us. So you’re going to bring us.”
‘Running away is still on the table,’Cini added in unhelpfully and I could feel her anxiety rising by the minute.
I would have to deal with Nico later.
With a growl, I pulled her into a hug before she could finish tying Nico’s tie and inhaled her sweet scent.
