Bianca’s voice cuts in from the hall. “Antipasti as soon as Roberto and Olivia get here. If anyone touches before I say, I hit you with a wooden spoon like my Nonna used to do.”
Antonio lifts his good hand. “I’m wounded.”
“You still have one good side,” Bianca shoots back and disappears down the hall again.
From across the room, my father catches my eye.
He touches Elena’s back gently as he walks past her. She smiles absently and continues talking to Caterina. I set Alessandra down next to her cousin Stephano and follow him out of the room and down the hall to his study.
Luca pours two fingers of bourbon into a glass and hands it to me.
I take it.
He doesn’t sit right away. He stands by the window, looking out.
“Talk,” he says.
I should’ve known he’d hear. Even after twelve years behind bars, Luca Conti, Don of the Conti family, doesn’t miss a beat.
“I got a call about a girl at the auction,” I say.
“Some virgin,” he says. “What’s it to you?”
“She’s my assistant. Hired her a few weeks back,” I say.
He turns away from the window to look at me. “Legitimate?”
“Yeah,” I say. Irritated, I throw the bourbon back.
“Then why was she on that stage?” he asks, voice even, but his eyes sharpen. “You don’t hire women like that for your office.”
“She’s not a woman ‘like that,’ Papá,” I say, and the words come out sharper than intended. “She’s clean. She’s not some party girl. She blushes if you walk too close and brush her tit with your arm.”
He studies me like he’s looking for the catch.
“Her father is sick. She needed the money for some surgery.”
“And that was her solution? Why not go to you?”
I breathe out through my nose. “I don’t know. I guess she didn’t think of it. Or maybe she didn’t want to borrow from us. We have a reputation, you know.”
His mouth twitches. “Don’t be a smartass.”
“It’s genetic,” I say.
“If she’s so clean, how did she get herself on that stage?” he asks. “That’s Ralphie’s business, and he doesn’t exactly advertise in the paper.”
“I don’t know yet, but I intend on finding out.” I walk over to the bourbon and pour myself another. “That’s not something someone like her should’ve ever been doing.”
I knock back this drink too, as the image of Erica standing under those lights while men shouted out crude words to her comes to mind.
“If you mean one of our employees, you’re right,” he says. “They need to stay out of our business and away from our people. But if you mean some virgin trying to make a few extra bucks, that’s not our concern.”
Erica in the babydoll in the middle of the room, security standing at the door, windows bolted, cell phone taken away. Waiting for some random man to come do whatever he wanted to her.
He senses my hesitation. “Nico,” he says in warning. “You stay out of Ralphie’s business. We have enough on our plate these days.”
“Papá,” I say. “They didn’t tell her shit. They promised her safety and locked her in a room. You know who the next highest bidder was? Mal O’Hara.”
