Milo tosses her a water bottle. “Don’t act like you didn’t volunteer to judge.” She smirks, and Milo adds, “Please. Youknow if we judged, you’d cry when Marco loses,” he jokes, and I laugh as Marco tells him to fuck off.
“That’s slander,” Marco says. “And disrespectful to my biceps.”
We’re joined by two of our cousins, Remo and Ricci, straight from Italy with accents thick and egos thicker. We have America, they have Italy. Remo’s talking shit about the Triads and their silent-ass training spaces.
“They don’t even blink when they fight,” he says. “I swear one of them smiled once and I almost dropped my knife.”
“They probably train with ghosts,” Ricci shrugs. “Makes sense for people who look like they sleep standing up.”
Milo’s doing another round of pull-ups, showing off now. “Let’s have a real competition. Loser does night patrol alone.”
I stretch my arms. “Fine. But if Rosa wins, you all wear pink tomorrow.”
She cracks her knuckles. “Bet.”
We all take turns, Marco actually surprises everyone, he might be a computer man, but the man still had to train the same as us, Remo fakes a cramp halfway, Ricci slips off the bar completely, claiming ‘bad grip’ like a coward. I pull off twelve clean ones just to spite them all. I could have done more if I wanted to but didn’t want them to hate me.
Rosa hits ten, no surprise with Uncle Seb training her. “Don’t worry, Matteo, one day I’ll beat you.”
“We both know that’s not true,” I say. “I held back.”
We sit in a circle after, still sweaty, half of us shirtless. Milo’s ranting about one of the other Italian factions, Donati’s son, who is annoying him for one reason or the other. I think it’s more because he got a girl Milo was eyeing up.
“They showed up to underground wearing fucking cologne,” he groans. “I thought we were training, not dating.”
“Donati boys always smell like daddy’s wallet,” Marco says.
Everyone laughs.
Rosa leans back against Ricci, who pokes at her protein bar like it offended him. Milo wrestles Alonza to the ground, calling him a greasy bastard. Marco films, narrating like it’s a nature documentary.
And me?
I’m not thinking about blood.
Not thinking about cliff edges.
Not thinking about her.
For a little while, we’re just loud, dangerous kids playing like the world doesn’t want to kill us.
For a little while, I let myself breathe.
Just as Rosa’s stretching out her arms, another voice joins the chaos.
“You know, this looks more like a bad gym promo than Mafia royalty,” comes the voice of Santino, our cousin from the Hollow Coast branch of the Messina line, well we say family, but they’re our grandmother’s side of the family.
They’re there for family dinner when Grandfather hosts, and they’re there when we need them, just like we are for them.
“Santino,” Milo groans. “Here to critique our form or just show off your overpriced sneakers again?”
Santino drops beside Marco. “These are Italian leather. Handmade. You wouldn’t understand, you still dress like an Eastern European hacker.”
Marco flips him off. “Better than a Vogue mafia intern.”
Milo and I burst out laughing, because that has to be the best line Marco has thrown at him in a long time.
“Boys,” Rosa chimes in, laughing. “Can we not start a fight over shoes?”
