I gave his shoulder a push. “Pervert.”
From the corner of my eye, I watched Sofia woodenly taking her place next to Luca. Jeremie settled on the other side of her, and Katya slipped into the seat next to her brother. I guess Jeremie was still here for the time being, but not for long. The tension from that side of the table made invisible spiders crawl along my skin.
Achilles scanned the room, his eyes finally landing on me. I fiddled with my phone, feigning deep fascination with an incoming message some scammer had sent me about getting my roof redone. He stalked toward me like a summoned demon.
“Hey, Enzo?” Achilles drawled.
“Yo.”
“Fuck off.”
“Nuh-uh. You can’t talk to me like that anymore.” Enzo flung his elbow onto the back of his seat. “I’m your superio?—”
“If you don’t evacuate your ass from my woman’s vicinity, I’m going to cut out your larynx with a blunt spoon and feed it to my pet snake.”
Enzo flashed Luca a look of disbelief.
Luca shrugged. “His woman, his rules. I’m not interfering in this.”
“I’m not his woman.” I fixed the napkin next to my plate, not bothering to keep the pettiness out of my voice.
“You have a pet snake?” Katya asked excitedly. “That’s so cool.”
Achilles ignored her, taking the now-vacant seat next to me, his eyes hard on my profile. “Hello to you, too.”
“You seemed busy.” I sounded like a jealous teenybopper, and somehow, I couldn’t muster one damn. Between disappearing for a whole week and flirting with Igor’s daughter, he wasn’t winning any points with me tonight.
“It was just small talk.”
I barked out a laugh. “Small talk, huh? Sounds like big bullshit to me.”
“You’re acting like a child.”
“At least I’m not about to marry one.”
Our conversation got cut off by a sea of servers who flooded the table at once, unloading savory Italian dishes and an unholy amount of wine. I tried focusing on the food, too distressed by the realization I was very close to stabbing a fork through Katya from across the table.
I told myself it had something to do with the fact she was the daughter of the dead Russian pakhan who’d abused me, but from what Tiernan had told me, all of Igor’s spawn loathed their slain father with a passion.
Moreover, despite not seeing Alex, the new pakhan, for fifteen years, I had been fond of him growing up.
Fortunately, the food was mouthwatering and the conversation flowed. The women talked shopping, the men soccer. Vello just sat there, drooling as a nurse spoon-fed him a mashed version of our dishes. I had to admit, I liked this new version of him much better.
“Tier, are you okay?” Lila rubbed my back every five minutes, swinging her gaze from me to her father. “You’re feeling comfortable, right?”
“Right,” I muttered.
God, I loved her, but she really needed to stop treating me like a baby.
After the entrees and wine were demolished, trays of champagne and dessert flooded the room. Achilles stood and clinked a flute with a fork. “I’d like to make a toast.”
Everyone sat up straighter. My stomach churned, everything inside it threatening to pour back out. This was it. The big announcement. He and Katya were getting married.
He raised the champagne glass in the air. “To my brother Enzo and his new fiancée, Katya Rasputin. May their union bring the two families peace, prosperity, and continue our respective legacies.”
My fork tumbled from between my fingers, clinking noisily on my plate. My gaze skated to Enzo, who sat still, face unreadable, fingers curled around the armrests to the point of white knuckles.
What?I mouthed to him in disbelief.
