Amauri's eyes widen. "Like a girl?"
The entire table loses it. Enzo wipes his mouth with a napkin. "No one screamed. But someone definitely got chased by a dog."
"That dog was trained," Damiano mutters.
"It was a Pomeranian," Alessio corrects.
Even I laugh.
"The time Enzo nearly died," Massimo begins, but his tone is lighter now.
"I tripped," Enzo interrupts. "On a pallet. Don't let him dramatize it."
"You lost a lot of blood," Gabe corrects flatly.
"Paper cut," Enzo waves it off.
"That's a lie," Damiano says. "He passed out and hit his head on a crate."
Amauri gasps like that's the most thrilling thing he's ever heard. "Did you get stitches?"
"Four," Enzo admits grudgingly.
"Five," Massimo corrects.
They argue over the number. The tension dissolves. Alessio gets his turn.
"I once hacked a rival's entire computer system in under an hour."
Amauri leans forward. "Like in the movies?"
Alessio considers. "Less explosions. More coffee."
"And more crying," Gabe adds.
"You made someone cry?" Amauri asks, impressed.
"Only financially," Alessio bends over to my son conspiratorially.
That earns another round of laughter. The stories aren't about violence. They're about stupidity. Luck. Loyalty. How Damiano once got so drunk he tried to climb a palm tree and fell into a decorative fountain. How Gabe once spent three hours tracking asecurity breachthat turned out to be a raccoon.
"It was persistent," Gabe defends.
How Massimo once miscalculated a deal and had to swallow his pride and ask Enzo for backup. Amauri listens like they're knights around a round table. And maybe they are. Just darker, not the kind from the storybooks. They aren't bragging. They're remembering. Massimo relaxes in a way I've never seen before. Shoulders lower. Voice warmer. His hand rests on my thigh under the table, not to control me, but to anchor himself. Amauri eats like he's at a superhero convention. At one point, he leans toward Massimo and whispers, "Are they always this scary?"
Massimo glances around the table. "They like to think so, but they're softer than Hammie's bedding."
The men laugh. Something shifts inside me. These aren't just capos. They're the men who kept him alive when I couldn't. That gives them a place at this table. And maybe, eventually, in my life too. Gabe sits across from me. Watching. Not me. His phone. I narrow my eyes. Enzo notices.
"What's she doing now? Taking a shower?" Enzo asks casually.
That earns him a scorching look from Gabe, "I'm not some… pervert." He lowers his voice at the last word, looking at Amauri, whose ears instinctively pick up.
Damiano snorts into his drink.
"I said monitoring," Gabe mutters.
Amauri's head pops up immediately. "What's a pervert?"
