I read the conversation on a translation app and paced beside her as the man droned on and on about the inconvenience. He only paused long enough to jack up the “value” of the item in increments and tell her to remind him, again, why he was brilliant and important.
I don’t give a shit about the blatant extortion, but listening to Franki suck up to that egomaniac made me want to hurl her phone into the sea where, best case scenario, a shark would eat it.
The second crisis involved discovering a mother cat had hidden her litter of kittens in the open base of the lectern meant for the wedding ceremony.
This, happily, had nothing to do with Spencer’s brother and everything to do with the large local population of strays.
Franki suggested we put the kittens in a basket to move them. But given Mama Cat’s protective nature, it was an extraction requiring surgical precision. So, the staff and I moved the entire lectern. Mother and kittens are now resting comfortably—in our room—and we’ve been hand-feeding the runt kitten formula with a syringe.
No baby animal will starve on my watch, by God.
Our pet sitter, Piper, added kitten-feeding to her schedule when we aren’t around. Considering she has to keep the animals separated to avoid Mama Cat and our dachshund, Oliver, fighting like literal cats and dogs, I tripled her wages.
Two crises, one of which has turned our room into a petting zoo, is enough.
Franki glances my way, once more. I stare back and attempt to project “Let’s get the fuck out of here while we still can,”straight into her brain.
Instead of nodding and silently slipping closer, my wife raises her eyebrows in the middle.Beseeching me.
I shake my head and mouth, “No.”
“Henry,” she implores quietly.
“We are not getting sucked into their family drama,” I mutter.
Dante rubs Spencer’s shoulders. “Everything will work out.”
I cut my eyes from Franki to Dante and back again.See?Dante has everything handled.
“A member of the staff caught Elliot in the kitchen. He said he was going change the menu,” Spencer says tearfully.
Oh. That is . . . unfortunate.
Dante closes his eyes. “Is he aware my mother is a professional chef?”
“He knows,” Spencer says. “He also knows she’s the one who planned the menu.”
Phyllis has been Dad’s chef my entire life, through the loss of her first husband in the Vinucci war. Through the shit that went down with the Russian Bratva. Once, when we were looking for a missing kid and the fucker who trafficked him wouldn’t talk, Dad asked to borrow Phyllis’s fillet knives.
Her answer was to show up on site wearing her full uniform—hat and checkered pants included—her blonde hair tucked into a pristine, net-wrapped bun at the base of her neck, ready to work.
No one but Phyllis uses Phyllis’s knives.
“This is what happens when you bring oblivious people into a situation they don’t understand,” I say.
Spencer moans.
Shifting a fraction closer to my wife, I slip my arm around her waist. She leans into me, allowing me to support some of her weight. That tells me enough. She needs rest.
This is a wedding, not a mafia war. Dante is my head of security, for God’s sake. He can handle a little domestic dispute.
“What did Elliot say, exactly?” Franki asks.
Spencer hesitates before answering, “He said the wedding menu should be more accessible.”
That doesn’t sound too bad. “What does that mean?” I ask. “Allergen-free? Vegan?”
Dante’s jaw tightens. “Mom already took that into account. She’s meticulous.”
