Just say the word. Your getaway car is ready. Plane is on standby. You have a new identity.
Me
Who is this?
Your darling cousin
A brief laughleft my mouth. I had many cousins, but Bianca was the only one who calls herself “darling cousin.” I’d gotten a new phone with the same number. Kirill wanted to give me one programmed for Zahkarov security, but I wasn’t ready to surrender my privacy yet. There was no assurance that my husband-to-be wouldn’t monitor my communication. Didn’t mean I couldn’t acquire burner phones without his knowledge.
Mamma’s foot nudged me under the table. “What are you doing?”
After yesterday’s drama at my apartment, this was a surprisingly cordial dinner. Kirill officially asked Dad and Mamma for my hand in marriage. Did Dad give me the same escape spiel as Dom and Luca? Of course, he did. But he didn’t get the chance to corner me for more than a few minutes since yesterday because Mamma was glued to my side.
There wasn’t much conflict resolution of their concerns yesterday. As far as Mamma and I were concerned, the arranged marriage was a done deal. I was even thankful she invited me to spend the night over at the family residence.
We had some mother-daughter time where she advised me on how to carry on my role as a mafia queen. We even indulged in face masks and had her masseuse come to the house, since according to Mamma, I should look my best tonight and I appeared too tense.
She blamed the men in my family at the same time she lovingly chided them. She used sweetness to mask the vinegar. Besides, they were careful about raising Mamma’s blood pressure. Since before Dad’s health scare last year, this was the happiest I’d seen her.
Mamma was positively radiant.
“Nothing. Just the cousins giving me a hard time.”
“What was that, Lusenka?” Kirill asked beside me. He’d been talking to his mother, who seemed as ecstatic as mine.
“My cousins are wondering when they can meet you?”
“We have a month to prepare for the wedding,” he said. “I’m sure that in that time we’ll have plenty of opportunities. Tonight is a formality to adhere to Margo’s procedure.”
Which really should only include the core families, but Luca was at the table too. I think the matchmaker made an exception because she was eyeing my uncle’s son for future alliances.
Rounding out our party were Dom and his fiancée, Sloane. I thought there would be awkwardness between her and Kirill’ssister since Mamma initially had set her eyes on that union. Aralina was an enigma. She stopped talking after a fire in their vacation home. She appeared sweet yet spunky. I saw the way she would sign with Kirill and her parents. Well, now she was using her phone to communicate with Sloane. It was interesting that Margo seated them together. Maybe the matchmaker wanted to shut down whatever cattiness might occur between my two future sisters-in-law. I could unequivocally say that the problem wouldn’t be coming from Sloane. She had always been a straight shooter. She’d just passed the NCLEX and was now a licensed nurse. We owed her big-time for her quick thinking that saved Dad’s life last year. So if there was going to be friction cropping up, I was on her side. I didn’t know Aralina well enough to determine whether her sweetness was a front.
Kirill chuckled, and I looked up at him questioningly. He was also looking at Sloane and Aralina. “My sister is shy at first. I hope the two of you will get along.”
I made a noncommittal reply.
After dinner and before dessert, Kirill leaned back in his seat, and his arm went across the back of my chair. His fingers stroked the top of my shoulder. I stiffened. No one noticed his moves because the conversation revolved around the Amalfi Coast properties.
“You didn’t tell me you were going to throw that in.” Ivan leaned forward to look at his son.
“Lucy has great ideas for it,” Kirill said.
“Great ideas?”
Dom coughed into his fist while Luca’s mouth tipped up in a suppressed grin.
Fantastic. Put me on the spot, would you? Everyone at this table knew those villas had been used for sex trafficking.
“We can turn them into a women’s shelter, a sanctuary. A school that would teach new and marketable skills. It’s near tourist spots. So, skills to do with tourism?”
“You might have a problem reclassifying that property use,” Ivan pointed out gruffly, but he didn’t seem angered by my suggestion. He even looked contemplative.
“I can help with the zoning.” Luca had influential connections to organized crime groups in Italy.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea, Lucy.” Irina smiled at me.
“My Lucy is so smart and has such a big heart,” Mamma preened. It was all I could do not to sink into my chair.
