"About a lot of things." I put my head on his chest. His arm comes around me, automatic and easy now. "She told me first because I'm the bartender and the bartender doesn't judge."
"You judge plenty."
"I judge silently. There's a difference."
His chest moves with the breath that's almost a laugh. His fingers trace my shoulder up and down and then across.
"Hey, asshole."
"Yes, vixen."
"Your family is insane."
"I'm aware."
"And I'm apparently part of it now. Leone basically said as much today, in front of the whole compound.The bartender who had the nerve to tell a dying man the truth."
“Yep, one of us now."
"You gonna lock me down now? Tie me to a bedpost and recite poetry to me so I don’t get spooked and disappear?”
He laughs. A real one. Quiet, tired, but whole, and I feel it move through his chest and into my cheek and down into the part of me that's been holding its breath since the funeral. “Vixen, you couldn’t run from me, even if you tried. This dick is too magical for you to pass up.”
“Oh, shut up, that is not true.”
“That’s not what your pussy says every time I destroy it.”
“Asshole.”
“You love me.” He chuckles and then stops. “Shit I—"
My breath sucks in and I freeze. He’s right. Idolove him. “No, uh… you’re right.”
“Am I? You love me? Savannah Cole, the feisty, foul-mouthed bartender, loves a simple soul like me?”
My eyes roll back, “Yes. I love you, Emilio.”
He grips my chin and forces it up, capturing my mouth in a kiss. “You sure know how to distract a man from grieving.”
I smack his shoulder and then he bites my lip.
“For the record, I love you too and have every intention of making you my wife.”
Chapter Seventeen: Emilio
Dahliaaskstospeakto Leone privately at eight in the morning, which means she was up all night making the decision and the decision won.
I know because I was up most of the night too, lying next to a woman who told me she loves me while I'm still processing the fact that the family I grew up in was someone else's chess piece. The universe has a genuinely fucked-up sense of timing. I should be lying in bed grinning at the ceiling, replaying the way Savannah saidI love you, Emiliowith her head on my chest and her voice doing that thing where the toughness drops out of it and the real her shows up for three seconds before the walls go back up. Instead I'm lying there running the folder through my head on repeat, trying to figure out how a man can love me enough to call me the heart of his family and also lie to me for thirteen years about what the family actually was.
Aurelio loved us and Aurelio lied to us and the fact that one doesn't cancel the other is the kind of complicated that my brain isn't built for. Claudio's brain is built for complicated. My brain is built for action, and right now there's no action to take, just information to sit with, and sitting has never been my strong suit.
Savannah fell asleep around two with the bottle cap still in her hand. I watched her breathe for a while because apparently I'm the kind of man who does that now. I used to be the kind of man who fell asleep and woke up ready to fight. Now I'm the kind of man who watches his girlfriend sleep and thinks about buying her a ring and also thinks about shadow governments and dead father figures and whether whiskey is running low in the bar.
I'm a mess. A well-intentioned, deeply in love, heavily confusedmess.
By the time I get to the war room at nine, Leone's already spoken to Dahlia privately and whatever she told him hit him hard. He's standing at the head of the table and the look in his eyes is one I've only seen twice before. Once when he found out about the trafficking. Once when Aurelio asked him to call Dahlia home. It's the look Leone gets when the problem is so big that even his brain needs a minute to catch up, and Leone's brain never needs a minute for anything.
The room fills. Claudio against the wall because Claudio has never sat down during a briefing in his life and probably never will. Charlotte beside him and Alexandra at the table with three screens worth of data pulled up. Carmelo in the corner, arms crossed, no knife, flexing his fingers in a rhythm that's becominghis newthing. The man needs a replacement knife. I'm going to find him one whether he wants my help or not.
