I recoil. “Are you serious?”
“He was loyal,” she continues. “He proved that he would never betray the Family, no matter what.”
That’s for sure. Good thing the Feds didn’t give him a pen and some paper, or he might have started hacking off his fingers, too. Yikes.
I keep prodding. “So…why didn’t the new Don keep him on?”
She presses her lips together, hard. Then she says, “Signor Orsini treasures his loyalty. Vito has a home here for life.”
I sip my coffee, turning over in my mind what I’ve learned. This isn’t a household, it’s a—apack. A pack of stray dogs who learned to work together to survive. And I’m the outsider who’s been dragged into their?—
Several loud explosions ricochet through the room.
I jump, coffee sloshing as my adrenaline goes through the roof.
“It’s the back door,” Rosa says calmly. “That’s all. When the barricades are down, anyone knocking sounds loud.”
That was way more thanloud. My heart is still racing hard enough to burst. “You can’t answer it,” I say, voice sharp. “The house is on lockdown.”
But Rosa is already at the security console, checking the monitors. “It’s just Sammy.”
“Who? Wait?—”
But she’s already disabling the alarm and raising the steel barrier. I grip the countertop hard, trying to remember how to get back to Damiano’s bedroom. If I run now, I could make it to the stairs before?—
A young man steps into the kitchen carrying a box full of fruit, vegetables, leafy herbs. About my height, lean, maybe mid-twenties with curly dark hair and black gauge rings in both earlobes. His leather jacket is a designer knockoff, and his jeans are tucked into cheap boots.
His eyes go straight to me and then narrow.
“Who’s that?” he demands.
“None of your concern,” Rosa says, but it lacks the sharpness that’s underlined everything else she’s said to me so far.
I guess this guy isn’t an assassin.
He puts the box down on the counter and Rosa begins looking through it, shaking her head and sighing at what she sees, even though it all looks fine to me. I walk around the island to extend my hand to the newcomer with a polite smile. “Hey. You’re Sammy, right? I’m Cal. Cal Clemenza.”
He recoils from me, lips pulling up in a sneer. His gaze travels over the robe and down to my bare feet. He turns his back on me to speak to Rosa. “The markets aren’t great right now, but I did what I could.”
With a sniff at his words, Rosa picks up the box and disappears into the walk-in pantry, leaving us alone.
I search for something to fill in the silence, make him talk. “Are you a friend of Damiano’s?”
“I’m a lot more than hisfriend,” he mutters, turning on me. He gives me another scathing up-and-down look. “And you’re not the first guy he’s used for a night. You won’t be the last. But I’llalwaysbe here.”
What the actual fuck?
He’s glaring at me like I’ve stolen something from him. Obviously there’s history there—but that’s notmyfault. And hell, based on what he just said, I think we can agree that Damiano’s an asshole.
But somehow I don’t think we’re going to bond over it.
I open my mouth to say something—anything—but the guy goes to the security panel, ostentatiously shielding it from me with one hand as he puts in a code. The barriers outside rattle down once more. Sammy gives me one last glare and slips back down the hallway. From somewhere deeper in the house, I hear a door slam shut.
Whoever Sammy is, he lives here. Just like Rosa and Vito.
Rosa returns from the pantry and doesn’t seem surprised to see him gone.
“Who is that guy?” I ask.
