Sammy gives me the kind of look he usually saves for Caligula, but says, “Whatever.”
“Make sure you get everything necessary,” Lorenzo Benedetti says in a low voice to his grandson, and then adds softly in Italian, “And don’t spend all your time flirting.”
Great. Even his own grandfather thinks the kid’s a player. I don’t think I want to leave Sammy with?—
“Come on, Dami,” Caligula says, appearing at my elbow and threading his arm through mine to steer me out of the room.
Everyone else follows us out, but I call back over my shoulder, “You just yell out if you need anything, Sammy. We’ll be right here in the foyer.”
“We’ll be fine, Mr. Orsini,” Ricky says with a cheeky grin, as he shuts the doors of my great room in my face.
We end up in the kitchen, because Rosa declares we’re not standing around in a drafty foyer. Benedetti doesn’t seem to mind having coffee with the staff. He’s charming to Rosa, and I catch Vito giving him the side-eye.
“He’s a married man,” I mutter to Vito. It doesn’t help.
Twenty minutes pass. Then twenty-five.
“Shouldn’t they be done?” I ask Benedetti.
“I have trained my grandson to be thorough. These things cannot be rushed, Signor Orsini.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Caligula says to me, calm and steady, and I realize he’s beenmanagingme this entire morning. Smoothing edges, redirecting tension, making this whole thing work. He brought Benedetti into my world. He made this happen for Sammy. And now he’s sitting at my kitchen table drinking coffee like he belongs here.
The worst part is, he does.
He belongs here. In my kitchen, with my people. And I need to kill him before the week is out.
At last, we hear laughter in the corridor. Actual laughter from Sammy, which might as well be a miracle.
“...just down here,” Sammy is saying, and he jogs down the steps into the kitchen, followed by Ricky, and I can only stare.
I’ve never seen Sammy look like this. Lighter. In his face, in the way he holds his body, in the way he’s grinning at this Benedetti kid like the world just got a little bigger.
“We’re all done, Gramps,” Ricky says to Benedetti. “We even went through the samples, and Sammy picked out the fabric he wants.”
“Sammy doesn’t know what fabric he wants,” I say at once. All it gets me is a kick under the table from Caligula and a glare from Rosa.
But I don’t think Sammy heard me, because he’s too busy blushing at Ricky Benedetti, who is looking at me now like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “Oh, he knew exactly what he wanted, Mr. Orsini. He’s got a great sense of style.”
Fan-fucking-tastic. Does this mean I’m gonna be spending another fortune on a Vanquish II suit? But I can’t find it in me to protest, not when Sammy is smiling so wide at the compliment this suave motherfucker gave him.
Rosa makes them coffee at the counter, and the two of them lean their heads together, talking about something—I catch the word Guggenheim—and Sammy’s face has a kind of openness I’ve never seen on it. He’s always been guarded, always armored,always flinching away from warmth. And this kid with the easy grin and the good clothes is somehow getting past all of it in half an hour.
When Benedetti and his grandson finally leave, Sammy’s phone gives an alert almost immediately. He checks it, and color floods his face as he fights down a smile.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“Ricky wanted my number.”
I open my mouth to say something about security and not giving out numbers and the Bratva threat?—
“Ricky is such a nice guy,” Caligula says warmly. “And he seemed to like you a lot, Sammy.”
Sammy is pleased for about half a second before he remembers to glare at Caligula. Then he turns to me. “When will the suit be ready? Will Ricky deliver it?”
And despite everything—Big Gee’s ultimatum, Daniel King, the plan I can’t execute, the golden-eyed man that I’m supposed to hand over or kill—I almost smile. Sammy is so young and so transparent and so goddamn hopeful right now. I’ve never seen him like this.
I guess it’s a good thing that someone in this house can have a few minutes of happiness.
