9. Fucking Kids. They were such Cock Blockers
NINE
FUCKING KIDS. THEY WERE SUCH COCK BLOCKERS
“ D o you think you can make me another one?” Nadia asked when Max had shown back up to take their empty glasses.
“Of course.” Max smiled, proud with himself. “Another rum runner coming up.”
“Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” Amo cheered, coming back from his swim. “Keep ’em coming.”
Nadia laughed, proud of herself the more she loosened up, and when her second drink came, it tasted better than the first.
“Oh, I didn’t …” Dante stared at the rum runner that was being held out to him and was going to deny it, probably for his usual brown liquor, but he ended up just taking the drink. “Thanks.”
Lunchtime came shortly after, when Lila showed up to their loungers with sandwiches and fries. “Who’s hungry?”
“Me!” Amo urged like none of them didn’t already know.
Lila started handing out plates. “Well, I thought you guys might enjoy eating out here.”
“Great idea,” Nadia told her with a smile as she took her plate. She wasted no time plopping a fry into her mouth only for her to barely be able to contain her laughter so she could see the reactions she knew were about to ensue.
She watched them all take a big bite of their café-style chicken sandwiches first, and finally died of laughter when Amo ate a fry.
“What the fuck is that?” he yelled.
Nadia plopped another fry in her mouth. “Truffle.”
“How the hell do you always know what’s in it?” Amo asked in frustration.
“I went to a boarding school, and I ate a bunch of interesting food there.”
Amo didn’t look the least bit surprised, “Of course, you did.”
Leo suddenly met her eyes, both of them sharing a knowing look. She could see the fact that he wanted to say something to Amo about his comment, but Nadia gave him a silent look not to.
She had never cared what people thought of her. Many people assumed she had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and if she had spent her life telling everyone she ever met that it had actually been plastic, Nadia would be exhausted.
However, her focus being on Leo made her miss the fact that Dante had noticed the strange exchange between her and his son.
Amo now looked on the verge of tears from hunger. “Now, why do they gotta ruin perfectly good fries with that shit?”
“It’s how they make fries fancy,” she told him, glad to move the conversation along.
“Fries are supposed to be fucking greasy, not fancy.” Amo shoved his sandwich into his mouth with defeat. His next words were almost unintelligible while he rolled his eyes. “Rich people.”
“They can’t be—” Leo took a fry to try. “Never mind.”
Seeing Leo wince, Nadia was honestly beginning to agree. The food was good, but it would be even better if the chef had taken their preferences into account. They didn’t have to add a special ingredient to everything just to “fancy” it up. Some foods—and yes, even greasy food—were perfect already.
“The fries are fine,” Dante practically scolded them with a cold voice when he tried them. “It’s simple. Eat them or don’t.”
“They’re just hungry,” Nadia spoke up. They couldn’t help it if they weren’t used to this food. “If they had one descent meal they like—”
“They’re not starving.”
Anger rising in her, she didn’t like how he was making her feel, like she was being dramatic or something.
He was the one who should fucking care—they were his family.
Giving him a death glare, she showed him how dramatic she could be as she cut her chicken sandwich in half then proceeded to give one half to Leo before giving the other to Amo.
“Eat it,” she said, not allowing them any possibility to protest.
Leo got the message and was really appreciative. “Thanks, Nadia.”
“Yeah …” Amo might’ve said the words to her, but he looked at Dante while he said them, “Thanks, Nadia.”
Satisfied, she went back to her delicious drink and fries, propping up her book to continue reading while she did so.
“What are you reading over there?” Amo’s mouth was full when he talked.
“Oh.” Nadia gulped down her drink, thinking quickly. “It’s just a girlie book.”
“So, a romance book.” Amo winked, catching the drift.
If by romance, you mean erotic, then … “Yep.”
Slurping her drink brought up the gurgling sounds again since she had reached the end of her second drink.
“Would you like another?”
Seeing Max come out right on cue had to be a sign. “Yes, please.”
Dante stared at Nadia strangely behind his sunglasses as she downed her now third rum runner of the day. Clearly, he had judged the so-called “uptight” woman too hard.
Nadia had no fucking problem telling him off. Her ass was lucky he knew she had good intentions behind it, because she wanted to make sure Leo was happy. If that weren’t the case, that ass would be swimming home.
Plus, there was no way she was that uptight with the way she was throwing back those drinks.
Dante had had two of those suckers, and even he was beginning to feel them in the hot sun.
Rum was one of those alcohols you had to be careful with.
It was sneaky like that, and the way Max was pouring them, he doubted there was much else in the glass.
Hell, he was shocked she hadn’t gone out of the sun to take a nap, like Amo and Leo had.
That book must be good because, how in the hell could she still read straight at this point?
“What are you reading?”
Those words, with his curious tone, told her she had just made a brutal mistake being too enthralled in her book. She hadn’t noticed Dante had been staring at her when she busted out in laughter from what one of the biker bitches in her book had just said.
“Like I said, just some girlie—”
Trying to fight to keep the book in her hands made her lose concentration of what she was saying, but of course Dante had slid the book out of her hands a little too effortlessly, making her think she should slow down on the drinks.
“Sex Piston?” he said, half in shock and in laughter while he slid his eyes across the page to read a passage. “Is that really what the author named her?”
“Her nickname, yes,” Nadia clarified, trying to take it back in sheer embarrassment, though, again, it wasn’t hard for him to hold on to it. She was sort of just like an annoying fly while he began flipping the pages.
OH GOD.
She knew he had gotten to a good part when his eyes grew wide. “No wonder you’ve had your nose stuck in this book all day.” Seeing how far she had read into the book, he couldn’t resist another joke. “You’ve been busy.”
She ripped it out of his hands finally. “It has a good story.”
“Uh-huh.” He looked at her just as sarcastically as the words he had to say. “I’m sure everyone who has read Sex Piston read it for the story.”
Nadia couldn’t help but let the chuckle escape her lips. He might have had a point, even though the story actually was good. “Well, you can’t have a book called Sex Piston in your library and expect me not to choose it, when the only other options are autobiographies and how to invest money.”
Dante opened his mouth to tell her something, but she continued her rant, not letting him speak.
“And while I’m on the topic of things you could change around here … you could let your chef know your kids don’t like his food. That way, he could prepare them something different.”
What he was going to say clearly flew out of his head, as it was apparent on his face that he had changed gears to address something else she had said. “Amo is not a child, nor is he my son. He’s my soldier.”
“I thought you called yourselves a ‘ family ’.” As soon as she put her hands down from air quoting her last word, she regretted them.
Okay, now she was certain she’d had too much to drink.
Nervousness quickly grew in her stomach from the deafening silence, not knowing how he would take what she had said.
Of course, it was apparent now that he was the boss of the mafia family.
However, speaking it out loud was a different thing altogether.
She had let her guard slip. Being on vacation with him had somehow made Dante Caruso seem less dangerous, but the man before her was extremely dangerous, and she needed to remember that.
Actually, the whole Caruso family was extremely dangerous, apart from the two he had brought, Amo and Leo, who she was sure wouldn’t harm a fly.
Kansas City was full of whispers about the family, especially with one member in particular whom they called The Boogieman. And whoever the hell he was, she hoped to never ever cross his fucking path.
Her words had struck Dante like an ice pick going straight into his gut.
I thought you called yourselves a ‘family.’
It was true, they did. Every member had each other’s back, like a brother, father, or son, depending on where you fell in the family hierarchy, but if he was honest with himself, it had been a long time since it had felt like a family.
Then, to make matters worse, it had been even longer since he and his children, who were his own flesh and blood, had felt like family.
Dante knew when he and his own children stopped feeling like a family, but he didn’t know when the family had stopped feeling like one.
He was sure they were synonymous with each other; it just took some catching up to do.
“I … You’re right,” he finally said, coming up empty with what to say.
Nadia easily sensed the change in him, her tone becoming sympathetic. “It’s okay. No harm done.”
His mind instantly went to each one of his children he had recently wronged in order.
Nero.
Lucca.
Maria.
And now Leo.
The words seemed to shockingly slip right past his lips. “What if I have …?”
Suddenly, Nadia caught on that they weren’t simply talking about the chef’s food with his bone-chilling voice.
“And now it’s too late?” he finished the grave question.
Nadia let go of her book, reaching across to grab his hand. “I have never come across anything that couldn’t be fixed with a sorry and some time.”
Looking down at the soft, slender hand that covered his brought the strongest comfort he had felt in years to his soul, along with her words.
She now spoke as if she was revealing the world’s biggest fucking secret. “You just have to mean it.”
That was often the part people seemed to forget. It was like it was foreign for people to actually mean their apologies.
It was simple. You actually are sorry when you say sorry, or you don’t fucking say it at all. But even after all these years of human evolution, the concept had yet to be grasped.
When she felt the light squeeze on her hand as their fingers intertwined, all thoughts went out of her head as she was tugged in Dante’s direction …
Dante couldn’t believe it himself as he pulled the woman in for a kiss.
It was possibly the rum runners, or the place, but it just felt right, while it was also indescribable.
The peace that was beginning to wash over him while being with her, he was sure would envelope him when their lips met …
But, of course, it would all be too good to be true when light footsteps grew closer.
Leo cleared his throat to announce his arrival when he went back to his lounger. Dante had wanted to see his son happy again, even if it was just for the weekend, but he couldn’t say he was exactly pleased at the shit-eating grin on his son’s face.
Fucking kids. They were such cock blockers.