Chapter 26
chapter twenty-six
Natalia
It took everything in me not to fling my phone into oncoming traffic on the busy central highway through Vegas. My expression was unbothered, save for the slight twitch of an eyeball that I was sure none of my bridesmaids had caught. If they had, they were doing an admirable job pretending they hadn’t.
Maybe it was unfair of me to expect Mateo to come begging on his knees for forgiveness after I’d given the explicit impression that was the last thing I wanted. It was me who ignored his apology. Me who left the villa without him, me who ignored him gawking out the window. I put that metaphorical space between us because I would always stand my ground.
But receiving a photo of my future husband sandwiched between two beautiful, chest-blessed women was fanning a tiny flame into something much hotter and more dangerous to put out.
“Are you sure you don’t want that prenup?” Bella snorted. “I still have the draft.”
“It’s fine.” I tucked my phone back into my bag with an annoyed sigh. “We just have to beat them at their own game. If Mateo wants to be petty, well, he knows who he’s dealing with.”
Ophelia squeezed my hand. “For what it’s worth, it was Angelo who sent the text. Could all be a huge misunderstanding.”
“I can’t wait to give that mafioso weasel a piece of my mind,” Mia said. She paced the crosswalk where we stood and slammed her fist against the signal button. “They’re baiting us. Men are all the same, and unless you go down to the dirty, dingy ball sweat crawl space that is their level, they’ll never get the hint.”
“We’ll find you some strippers, Talia,” Camilla said. “It’s only fair.”
I scoffed. “Mateo would lose his mind.”
“Exactly.” Mia flailed her hands. “No one said we were playing a nice game. This is war, as far as I can tell. They took the first shot, and now we have to send one right back over. The first shirtless guy we see, it’s on.”
“There’s a difference between vengeance and desperation,” I countered.
Bella rolled her eyes. “Russo women are never desperate. We’re calculated .”
“Let’s stick to the list,” Phee suggested. The crosswalk signal beeped and we shuffled across the long two-lane highway, heels clacking against the pavement and sequined skirts glinting in the bright sunlight. “There’s a pool party, and a DJ. We can strike a few of these off in no time and have them scrambling.”
My bag started to buzz and I flung my dark hair over my shoulder, pulling my phone out. “It’s Mateo,” I said, skidding to a stop to search the crowds around us. Of course he wanted to reach out now, and similarly, every instinct in my body was telling me to pick up the phone, regardless of how much I wanted to throttle him. His name and a photo of us from Christmas day was staring back at me as I let it ring. “Should I answer?”
“No!” Mia lurched for the phone but I tugged it away.
“Don’t give him the satisfaction,” Camilla advised. “You’re not at his beck and call.”
I tugged my bottom lip between my teeth. “What if it’s an emergency?”
“Oh, it’s an emergency all right.” Mia scoffed out a laugh. “He’s urgently trying to fix his screw-up. He can suffer until you’re ready for him to crawl back.”
“If it were an emergency Frankie would have called. He’s under strict orders,” Ophelia said. “I hate to say it, I’m with your sisters on this one.”
There was an internal fight thrashing around in my head. I wanted to talk to him, and I also wanted to scream at him because I knew he would just listen and let me. I wanted to hear his voice, while also violently shaking him. I was a median on a busy highway, two concurrent flowing forces beckoning me in either direction. I was so good at icing out everyone in my life, except for Mateo. He softened me to butter. He owned me. He was the only person I cared about caring about me, even after I put up a convincing-as-hell front this morning.
My phone skipped to voicemail and seconds later lit up again with another call from Mateo. I twisted my lips.
“Let me talk to him.” Mia reached for my phone again and I let her take it. She folded an arm across her chest and stuck the receiver to her ear with an agitated sigh. “Yes, Mateo?”
I scooted closer but the only sound I could hear was a muffled voice full of panic. “Put it on speaker.”
Mia pushed a waiting finger toward me, rolling her eyes at the voice on the other line.
“What is he saying?” Bella pressed.
My sister mockingly made a chatting hand movement, bringing a reluctant giggle to the tip of my tongue. “She doesn’t want to talk to you,” she said. “She’s busy, with these guys who said they’re in the Navy or something. Oh yeah, big sailor boys. They said they’d show us the best spot for a lap dance.”
“Mia.” I choked out a laugh, reaching for the cell, but she twirled in a circle away from me.
“Oh, that’s going to chap some asses.” Phee’s eyes widened. “We’ve got minutes before the SWAT team arrives.”
“‘On to the next one’? Ariana Grande would be rolling in her tanning bed,” Mia continued. “Hope you don’t get a rash from those cheap-ass Temu rhinestone bras those girls were wearing, and tell your brother I can smell his bodega cologne all the way from the MGM Grand.”
“Jesus, Mia,” Cami snorted. “Tell him how you really feel.”
“I mean, the audacity,” Mia added. “You must be fucking high—oh, you’re drunk? You know what, that’s so rich, trying to find a cop-out. You’re not getting off that easy.”
“He said he’s drunk?” I bit my tongue.
Mia clipped the phone between her shoulder and her ear and put two hands out, forming air quotes. “ Allegedly. ”
I was exasperated, and Mateo was clearly having his fun. It was my turn to throw that type of caution to the wind. God, I’d never been so frustrated with him before, and it hurt me more than I realized it could. He hurt me more than I realized he could, and I was unable to process it while trotting around Las Vegas on a bachelorette trip. All I knew was I wanted to make him feel the way I felt.
I grabbed Ophelia’s hand and tugged her toward the sparkling facade of billboards on crystalline hotel blocks and the sign for a beach club calling out to me like a sermon. “You can hang up, Mia. We’ve got a game to win.”
“Hope you guys got your fun little giggles in, because this is war now, brother-in-law . If you think you five play dirty, there’s nothing quite like a woman scorned with a tag team of vengeful Russos…and Ophelia.”
“Thanks.” Phee shot her a pair of finger guns for support.
“You won’t even know what hit you until you’re two-stepping across the dance floor in Key West. Ciao.”
I snatched my phone, Mateo’s desperate voice called out my name in a last-ditch effort to sway me, and I ended the call before the little voice in my head convinced me to answer him back.