Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Rayna
Ifeel like I’m hosting an event for three gun happy teenage boys.
The lighthearted air in the apartment is not something I expected to feel while Yordan runs around, stashing weapons given to him by two seasoned mobsters.
He’s like a literal kid in a candy store, smiling ear to ear while finding the best places to hide sharpened knives and loaded firearms.
His enthusiasm seems to be infectious, at least where Elio is concerned. Both of them have shared several laughs, and easy camaraderie. While Apollo doesn’t shed his typical demeanor entirely, even he seems to have lightened up. They’re having fun, I guess.
For a while, I stood in the center of our new home, just watching them work.
The locations where they’re planting weapons in my living space is something I should be aware of, after all.
As someone who typically values comfort and doesn’t particularly enjoy violence, even I can’t deny that the process could be beneficial. Practical, even.
I have no idea how truly safe Yordan and I are here.
It seems like it may be better to be safe rather than sorry.
Both my brother and I know how to handle a gun, even if we’re not experts on the topic.
Having them handy for potential dangerous situations might just be the added layer of caution I need to sleep better at night.
I decided to start working on dinner after far too long of watching them. They finished their task shortly after I began cooking, and now they’re all in the living room, chatting and hanging out like old friends.
Yordan and Elio are playing some racing game on the big screen while Apollo sits nearby, taking turns talking with them and being engrossed on his phone. He seems to have a million things to keep up with, and yet he’s decided to spend time with Yordan. And stay for dinner.
A dinner that I’m dreading.
Apollo and Elio were raised with endless resources and money. They’ve probably dined at some of the most exclusive restaurants, and had countless priceless plates of food. I doubt my home cooking will impress.
Granted, I don’t care to impress them. I just don’t know if I’m in the right headspace to tolerate any outright disrespect.
Elio seems like he would be polite, even if he disliked what he was served.
But it’s his asshole older brother I’m concerned about.
I’m afraid that if Apollo makes one snarky comment about my cooking, I’ll stab him.
And I can’t stab him, not without dire consequences.
Footsteps have me looking up from my current task—chopping up crispy bacon into small pieces. My knife stills and I suppress a grimace. Speak of the devil…or I guess, think of the devil, in this case.
Apollo strolls into the kitchen with a casual hand in his pocket, stopping to lean against the island counter, watching me.
“Need something?” I ask, attempting not to snark.
“Yordan tells me you bake,” he says, tone unreadable. “Do you spend a lot of time in the kitchen?”
My nose scrunches up. “What’s with the bad first date trivia?”
His lips twitch. “Do you think this is a date, Rayna? Does that make Elio and Yordan our chaperones? Should I alert one of them that we’re alone together?”
I snort, dismissing his courting reference. As if he would court a woman like a proper 19th century gentleman, let alone one as insignificant as me. If we were centuries in the past, Apollo would be a Lord or a Viscount, and I wouldn’t even breathe the same air as him.
“For a man that never laughs, you sure do like to tell jokes.”
“Do you spend a lot of time in the kitchen?” he repeats, tilting his head.
Sighing, I drop my head and finish up my chopping. “If I say yes, will you get to whatever point you’re trying to make?”
“Do you work at this counter the most?”
“Well, seeing as I’ve lived here for less than two days, I have no idea.”
“Do you see yourself using this counter the most?”
“Seems likely,” I reply dryly. Spinning around, I open the oven and check on the food inside. It’s nearly done.
When I turn back around, I flinch. Apollo is on my side of the counter now, inches away from me.
“Jesus,” I hiss, stepping back. “Have you ever heard of personal space?”
“Right-handed?”
“What?”
“Are you right-handed?”
“My God, yes,” I answer, breathing out a huff. “What do you want to know next? My blood type? Social security number?”
“Not yet.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Apollo doesn’t answer. Instead, he pulls a handgun from the small of his back, careful not to point it at me as he holds it up. It’s medium-sized, matte black, and clean as a whistle.
“This is yours now,” he starts, releasing the magazine to show me that it’s loaded.
The gold ammunition disappears back into the gun as he shifts it in his hands.
“The chamber is empty, otherwise known as condition three. You’ll need to rack the slide before you fire.
There’s no safety, so don’t look for one.
It’s a 9mm, so it shouldn’t recoil too badly for you, but it likely won’t inflict detrimental wounds unless you hit head or heart.
Someone comes for you, you empty the mag into center mass, yes? ”
“What if there’s more than one person?”
“You’ll have two extra magazines, both loaded.
” Turning, Apollo opens the drawer on the right side of the island counter.
“It lives here now.” Dropping the gun softly into the drawer, he adds the other two promised magazines and gently rolls the cavity shut.
Spinning back around, he meets my eye. “Any questions?”
“Yeah, do you play fairy gun-father to everyone you know, or just me and Yordan?”
He smirks, almost like he wants to chuckle. “Your timer is about to go off.” His head nods, gesturing over my shoulder to the oven clock.
“Great,” I grumble. “You can go get the other two, then. Dinner is about to be served.”
If he stays in the kitchen for even a moment longer, I don’t notice. I busy myself by pulling things out of the oven and shutting off the burners on the stove top. Everything looks and smells good, but I’m too unnerved from Apollo’s presence to enjoy it.
“Thank God,” a familiar voice chimes happily. “I’m starved. What’s for dinner, sis?” Yordan practically skips up to the counter, sporting a wide grin while Elio and Apollo trail in behind him.
“I made fried chicken, loaded baked potatoes, and garlic zucchini,” I say, setting a stack of plates on the counter. “It’s the best I could come up with on short notice. I couldn’t very well make a pasta dish for two Italians. I know better than that.”
“Ahh, we’re not that harsh of critics.” Elio chuckles, waving me off.
“Are you sure about that?” I challenge, grabbing a couple drinks from the fridge. Some soft drinks, water, and juices to choose from. “When I make pasta, I use boxed spaghetti and break it in half.”
“Sacrilege!” Elio gasps, clutching his chest.
I roll my eyes. “Exactly.”
“No, no, no,” Elio continues, shaking his head. “We can’t just speed past this. You have to vow to never do such a thing ever again.”
“It’s better broken in half,” I say, waving a dismissive hand. “Noodles that are long as fuck are annoying. I’ll never stop and I’m not sorry.”
Elio looks pained, physically wincing. “Gesù Cristo, please never mention this if you meet Martha. She’ll have a heart attack.”
“Martha?”
“Their chef,” Yordan answers, grabbing a plate. “And caretaker, I think? She seems to do a little bit of everything and she already loves me. So, don’t ruin it by confessing your pasta sins, all right?”
“You love my pasta,” I scoff. “Keep up the sass, and I’ll tell her as much.”
Yordan shakes his head, grinning. “I’ll deny it.”
“Whatever.” My arms fold over my chest. “Fill your plates, we can eat at the table or in the living room. Whatever is going to make this dinner from hell less awkward.”
Within a few minutes, all of their plates are piled high with food.
Once they disappear into the living room, I fix myself a small portion, enough to where I’ll satisfy my hunger and can eat more later if I want.
My stomach is a little uneasy with nerves, and I’m never super in the mood for food after cooking more than a quick meal.
My baba called the phenomenon the chef’s curse.
As a Bulgarian grandma, she was no stranger to cooking for large family gatherings.
And each night without fail, she hardly ate any of the delicious food she prepared.
When you cook for yourself, you do it because you’re hungry.
When you cook for others, you stop thinking about yourself and fixate on what will make them happy instead.
It’s not always a bad thing, but a strange feeling all the same.
The TV is playing some kind of MMA fight when I join the men, sitting down in an arm chair whilst they share the large couch. No one says a word, but Yordan swallows whatever food he’s currently chewing to smile at me in greeting.
I force a passable smile in return, and start to eat slowly, pretending to be interested in the violence on screen.
I’m not sure how, but I don’t think the men on screen are professional fighters in the traditional sense.
I’m 90 percent sure these are made men, and this is an underground fighting stream of some sort.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Elio and Apollo knew the men who were bloodying each other personally—or at least the people running the illegal event.
“Apollo says he’s getting me a tutor,” Yordan says, finally breaking the silence. “He won’t let me work with the family unless I finish school.”
My fork stalls half way to my mouth, zucchini frozen midair. I blink, digesting the information shared. “Oh?”
“Yeah, I tried to convince him otherwise but apparently my education is more important than proving myself,” he says, almost grumbling. “He’s still going to train me, though.”
There’s an immediate urge to snap at Apollo that he’s not Yordan’s father or guardian so he should stop acting like it. That he’s not responsible for my little brother’s care, and how dare he make decisions regarding him without even consulting me…
But I can’t deny what a relief it is to hear that he’s getting Yordan a tutor and refusing to let him work for The Outfit. One of my biggest fears is that Yordan would get tangled into dark “work” for the Moretti family as soon as we arrived.
“I need to meet the tutor,” I tell Apollo instead of biting his head off. “They can’t be alone with Yordan if I don’t trust them.”
“Naturally,” he agrees, dipping his head. “His name is Javier Cabrera, a sort of friend to the family. He’ll start next week, you can meet him then.”
Yordan chokes on his last bite. “Javier Cabrera is going to be my school tutor? Are you serious?”
My eyebrows pull in. “Why do I know that name?”
“He’s the fucking heir to The Guard, the Spanish bodyguard syndicate. He’s like…famous famous. Everyone knows him. Why the heck is he taking the time to tutor me?”
“He taught knives at Empire Academy last semester, but he’s decided to take the next few semesters off in favor of higher paying jobs.
The Outfit contracted him for a full year of swing jobs.
He’ll be an added guard for when my sister goes out with her kids.
He’ll help train some newer guards, and now, he’ll tutor you eight hours a week as well. ”
“That’s legitimately awesome,” Yordan says, starry-eyed and mystified. “Seriously, this is better than the credit card.”
Elio snorts, shaking his head in amusement.
“Hold on,” I interrupt, frowning. “How exactly is a bodyguard qualified to tutor Yordan? I thought this was supposed to be a school thing, not a mafia school thing?”
Elio chuckles again. “It is a school thing. Javi is a genius. He’s only twenty-four and has several high-level degrees. He’s tutored before.”
I suppose that changes things, then.
“You sound like you like him,” I comment, tilting my head.
“He’s good people.” Elio shrugs. “He and Armani have a bit of a rivalry but it’s all based on a marriage proposal misunderstanding. Most of us like him.”
“I suppose if you trust him around your sister,” I say, hesitantly.
“We do,” Apollo agrees, voice firm.
A beat of silence passes.
“This is great by the way,” Elio pipes up, using his fork to point at his food. “Yordan says your desserts are the best though? What do I have to do to get in on that action?”
I bite my lip, hiding a smile. “We’ll see. I haven’t had a lot of pastry time these past few years. I might have lost my touch.”
“Yeah right.” Yordan rolls his eyes. “You could make danishes, tarts, and macarons in your sleep.”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “If you’re spending more time out of the house tomorrow, I might see what I can still manage.”
“We’ll have him for a few hours at least,” Apollo reports. “We’re going to assess him, see where he’s at in his skill sets. Probably take him shopping after. He needs tailored suits.”
I have no idea what a sixteen-year-old needs with tailored suits, but Yordan looks so happy with Apollo’s plan for me to object.
“All right. I guess I’ll be testing my skills then.”
“You are welcome to come with us,” Elio offers, giving me a genuine smile. “You don’t have to stay cooped up here if you don’t want to.”
“There’s also the car,” Apollo adds. “You’re free to use it if you want or need to run around town.”
My shoulders lift in a shrug. “I’ll be fine here.”
I’m not ready to explore this new area, nor am I willing to be a tag-along with them tomorrow. Standing around while they test Yordan and then spoil him with custom suits… yeah, no thank you.
Yordan smiles triumphantly. “I’m so excited to come home to dessert.” His enthusiasm is enough to make me feel like I’ve made the right choice.
Looks like my plans for tomorrow include the whole new collection of clothes I have to organize, and baking something sweet so that my little brother doesn’t forget how much he loves me while Apollo Moretti single-handedly makes all of his dreams come true.