18. Eva
18
EVA
“ S o, you and Liam, huh?” Nina teased as we headed to the tea party room once more.
I wasn’t sure if it’d taken Tessa a week to tell Nina that she’d walked in on me and Liam during a heated moment or if it had taken all this time for both women to get me in place to talk about it. We seemed to be going in different directions even though we were all in the same house, but it was only now, a week after Liam and I actually made love on a bed, that we could have our girl talk.
I wasn’t one to kiss and tell, but it seemed that would be changing. We were here to discuss the catering for the baby shower, and during the wait, they seemed to assume we had much to chat about other than party preparations.
“Yep.” I nodded, glancing up from the contract the venue had given us. “Didn’t we invite forty guests? This only says thirty.”
Nina pushed the paper down. “It can wait for a moment. Really? You and Liam?” She smiled wide, but I didn’t miss the mischief in her eyes.
“Okay.” I set the paper down and crossed my arms. Leaning back in my chair, I sighed and tried to be as diplomatic as possible. “You know I’ve never done this before.”
Tessa choked on her tea. “You are not telling me that you were a virgin before you met him.”
I furrowed my brow. “What are you implying?” I wasn’t. I lost my virginity when I was eighteen with a soldier. He was unfortunately killed in a turf war a month afterward, and I liked to think that we’d at least seen to his not dying a virgin.
“Nothing.” Nina elbowed her hard. “Or she shouldn’t be. Your virginal status—or lack thereof—is your business and no one else’s.”
“Sorry.” Tessa rubbed her arm where Nina jabbed her. “I’m just surprised.”
It was a moot point to argue about whether I lost my virginity to Liam. But I was curious. “How so?”
“You’re so…” Tessa shaped her hands in the air, gesturing at me. “So sexy. And gorgeous. Confident and cool.”
Nina shrugged. “You act and look like you could chew up a man and spit him out when you’re done with him.”
“But have you actually seen me with any men since you’ve come into the family’s protection?”
They shook their heads. “No,” Tessa said.
“Then why couldn’t I have been a virgin?” I asked.
“Well…” She winced. “I don’t know. You looked too confident and intelligent to be ignorant about sex.”
“I’m sure there are plenty of virgins who are educated about sex but lack experience.” I held up my hand. “And I wasn’t before you saw me in Liam’s room last Monday.”
Nina tilted her head to the side as she narrowed her eyes. “Wait. Why’d you pinpoint that day?”
“It was when I walked into his room,” Tessa answered.
Nina was quick, though. She opened her eyes wide and gawked at me. “Was that the first time?”
I sighed. “I thought I just established that Liam didn’t take my virginity.”
“No. First time with him,” she asked, high on the scandal.
“What?” Tessa dropped her jaw too. “How am I so oblivious?”
“Because you’re too busy with Romeo,” I muttered. Looking at them both, one at a time, I sighed again. “Liam and I… had a moment at the engagement party.”
Tessa’s eyes bugged out. “What? Where ?”
“A closet.” I pressed my lips together not to smile as they laughed.
“And I saw you running out of his room in a towel a couple of weeks ago,” Tessa added. “But I figured you had gone swimming or something and…”
I deadpanned at her, as if to say really?
“Wow.” Nina beamed. “You’re sneaky.”
Tessa grunted. “Liam was always sneaky and stealthy. It’s part of why Romeo and Franco were so eager to have him join the Constella forces.”
Which began tonight. I was nervous about it, yet not. Liam was, like his old friends could attest to, a smart man in the field. His protective and survival instincts were no joke. However, the idea of his willingly entering a dangerous situation tested my patience and sanity.
I didn’t want him hurt. Ever.
“How serious is it?” Tessa asked, then shook her head as if regretting what she said. “Sorry. I’m so pushy.”
“Nosy, more like,” Nina teased.
Tessa shot her a dirty look. “Oh, like you’re not excited and want to pry for info too?”
“I am. I’m just letting you do all the hard work of blurting out everything that comes to your mind.”
“I don’t know,” I said, cutting off their sisterly and friendly bickering. “We started out as just… Well, we didn’t intend to start anything. It just happened.”
Tessa smirked. “You just saw him and bam?”
Nina rolled her eyes.
“Sort of. We butted heads from the get-go.”
Both women nodded, as though they expected that.
“And he just…” I shrugged one shoulder. “Well, he was fine as hell before I knew he had a baby. But seeing him with Olivia…” I fanned myself.
“That biological clock started ticking,” Nina guessed. “Big time.”
“And in overtime,” I added.
Tessa smiled, almost like she was proud to hear this. “Well, good. I think this is awesome. He’s needed a woman who can put up with him, and you’ll be the one to tame him.”
“He’s a man, not a wild animal,” Nina quipped.
I picked up my teacup, dainty as I arched my brows and brought it to my lips. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that…”
We dissolved into laughter, and I realized as my stomach hurt from cracking up that I was enjoying this. This foreign, new sisterhood. It wasn’t intimidating. And it helped that they could add in more bawdy jokes. We were ladies. We looked like the polished Mafia girlfriends and fiancées we were supposed to be. But at the same time, it felt good to let loose and just have fun with them.
“Is he going to move into your house?” Nina asked. “I can’t imagine it’s easy to have an active sex life with Olivia in his suite.”
“We haven’t thought that far ahead.” It sounded like a copout of a reply, but it wasn’t. “We’re too busy stealing every minute we can. I’ve been busy helping Danicia arranging some of the care for the men wounded from the latest attacks, and he’s been preparing to start working for us…” I shrugged. “But we will need more space.”
For a hot moment, I feared that it would be tricky to designate the lines between employee Liam and boyfriend Liam. He was a Constella soldier now, so that tied him here. But how much of a tie was I? What would matter more—his job or me?
“Oh, my God…” Nina raised her brows as she spotted someone behind me. “Eva. Look.”
I turned, following her line of sight. As soon as I noticed the woman clearing off another table behind us in this restaurant portion of the venue, I just barely refrained from gasping.
“Vanessa?” Nina said it as though she couldn’t believe it. Stefan Giovanni’s daughter wasn’t someone we wanted to run into. She preyed on Dante, obsessive with trying to get him to marry her. Too late, we learned from my uncle that her father had set her up to it. Stefan pressured Vanessa to pursue Dante as another way of securing an alliance with the Constella name. My uncle was stubbornly lacking interest in her, even before he met Nina. Once he had, he was livid that Vanessa wouldn’t give him up.
The tall woman lifted her face, frowning in fear at Nina’s voice.
Oh, shit. A few yards separated us, but I saw the evidence of what she vainly tried to hide. Makeup could only go so far in covering bruises and cuts. Seeing this woman—once a peer of mine and a fellow “Mafia princess”—was sobering.
Someone had beaten her, and badly. She showed fear as she glanced around, as though she worried someone was watching her. Her gait suggested a limp as she approached our table.
“Eva?” she frowned at me, so skittish and nervous.
I wasn’t shocked that she referenced me. She’d known me—or of me—the longest.
“What happened?” I asked. It wasn’t a great greeting, but it made the most sense. I didn’t want to chat with her. She would never be an acquaintance of mine again, not after the way she chased after my uncle.
“I… I…” She looked around again, so scared of the guests and diners in here. Maybe she was looking for the Constella guards who stayed near the back of the room. I couldn’t tell, but she was terrified. She barely spared Nina and Tessa a glance. Instead, she singled me out.
“What happened?”
Her beaten appearance was startling enough. But the fact that she was working here as a common low-income employee didn’t add up.
“I ran. I had to.” She licked her lips, so nervous. “I… ran from home.”
“Why?” Nina asked. Even though she had every right to loathe this woman who tried to steal her man, she wasn’t cold.
“I had to. I had to run from my father.” She looked back at me, singling me out again. “He’s hellbent on ruining the Constella organization.” Now, she glanced at Nina, furrowing her brow. “He’s furious that Dante wouldn’t help them.”
I huffed. “Tough shit.”
Vanessa nodded, a nervous motion. “After the alliance with the Domino Family was broken up, Stefan’s been so desperate to secure backing. To recoup his losses.”
I shook my head. “He’s never touching a cent of the Constella wealth. Or any bit of power.”
“But he’s still so desperate.” Vanessa glanced around again. “And you shouldn’t be out here, dining out and having fun. Your guards need to be closer.” She licked her lips, cringing as she touched the split in the lower one. “You need to watch your backs.”
“No, we don’t. Our men will always do that for us.” Tessa tipped her chin up, defiant.
Vanessa sighed. “You'd better hope they can. Stefan’s been siding with those MC assholes, and they’re hard men. Brutal men.”
I assumed she meant that literally, given her broken appearance. Before I could feel sorry for her, I honed in on getting intel.
“Are you saying that with firsthand experience?”
Vanessa sniffed. “I am. Stefan offered to give me to them in lieu of a payment overdue for guns. And they…”
Nina shook her head. “What a sick motherfucker.” She reached into her purse and pulled out cash.
“Nina. No.”
She sneered at my warning. Then she shoved some money to Vanessa.
“This isn’t Constella money going to a Giovanni,” she sassed. “She’s not with them.”
Vanessa blinked back tears. “I’m not with anyone. And if I can run far and fast enough, I’ll never go near my father or his new friends ever again.” She folded the cash and quickly shoved it into her pocket. “I’d rather die than see any of them. They’re not like the Mafia soldiers.” Again, she faced me, almost as though she respected that I wanted details. “They’re ruthless. Selling women. Violating them. I lasted two nights in their clubhouse before I could escape.”
I firmed my lips and shook my head, furious that men like those bikers could get away with operating where we always had. Dante didn’t traffic humans, and I suspected that was why he steered clear of the Devil’s Brothers and Stefan when he started to favor them.
“Then go. Get the fuck out of here,” I said as I gave her cash from my purse.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” She pocketed it too, crying outright now. “And you need to tell him. Tell your uncle. Tell your soldiers. Stefan is teaming up with those bikers, and I’m not sure who will be able to take them both on.”
I nodded. “Go.”
She lingered, glancing at us all. “They have a second compound, too.”
I perked up, listening for something useful. “Where?”
She described the location, apologizing that she couldn’t be more accurate. “I was so scared when I escaped. I… I was worried they’d broken my leg. But it’s in that area.”
“Thank you.” I stood, urging Nina and Tessa to get up. I had to take this information straight to my uncle.
As our guards approached, I held my hand up to stop them from getting too close. “Go,” I ordered Vanessa. “Go now.”
She didn’t need to be told twice. Turning hastily, she limped away.
“Eva.” Tony, one of the guards, started after her. “Is that Miss?—”
“No.” I shook my head. “She’s no threat to us.” While she was manipulative before, I knew this wasn’t a trap. I saw the wounds and knew she couldn’t be faking it. The Vanessa I knew before never would’ve stooped to accept cash as charity. “Let her go.”
Tony narrowed his eyes at me, but I stood firm. Bringing Vanessa to us would cause more problems. Dante would want to kill her. Stefan could use her being captured by us as a reason to attack. Any number of undesirable consequences could follow.
“Get us home. Now.” I strode for the door, eager to share this news with my uncle. If this detail could put us in a better position against our enemies, then I would hurry it along.
Because the fewer enemies we had building up against us like this, the more likely I could achieve a future with Liam and Olivia.