15. Dante
15
DANTE
Dante
F ranco joined me at one of the family’s restaurants, and I wondered when I could plan to bring Nina here. Ever since that night at Escott’s, I wanted another opportunity to take her out. To be seen with her. To have an excuse to show her off and demonstrate that she was my woman.
I’d damned myself by reminding her that we only had to “put the show on” when others were near.
All week long, I’d been going out of my way to see her. To pass her by. Even a quick hello in the house.
That night at Escott’s changed something. Not because I’d killed those men for touching her.
But because she’d offered herself to me and I turned her down.
“Romeo should be here any minute,” Franco said as our drinks arrived.
I shrugged. I wasn’t Romeo’s keeper. He was my second in command and never failed me. However… “He’s still out of sorts about Mario betraying us.”
Franco’s sigh was heavy and long. “I don’t think he’s upset and guilty about Mario turning rat. Only that three soldiers were killed and he wasn’t quick enough to save them.”
I nodded, angry and proud at the same time. I loathed losing good men too, but I wanted Romeo to move past it all somehow. I was glad I’d done a decent job raising him on my own. He was always so serious, but big-hearted too. If he’d dismissed those deaths like they meant nothing, then he’d be nothing more than another cold-blooded killer.
He showed up, halting us from talking about him any further. “Sorry.” He shook his head. “Stopped by the house and got delayed.”
The house? Did something happen with Nina? “How come?”
He rolled his eyes. “Eva.”
Enough said. My niece could get into a mother-hen mood no one was spared from.
“Did you see that message?” Romeo asked Franco.
Franco grimaced, showing me his phone. “I did. Look, Dante.”
I glanced at the small screen, seeing the same image that another soldier had already sent to me. “I was updated about this already. Those goddamn bikers,” I groused.
A Constella soldier had captured video and still images of a biker speaking with one of Stefan’s leading capos.
“They’re talking about that guns distribution route,” Franco said. “That’s gotta be why they risked meeting up like this.”
I shook my head. We would have absolutely nothing to do with it. No matter how many rumors Stefan spread, he wouldn’t include me. I wouldn’t enter any deal with those bikers.
“I looked into them,” Romeo said with a glance at me. “After Nina mentioned them in passing, that Ricky was friends with them…”
Fuck. Did he know? Romeo wasn’t stupid, but he had yet to ask me about Nina being at the house.
“They’re a nasty bunch of assholes,” he summed up.
“We already knew that when they declared war against the Domino Family,” I reminded him.
“Declared war and won,” Franco added. “Maybe they’re scheming with the Giovannis to attack someone else.”
I met and held his gaze. “If they make us their enemies…” I shook my head. “They won’t survive.” The Constella Family had reigned supreme for too long for some newcomers like filthy, gritty bikers to throw us out of power.
“All the more reason to track their meetings and keep up on spying on them,” Franco said. “I’ve already delegated more men to the threats.”
I grunted. “Not a threat yet.” But the moment they do strike out, in any direction near us, they’ll be greeted with as much ammunition as we have.
“Are you going to the Sarround Gala?” Romeo lifted his chin to face me directly after sipping his drink.
I sighed, but this time, I didn’t roll my eyes at the mention of that black tie event. I knew it was coming up soon, but I hadn’t been thinking about it recently. Those gatherings were normally a pain in the ass. Too many players in one place. Too much tension that could boil over at any minute. And all the while, we had to smile and act like nothing was amiss.
“Yes.”
“You hate socializing at those things,” he commented with a smirk.
I nodded. “Usually, I do.” Not this time. I was looking forward to that night for the first time in many years. I had just been thinking about wanting another opportunity to take Nina out so I’d have an excuse to kiss her and touch her in public. All to push this idea that we were together. The Sarround Gala was an excellent opportunity for that. “I’ll be there. With Nina.”
Franco scrolled on his phone, furrowing his brow as he focused on whatever he read, but he still nodded, acknowledging what I said.
“With Nina,” Romeo confirmed.
I looked him square in the eye.
“Are you with Nina to throw Vanessa off your tail?” He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms, looking mighty smug about asking me such a question.
I didn’t take bait to his teasing tone. “Since when do you concern yourself with the women I date?”
Franco laughed once without looking up from his phone as he continued to multitask. “Date? You’ve never dated Vanessa.”
And I never, ever fucking will. Even if Stefan hadn’t crossed a line in presuming the Giovanni Family could count on an alliance with the Constellas, I was sick of that predatory woman.
“You’ve never dated anyone. Period,” Romeo teased.
I shrugged, declining one second of the pressure to reply on this matter.
“What gives?” Romeo asked. “After the situation I found her in at Escott’s, not to mention seeing her sitting on your lap like she’d become your favorite pet…”
I sighed. Pet? That was too damn trivial and cute of a name for the woman I lusted for. I dreamed about her nightly. My random thoughts circled back to her. Nina had crept so close without trying to. She was under my skin and on my mind, and there wasn’t much room for me to try to deny it.
“It started out like that,” I confessed.
“What did?” Romeo asked. Franco glanced at me for a second, curious as well.
“I started to see Nina to show Vanessa that I’m taken.”
Romeo frowned. “She wasn’t at the dinner at Escott’s that night.”
“No,” Franco said, “but I think word is spreading about his being there with Nina.”
“And after I arrive at the Sarround Gala with her on my arm, everyone will see for themselves that she’s with me.”
My son was too astute to just take my word for anything. He focused on a few. “What do you mean you started to see Nina for that reason?”
I searched for the right words to explain it all. While I wasn’t ashamed of admitting that I asked Nina, my friend’s daughter, to pretend to be my girlfriend, it now seemed like a lie. Like an inaccuracy.
Nina had come to matter to me, so much in such a short time. I wanted her with a hunger I wasn’t sure I could stave off for much longer, so telling my top two trusted men that she was only in my life to pretend we were a couple felt like a sham.
I want her. But I swallowed that honest truth, avoiding telling them here and now.
Nina should be the first person to hear that statement. I wanted to express my desire to her—and act on it.
One question remained. Only one decision was left for me to make.
Should I tell her before or after that gala? Because it no longer seemed like such a good choice to bottle it all in.
Life was too damn short to waste on anything—both good and bad.
If Nina had come into my life to be rescued from a promise to the bikers I refused to work with, maybe she’d rescued me too—from an empty future of utter loneliness.