29. Breakfast With Nonna
Breakfast With Nonna
Salvatore
Do something , Bianca mouths.
“She won’t bite or throw plates.”
Her kick under the table is too quick to dodge. I grit my teeth at the small heel digging into my shin.
It took a bribe to get her into the kitchen. The imported snacks and extra money in her account for “emotional damage” are a small price to pay to watch her squirm.
“Why didn’t you tell me you live with your grandmother?”
“Because she lives with me and travels back and forth between my cousin and me,” I admit. “I planned to introduce you once she got back from Mass, but you beat me to it.”
Bianca groans. “Tell her I’m sorry she saw my coochie. I flashed the poor woman and almost assaulted her. I’m mortified!”
I grin. “I enjoyed the show.”
The table jerks at Bianca’s attempt to lean over and smack me.
Few people keep me entertained, but watching Trouble sweat is a new pastime. The same woman who’d knocked out my men and destroyed my Lamborghini is terrified of my seventy-eight-year-old grandmother.
Lionara Parisi barely reaches the wooden shelf from which she pulls a bowl from above the stove, but scared Trouble enough to use my dishware as a weapon. Had I not sprinted toward her screams during my morning run, Nonna might not be here with us.
“Is she still looking at me?” Nonna asks in Sicilian, looking away from the early lunch she’s preparing.
My smirk is lopsided. “Hasn’t stopped.”
Bianca’s eyes dart between her almost victim and me. Nonna swapped the outfit she wore to Mass this morning for a sleeveless floral dress and matching headscarf.
“Is she mad?” Bianca whispers in English. She hazards a glance at Nonna hand rolling pasta and bites her nail.
I sip my coffee. “Furious.”
Nonna grabs a mixing bowl. “Stop lying to that girl, peri peri,” she snaps in Sicilian. “Did you finally bring home a wife?”
My caffè freddo goes down the wrong tube. Bianca’s frown deepens.
“Nonna, please,” I groan in Sicilian. If my uncle doesn’t marry me off, my grandmother will.
Bianca covers her face and releases a ragged breath. “I’m going to hell with my ass out.”
“I would throw plates too if my breasts sat that high.”
“Pi faùri, Nonna,“ I plead. My grandmother and her breasts don’t belong in the same sentence.
“Do y’all conjure spirits over here? Your grandma looks like someone who uses chicken bones.”
She swats my hand away. “Trouble.” This woman and her imagination.
Nonna goes for the kill. “I’m not getting younger, peri peri. I want to see you in love and settled before I go.”
“My head still hurts, thank you for asking.” I massage my temples and wince. I’m the one who got hit in the head with a plate from a fucking balcony.
“She has amazing cheekbones, by the way. It’s giving Eartha Kitt,” Bianca notes.
“My grandbabies will be so cute.”
“You just saw Alessandro,” I remind Nonna in Sicilian, about her trip to Paris to see her great-grandson. “Preston would love to have you back.”
Nonna sucks her teeth. “Ti facisti picciuli.”
“Is she okay?” Bianca whispers.
Women will be the death of me.
Nonna’s smile widens over her shoulder. “I like her.” I’m sure you do. The back-and-forth between them in different languages aggravates my migraine. “Who is she to you?”
Currently, a pain in my ass.
Bianca was a means to an end. She’s supposed to be my captive, someone I fuck who doesn’t give me headaches or throw plates at my head. Having her in my private home, at my kitchen table with the most important woman in my life, was never part of the plan.
There’s a draw to her that isn’t going away.
“Let me know when you figure it out.” The warmth in Nonna’s tone is unmistakable. So is the earthy aroma of fresh flour that pulls me back to my childhood. I miss it.
Gray curls spill from Nonna’s scarf as she looks toward Bianca.
“Ciao,” Bianca says to Nonna, the word laced with caution.
“Ciau,” Nonna corrects.
Sicilian is a distinct language with regional variations. Our vowel shifts and vocabulary don’t always translate directly to Italian. Bianca does her best to siphon the few similar words and phrases. She’s lost otherwise.
“I didn’t mean to show my vagina and throw a plate at your head,” Bianca blurts in Italian. “Nude sunbathing is a practice I picked up in Naples before I was kid—“
I cough and shake my head.
Nonna is five-two but will cut me down with the dish towel hanging from her apron if she finds out I kidnapped Bianca. She never asks about the Scilari but goes to church twice a week to pray for my safety and my sins.
Bianca’s butterfly robe tips open for a full view of her cleavage in a silk top when she leans forward. My dick taps my shorts.
“What did you say?” I ask, eyeing moisturized curves I’d licked all night.
“Why do you call your grandmother Nonna if she speaks Sicilian?”
I check my watch. “Ask her why she prefers it over Nanna.”
“Where are you going?” Bianca’s brown eyes double in size. They dip to the hair under my navel when I stand.
“Some of us have to work the full day,” I say with a wink.
“Don’t leave me here,” she whispers louder.
“Now you’re scared? Spend some time getting to know her. You might pick up Sicilian.”
My phone buzzes.
Ziu
My office. Got an update.
“Benny. Benny!”
“No English or Italian,” I tell Nonna in Sicilian.
“Benny, don’t you—“
My grandmother firing off rapid Sicilian follows me down the corridor to my room.
“We found Diana Peretti.”
Andrea and I exchange a look.
“Where is she?” I ask Ziu.
“Dead. They found her in bed with Peppe, strangled to death.”
“How do they know it’s her?” Andrea asks from my left. No way he’d come from our distribution facility dressed in tropical shorts and sandals.
“The police used her dental work to confirm her identity,” Ziu says. “Her fingers and tongue were cut off.”
Andrea whistles.
“They cut Peppe’s throat and shoved his dick down it.”
We all cross our legs.
Dying with your own dick down your throat is dark, even for me.
Gamblers shuffling between tables and slot machines pulse below my uncle’s office. Tourism is at its peak as travelers swarm Catania through the cruise port for overpriced meals and the chance to bet their mortgages in my uncle’s casino.
Ziu rests his elbows on the roulette desk Andrea and I gave him as a retirement gift, the joke being his inability to walk away from his legitimate or underground businesses. He steeples his hands, joining the metallic rings decorating his fingers.
“It’s time we protect ourselves with a proper alliance with the Romanos. Joining families will strengthen our clans and give us numbers should we go to war.”
“Peppe’s death has nothing to do with us,” I point out. “Strangulation and a dick down the throat aren’t our signature.” Dismemberment is a different story.
“You’re missing the bigger picture, niputi. We’d be untouchable. No worrying about threats or the Preda. It’s time you found someone to love, a purpose outside of the business. It’s what your mother would’ve wanted.”
“For me to marry a child?” I scoff.
Ziu sighs. “Elena is twenty-two. Fuck around in private if you wish, but raise your family with her. Someone loyal and submissive from one of the largest mafia families in Italy.”
If I wanted obedience, I’d get another fucking dog. I might need another one with Hades chasing behind Bianca like she’s in charge.
Staff trip over themselves to wait on her. If she sneezes, there’s a tissue ready. Not that I’m any better. One look, and I’ll cook for her, rub her feet, or eat her ass if she wants. That’s her power. It deserves protection, not forced submission.
“I’ll call Elio to set up a time for you two to meet.”
“Excuse me?” Trouble is a distraction, because what the fuck did my uncle say?
“Go to Napoli to spend time with his daughter.”
“I told you and Elio I’m not interested.” My age gap with Elena is older than she is.
Ziu shakes his head. “What do you think will happen when the Preda declares war? Elio is a good partner, but his loyalty will only go so far if family isn’t involved.”
“No,” I repeat.
“Does your refusal have anything to do with the woman you’ve been spotted with? I may be retired, but I still keep tabs on you.”
Shit.
“Tread lightly,” Ziu warns. “Elio could take your constant rejection of his daughter as a sign of disrespect. We don’t need more enemies.”
“The woman I’m seeing is the head of a crime family.”
Water shoots through Andrea’s nose at the lie that comes out so effortlessly. Trouble always jabs at my “little mafia” and might as well be the head of my damn house at this point. It’s a dangerous exaggeration that slips out before I can come up with a better answer.
“A boss?” Ziu’s brow lifts.
“Black woman too. Ruthless and skilled in interrogation.” Andrea coughs. “Heard she’s good at hand-to-hand combat.”
My uncle and I glower.
He slumps in his seat. “Never mind.”
“How long has this…romance been going on?”
Ziu is right to question me. I don’t date and I sure as fuck don’t do romance. He’ll do everything in his power to get rid of Bianca if he perceives her as a threat to uniting the families. A simple lie won’t keep her safe. When I promised nothing would touch her, I meant it.
I’m not ready to let her go.
“My relationship is progressing.” I omit the part where I kidnapped her. “She’s staying with me in my home until I sort out a few logistics.”
“Then marriage is on the table?”
“Yes.” What the fuck am I doing?
Seconds pass before Ziu finally nods. “Elio was raised the old way. He won’t question this pairing if it’s serious. She better be worth it, Salvatore.”
“She is,” I say.
He rubs the bridge of his nose. “You kids will send me to an early grave.”
Andrea frowns. “What did I do?”
“I want to meet this new crime boss and a full report on her and her people,” Ziu says before dismissing us.
Sweat runs down my suit as we take the private door out of the casino to our cars.
“Told you that you’re gonna marry her.” Andrea cheeses. “I better be your best man.”
“No one is getting married.”
“Once Ziu figures out you’re lying, you’ll be somebody’s husband. It won’t be Bianca’s.”
I cut my eyes and grab my keys. “We have bigger issues than my uncle, like Tino.”
“What about him?”
“He saw Bianca at Eden and while we were at the market.”
Andrea’s lip curls into a sneer. “What the fuck is he doing in Catania?”
I shake my head and sigh. “Don’t know. She needs a new identity. Make it believable.”
I’ll burn the city down if harm comes her way.
“Creating one will take a little finesse in some places, but it’s doable,” Andrea says against his Maserati. “How do you plan on getting her to go along with it?”
“She doesn’t have a choice.”