14. — rain.
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Staten Island, New York
Frankie, Gallo Estate
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“Just so you know,” Carina said beside Frankie where they stood side by side on the front steps, “your father will adjust those rules he mentioned earlier. He’s distracted right now and knows today isn’t the best time for that entire conversation.”
Frankie, eyeing where Nico leaned against the hood of his Mustang while smoking a cigarette, tried not to grin. And failed so miserably that her stepmother outright laughed.
“Thanks for the heads up.”
She did look at Carina to find her stepmother stared back, unflinching and unashamed with a conspiratorial glint in her eye. Only then did Frankie truly correlate the world-renowned beauty Carina really was with the sacrifices she had paid to become it.
It ached a little. Somewhere deep.
“Women need to look out for one another, we’re the only other people in the world who really gets it—who knows what it means to be one,” Carina said softly. “And I swear, it’s even worse when you’re born a beautiful woman.”
“Three minutes out now,” Salvatore said, nodding at a retreating Larkin as he announced the first visitor’s arrival to the community gates.
Only a handful of people would be allowed to park on the estate’s property; the rest would be delegated to the road by a paid valet and a neighbor’s equally large garage for another handful of people that specifically requested such a thing. “Let’s get this shitshow over with.”
“Sal, you know I worked so freaking hard here—”
“It looks amazing in there,” he interjected, dropping a kiss to Carina’s smiling mouth before he found his spot next to her side.
He breathed deeply, his next words almost sounding as if he were trying to convince himself and not them of how the night would go.
“It all is going to be great, and you did that.”
She just smiled over at Frankie.
Who shook her head back.
“Hey,” Carina added quieter to her, bumping their shoulders.
“Yeah?”
“I have another ultrasound in a couple of weeks. Would you want to go with me?”
Frankie’s eyes lit up, and her heart went pitter-patter. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Yes, I’d love to.”
“I’ll tell you the names later. I already know them.”
All those questions and emotions Frankie had about Carina’s pregnancy faded away. She’d done what everyone else told her to do, and minded her own business, even if it practically killed her.
For what? To find out she was going to be a big sister, apparently. So worth it.
“I can’t wait,” Frankie squealed, doing a little shimmy on the spot.
Everyone laughed.
Even someone else noticed. Nico. He winked her way.
She just bit her lip and averted her stare given her father’s proximity and his earlier promise to keep an eye on them.
“All right, here we go. Best fuck you smile, please,” Salvatore murmured as the first two cars pulled up. “And keep ‘em on, my loves.”
Carina and Frankie passed a look between them.
A smile plastered to her face; Frankie did her job.
Shook hand after hand, accepted congratulations after praise and compliment.
Too many faces passed her by in that first hour of greeting guests, and her feet had started to hurt in heels about a half hour in, which didn’t spell good things for the rest of the evening.
She ignored the pain.
And then, the vibe changed.
Three black SUVs rolled down the driveway, practically bumper to bumper until the vehicles came to a slow stop at the bottom of the stone staircase.
A few guests who milled about the front gardens quieted and grouped together to watch the new arrival.
The posted security outside made themselves further known, stepping out under trees and near the front pillars.
Salvatore’s arm found Carina’s waist, and he pulled her subtly closer to him, dropping a kiss to the top of her head.
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
“Yeah, I know, darling. I’m not.”
Salvatore’s shoulders stiffened, and his expression hardened in a way that Frankie just wasn’t used to.
It was like that loving, soft man who carried so much on his shoulders and in his heart had to get packed away in that moment.
Someone else came forward, cold and unmovable. A creature carved from stone.
“Okay,” Carina murmured then, passing Frankie another pointed look that she felt in her soul. “Here we really go. Best fuck you smile on again.”
Frankie shivered, chilled.
Forty or so feet away, even Nico had come to stand up straight in front of the Mustang, but he’d lit a fresh cigarette as well.
Taking a heavy drag, the smoke curled from his lips in thick, gray tendrils as his gaze locked in on the vehicles that had yet to open.
He didn’t usually smoke that much. Most times, she rarely even smelled it on him. A pack could last him several days.
Unlike her father, she still found her Nico behind the change in demeanor and new intensity settling into his eyes. Yet, he stood on an edge, balancing but still there.
Just like Salvatore. The chill inside her didn’t ease. Especially as the doors opened.
Only the first two vehicles, though. The one at the rear remained closed tight, and the blacked-out windows all the way around offered no indication about who waited inside.
Men at the front driver and passenger side moved to the rear doors at the two SUVs heading the line.
The mountain of a man, taller than he was wide but with shoulders triple the width of Frankie’s, stepped out first.
Giorgio Russo.
His dark stare fell upon those waiting on the stairs but quickly shifted back to the people exiting his vehicle. His wife, a woman Frankie didn’t know except her name, and a little girl who barely looked ten. Except she thought Carmen turned eleven that year.
Frankie’s heart hurt again as the cutest thing she’d ever seen smiled so widely their way, her little hand waving.
In a knee-length navy-colored dress that puffed out in layers from the waist down, her matching kitten heels clicked against pavement.
Those green eyes were so unmistakably Nico’s even from so far away. Carina’s eyes.
The cold uncomfortableness that had shrouded the two beside Frankie bled away at the sight of the little girl. Salvatore smiled faintly and pressed another kiss to the top of Carina’s head while her stepmother’s hands twisted together before she waved back.
Frankie waved, too.
“Mama, where’s Nico?” Carmen asked, turning on her mother.
The beauty in a silk, navy-blue number with draping shoulders and a lowcut front that clung to a body to die for, gave the little girl her attention. “I don’t know. I’m sure we’ll find him soon.”
“Right here,” came a quiet call.
All heads swung in the direction of the voice. Nico’s raised finger, as if that was the thing that somehow called out to his little sister, only dropped when Carmen found where he waited. Off to the side, alone. His cigarette had disappeared.
“Hey, you,” he told her, smiling for the first time since the cars pulled up.
“Nico!”
The squeal echoed.
Those shoes of hers made no difference to the way she beat pavement to get to him.
If he took a step before his knee had to meet the ground to bend down and catch her, Frankie would be surprised.
She bear-hugged him as Nico stood up and then bent over at the waist, bending in half to hug his sister back.
Fast, quiet words passed between the two.
So much, it was hard to catch.
“...missed you, missed you so much...”
“...are you happy, are you okay...”
“...love you.”
“...love you so much, Nico.”
It was only movement at the two vehicles which drew Frankie’s attention away from a moment she knew meant so much to him. Two men exited from the second vehicle, their doors closed by the black suits who’d exited the front.
More interestingly, Vanna closed the distance beside her husband. Her gaze caught his while her hand came up to lay overtop where his collar met his throat. He nodded to whatever she said, as if without question, and then patted her ass with a nod in the direction of the house.
Neither said anything to the siblings, still catching up. Although now, Carmen held three of her brother’s fingers as she pulled him toward a patch of blue hydrangea flowers.
“Did you know PH changes their colors?” she told him.
He shook his head. “Where’d you learn that?”
“Mama. We planted a bunch this summer.”
Nico glanced back then, at the same time Vanna peeked over her shoulder next to her husband. It was only when he also had to meet his father’s stare did the happiness in his face start to bleed away.
Giorgio nodded at his son.
Nico did not return it. He went right back to Carmen instead.
Frankie had to remind herself to plaster that smile back on as the Russos climbed the steps to meet them.
“Happy birthday,” Vanna greeted her first.
“Yes, a big number, eighteen,” the boss agreed. “And a high school graduate now, as well. You’re growing right up, sweetheart.”
He spoke to Frankie, but his attention remained on Carina as the first person he intended to greet.
He leaned in, not her. She put a hand up against his chest, stopping him from moving further than she allowed.
Against air, as she did not move an inch to let him touch her, Carina turned her cheek to the side for a kiss that never made its target.
“Beautiful, as always,” Giorgio praised Carina, and his gaze swung on Frankie. “Both of them, Sal. You’re doing quite well for yourself.”
“Come,” Salvatore spoke up, drawing in Giorgio’s attention with a tight smile, “I have your favorite cognac poured.”
Giorgio made an approving grunt. “You do know how to treat me.”
“Don’t we all?” came the barely-there statement from someone Frankie had not expected.
The wind practically took it away the moment she said it.
Vanna.
She’d said it flippantly at her husband’s back after he’d moved a couple of stairs higher. He didn’t hear, continuing away.
As fast as it happened, Vanna moved on. To Carina.