Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54103 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 271(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54103 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 271(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
A warmth blossoms across my body. He’s hinting at gliding his hand along my ass. “The tray is fine.”
He reaches up, places the book down.
“That really is fine work, dear,” the woman says. “I’m something of an art connoisseur myself, and that shading was exquisite.”
I don’t know why, but I laugh.
“I wasn’t joking,” she says.
“I just wasn’t expecting a compliment.”
“Don’t laugh when you receive a compliment, dear. It makes people think you don’t deserve it. And you do, Sienna.”
“Uh, thank you.”
“Do you often sketch?”
“Yes. I love the seductive, misleading simplicity of it.”
The woman’s face lights up. “What a wonderful way to describe it.”
“Seductive, misleading,” Nico says. “This is all above my head.” He smiles self-deprecatingly at me. “My mother is the intellectual one. I’m one hundred percent brute.”
“Why can I believe that?” I say, walking away. It was supposed to come out flat. But it sounds flirty. It sounds like I’m challenging him to be bad. To me. For me. With me.
All the way back to the kitchen, I tell myself, my cheeks aren’t red on repeat. I don’t want to flirt with a mafia boss. I don’t need art critiques from his mother, though. That comment about shading really hit a sweet spot for me. I’ve been focusing on that aspect a lot recently.
But no – I can’t think like this.
If I were going to do the right thing and honor my mother, I’d charge out there with a steak knife.
Perhaps all mafia men aren’t the same. Maybe this one is different. But I can’t afford to take that risk.
Chapter Three
Nico
“She seems nice,” Mom says, when Adrian excuses himself for another bathroom break… he’s probably doing coke in there, a discreet key to the nose, thinking it makes him more insightful, cleverer. But it just makes him easier to read.
“Who？” I say.
“Don’t ‘who’ me,” Mother retorts. “That sketch was you all over.”
“As she mentioned, she didn’t sketch anything tonight. I’ve never seen her before tonight, so how the hell would it be me?”
“Easy, Nico. I’m not trying to fight.”
“I’m not fighting,” I tell her. “I just don’t see how or why a complete stranger would’ve sketched me.”
“Didn’t you notice how the features, the smile especially, had been added later? She hadn’t filled it in. It was your smile.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re turning into a conspiracy theorist.”
“In any case, she’s far too talented to be working as a waitress.”
“You sound like you’ve got a plan.”
“Now who’s paranoid?”
I shrug. But I can’t pretend that I’m unbothered by any of this. When that notebook fell out of her pocket, and during the banter afterward, I felt like a normal man. She wasn’t afraid to challenge me, to give me some serious sass. She’s hilarious. Talking to her made me feel alive.
“Even if I were interested, it wouldn’t be fair.”
“Why?” Mother asks.
“Viktor has seen her. He’s spoken with her. You know what that was when he called her over. It was a threat. Don’t embarrass Anya. His precious Anya… who I don’t want to marry.”
“An alliance is an alliance, some would say.”
“Are you with them now, too?”
She looks at me with an unflinching expression. “I’ve lost a husband and a son. I know how you feel. Neither of them was perfect, but they were mine, ours. Nico, dear child, I just want you to be happy.”
“You’re overreacting. It was just a short conversation.”
“Are you going to make me play matchmaker?”
My response is cut off when Adrian returns, a big grin on his face, powder still on his nose. I could’ve reprimanded him as soon as he brought the bottle of whiskey over. I could’ve put my foot down and ordered him to take it back. But that would’ve been counterproductive. A smart wolf is one who lets his prey bleed.
“Sorry, what were we talking about?”
I cut into my steak. “You were telling me what avenues you’ve made in the laundromats.” I want to know how he is making use of the money from our off brand electronics, and how it's being laundered through local businesses. But I won’t say that openly.
“I’m getting there.”
“Getting there,” I repeat.
“It’s not as easy as…” He stops himself from going on, but what was he going to say? As running dope. As selling sex. “As you make it seem, Nico.”
Now he’s just kissing my ass. “As my consigliere, you have two jobs. Make money. Keep the filth out of the city. Others said it was impossible, Adrian. They said no one could clean up the mess the Brava and my father, and my brother made, the depravity, the evil. But I did. I did.”
Adrian pulls away, looking scared. He tries to hide it. But he can’t. There’s only one way to stop predators from killing the livestock. I have to become a demon even the devil would fear.