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She looked at me, blinked a couple of times, then threw herself over the console of my car to pull me into a hug – a tight one. I was caught off guard by it, but in the end, I put one arm around her waist.
“Thanks for being awesome, Nucci.”
“Can’t help it, it’s in my DNA. Go, you need to get some rest. Are you good going back in the house now?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’m not the one who takes the heat anyways.” But Ludmila was. Fuck. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? You want to do something?”
“Oh, your father invited Dad to some kind of dinner party at one of his restaurants. I thought you’d be there too. Please be there.”
I probably had to be there.
“I can make it happen.”
“Awesome. Look, tomorrow I’ll stay glued to your side. Would it be too much to ask you to be…I don’t know, loving?” Huh? “If my father thinks we’re into each other, I won’t have to listen to him telling me I have to bag you anymore.”
“Katja, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” If Ludmila was going to be there, I wasn’t going to do that to her.
“You’re right. Sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just don’t like him nagging me.”
“Telling Alexei I’m interested in you will only make him push harder. Let’s not.”
“Good thinking. See you tomorrow.”
“See you.”
~~~
I put on one of my favorite black Versace suits and put a blood-red handkerchief in my chest pocket. I polished up nicely after a short visit to my barber. I had two reasons for putting on my best game tonight: one, we were meeting with Popov to tell him he had to answer to me from now on, and the motherfucker had to see me like a boss, or I might end up fucking him up sooner than expected, and second, I wanted to give Ludmila a show. I wanted to see her eyes smoldering with desire while she had to keep her hands to herself.
This time I got to the restaurant early because I wanted to have everything under control, so I needed eyes there. Cristiano was waiting for me with my older twin cousins, Frank Sr. and Marco, all of them already at the table. I’d asked them to be there because Cristiano would be my underboss one day, and Frank Sr. and Marco were enforcers that I trusted. I wanted them behind me in this deal.
When I got to them, Marco and Frank Sr. were bickering about something.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Nucci, good to see your face, man.” Marco said. “Maybe you could tell Frank to stop and think before he fires his gun. The idiot almost got us in trouble with the cops the other night.” These were my mafia lieutenants; grown ass men, almost my dad’s age, with kids of their own, but they never grew up.
“What the hell did you do, Frank?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary, man. We were out the other night, and I ran into fuckin Vito, Bianca’s husband.” Vito was another one of our men. He’d worked for my father ever since he got out of high school, and he ended up marrying my cousin, Bianca, Frank Sr. and Marco’s little sister. “The fucker was with another woman, so we got into a fight. I punched him, he punched me, and then I tried to shoot him.”
“Fucking shit, man.”
“I was only aiming for his shoulder.”
“Wait, was he cheating on Bianca?” Vito only had half a brain if he thought he could get away with that.
Marco intervened.
“No, that was his half-sister visiting from Sacramento. We terrified the poor thing. She was cute.”
“You’re married, asshole.” I pointed out. “Have you cleared the air with the police?”
“Yeah. The gun was registered, and Roman managed to convince them it was an accidental discharge.”
“Good. Now, stop acting like pricks.” I nodded to the door where my mom and dad had just arrived.
