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I take a seat and put Contessa on my knee.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” Marcel sighs, dragging over a table for us to play cards on. “You know what they say about the elderly being set in their ways. Cecilia passed from elderly to ancient some time ago, but it’s still no excuse. Do you play poker, Miss Lovera?”
“I know how,” she says carefully, surprised to be included.
“She’ll play my cards,” I say.
My hand slides where the others can’t see, under the girl’s ass until my fingers settle at her cunt. Tension ripples up her spine as she feels it, my fingers ghosting against her sex in this room full of men. “Hopefully she has a good poker face.”
She glances over her shoulder, stunned.
“You’ll do fine,” I say, betraying nothing as I skirt my fingers between her legs.
“Do we play for real money? I don’t have any.”
The men laugh at the words, turning her pink.
“Miss Lovera, you’re sitting on your very real money,” Marcel tells her.
“If you lose so badly that Sal can’t afford it, you might be the worst poker player in the world,” Noctus adds.
Contessa doesn’t share in the humor, her cheeks pink, though maybe the soothing stroke of my fingers has something to do with that. A couple more lieutenants join us, pulling up chairs and passing around drinks, distracting the others as we settle in for the game.
“Gio’s not gonna go down easy,” Noctus says conversationally as he shuffles the deck.
“You see the warehouse? Or what was left of it.”
Contessa sits up straighter at the mention of her family, attentive.
“Don’t talk shop,” Marcel says, before I have to, as the first round of cards hits the table.
“Or at least spare us current events. We’ve had plenty of enemies, some of them even more hated than the Loveras. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten the Russians.”
“Don’t talk about them until I’m halfway through this glass,” Noctus growls. “God, sometimes I swear I can still smell the stink…”
In the ambient lull, Contessa’s soft voice suddenly speaks up in the interim, “What happened with the Russians?”
There’s a beat of surprised silence.
“Old war stories are worse than fishing tales,” I warn her, “every year, the fish gets a little bigger.”
“I want to hear it,” she insists and turns back to the men. Glances are exchanged, but my message has been clear—Contessa is an extension of my own authority. If she wants to hear it, they’re obliged to tell the tale. In its own insignificant way, this is Contessa’s first order at my side. I allow it, rewarding her pussy with a swirl of my fingers. She scoots on my lap as if trying to get comfortable.
“Old Andreev,” Noctus says, “He was a Russian mobster with strong connections in the Motherland, but not enough boots out here on American soil. He was big in the gambling scene once, casinos, but in-house is a dead game these days. His back was up against the wall, and he needed to branch out somewhere. Diversify.” He throws down his cards in a fold. “He came to us in peace, negotiated some deals together. I don’t know the details.”
I fill in for him, “A cut of their business operations, and a deal with a Russian arms supplier. Nothing complicated. In exchange, as long as they kept their fentanyl-riddled trash out of our territory, we gave them access to a couple safe ports.”
“I remember that deal,” Marcel laughs to himself, “profitable for everyone, so naturally, someone had to go and ruin it. C’est la vie. Check.”
“Andreev had two hot shot sons serving as lieutenants,” I continue, watching as Contessa plays her hand. She taps the table. “When I became don, they decided to test me. See what they could get away with. They used our ports to move things we’d banned in the original agreement, shit some paid off government official and police commissioner won’t turn a blind eye to. They drew too much heat on all of us. I met with Andreev, who apologized for the situation and promised restitution. I didn’t trust it, so I had Noctus take care of them.”
Noctus shrugs, reaching for the cards as Marcel’s hand takes the first round.
“We hunted down both sons, took both men on the same night. Barely had any teeth out of their mouth before they confessed it was Andreev’s idea all along. That they were just following orders. I relayed that to Salvatore.”
“Did you let them go?” Contessa asks, bracing herself for the answer she already knows.
“I didn’t make them suffer.”
