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"Angus King, Queens."
"Alejandro Díaz, Brooklyn."
"I guess that just leaves me," a fifth man said as he stepped into the light. "I'm Hu Kenji Zisheng, Staten Island."
The others seemed surprise to see him here.
"We weren't expecting you, Hu," Vinnie stated.
The Asian man shrugged. "I was bored and heard you were having a party so I thought I'd crash it. So, what's going on here?"
He glanced around the room, his eyes settling on me and then Luca. He squinted for a moment. "Nico, Luca, it's been a long time."
I stared back for a moment, but the instant a smile crossed his face, I knew him. I doubted I would ever forget that smile. "Kenji?"
For two years when we were growing up, we had been the three musketeers, playing together, getting into trouble together, and just generally hanging out together. And then one day when I'd been about thirteen, his family had moved away and I had never seen him again.
"I see the two of you finally got together," Kenji stated. "I thought it would never happen."
"It almost didn't," I stated, "We got married a couple of weeks ago, but my parents kept us apart for the last ten years. They even sent Luca to prison for raping me when he just kissed me." I grimaced as I nodded to the body on the floor. "He's the one that tried to rape me."
"A fitting end to him then."
I had kind of hoping for castration, but a bullet between the eyes worked, too.
"You two know each other?" Vinnie asked.
"Kenji lived next door to us for about two years when we were growing up," I said. "The three of us used to play together all the time."
Kenji snorted. "You mean I got to stand there like an idiot watching the two of you making googly eyes at each other."
My face flushed when I heard Luca's low chuckle.
"Am I late?" Gena Thomas asked in a bubbly voice as she walked into the room, her father at her side.
"Gena, darling." My mother rushed to her side, grabbing her arm with one hand and pointing to Luca with the other. "Tell that man that you are engaged to my son so they can't be married."
"Why on earth would I do that when I worked so hard to get them married?" Gena shook my mother's hand off and walked over to give Vinnie a kiss on the cheek.
"Why are you here?' Vinnie asked in an exasperated tone. "This isn't the place for you."
"Oh, please." Gena rolled her eyes. "I've seen worse than this getting my nails done."
My mother stomped her foot and screamed, "What is going on here?"
"It's very simple," I replied. "Your life as you know it is about to end."
Her reign of terror was over, whether she knew it or not, and I couldn't be happier about that.
Chapter Twenty
~ Luca ~
I couldn't be prouder of Nico. He was finally standing up to his bitch of a mother. I knew how hard it was for him, which made this all that much better. Nico was learning to be brave.
"You've pissed off a lot of people, Isabella."
She snorted. "Like I care what you think."
