AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Would you mind if we brought along some other people?” Mark asked. “They’d be our personal security.”
Perking, Selestino said rather quickly, “Of course not! Bring whoever you’d like!” Then he remembered he wasn’t the boss of the place. “Well, I’ll check with my uncle, but I’m sure it would be fine.”
“Good, good. Binx, will you do an audition for Selestino and his…didn’t you have a driver?”
“Yes,” he said, downtrodden. Thinking of bringing Bennie into the house didn’t thrill him.
“We’ll feed you and you can meet our friends. Lonnie and Travis are a little closer to your uncle in terms of having spoken to him more than we have, and I’d love you to meet them.”
“I’ll start cooking,” Binx said, hopping off his partner’s lap and rushing toward what Selestino assumed was the kitchen.
“If you don’t mind inviting my driver inside, I’ll help Binx. I’m interested in cooking.”
“Of course,” Mark said. “You saw where he ran. It’s right through the dining room, the only door there.”
So, he lied. Sel hated to cook, but he wanted to speak to Binx, since he seemed to have a handle on things, like controlling the two men, even if he called them both Sir.
He entered the kitchen to see Binx flipping through a notebook, but he looked up once Sel walked into the room. “Hey! Did you need more water?”
“No, I need a favor.”
As both eyes narrowed and his blond brows rose impossibly high, he whispered, “I have a feeling we’re going to get along just fine.”
Chapter Three
Binx listened intently to Sel’s dilemma, and as Sel added more detail, Binx’s smile grew.
“So, you see, I am so tired of being this protected little kid. I want to go to the ranch. More than anything, I want to learn my family’s business, even if my parents aren’t thrilled that I want that.”
“You really want to be a shoot-'em-up mobster?”
Sel laughed a little. “As the head of the family, which I should be, once my father and uncle retire, I won’t be doing most of the shooting. Or any, if I can help it. It’s much more legitimate than it used to be. Stocks, proper businesses under the umbrella of the family. I’ve lived and breathed this stuff all my life. I just want a chance to prove myself.”
“I think that’s just admirable, but…now, don’t get mad at me. I think they’re right, too. I have a niece and three nephews. Well, they’re my friends’ kids, but still, they’re my family too. I’d freak out if they wanted to do something like that.”
Sel deflated. “I see that, too. I’d freak if my sister or brother wanted to do it. But I was born for this, Binx.”
“You couldn’t leave school. I’d just bet that is something they worry about.”
He did, in fact, want to leave school. What Binx said made perfect sense, though. “What about remote school?”
Binx sat up, grinning to beat the band, his hands drumming absently on the island counter. “That might work. So, we just need to get you there, right?”
“Right! I’m thinking that’s where you come in.”
Binx looked over Sel’s shoulder and whispered, “tell.”
“Well, can you maybe say that you want me to accompany you to the ranch? Just because you don’t know anyone there, and you’re afraid of the mobsters.”
“But I’m not. I’m not afraid of much of anything, especially if Lonnie and Travis are coming along with my Sirs.”
That caught him again, and he asked, “You…live this lifestyle, like all the time?”
“Sure! We’re not so serious that they boss me around all the time and stuff, you know?”
He didn’t. He was very interested in the lifestyle but didn’t have a clue about how it was really lived. “Does everyone?”
“No. Us, our friends, we all are into it, but for most, they can’t live it all the time. Kids, jobs, stuff like that. But we are unencumbered that way. And that’s the way we three want it.”
