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But then, her husband is also pretty scary.
Uncle Callum looks only slightly less tortured than my father. As soon as could possibly be considered polite, my dad says they need to “discuss something,” aka disappear into his study to drink their whiskey in peace.
Funny that those two tried to murder each other once upon a time. Now they bond over jazz music no one else likes and the unfortunate sociability of their wives.
“Do we have the weirdest family that ever was?” Leo murmurs in my ear.
Uncle Nero is showing my Aunt Aida his newest knife. Aida gives it a practiced flick and sends it spinning across the kitchen to sink hilt deep into the turkey. The Boone boys hoot and howl like a pack of redheaded baboons. Aunt Riona looks slightly less impressed.
“I spent seven hours on that turkey!”
“His name was Lawrence,” Teddy Boone sadly says.
“I told you not to name him…” Uncle Raylan rests a hand on Teddy’s shoulder. “You do this every year.”
Leo’s my cousin, sort of. His aunt Aida married my uncle Callum. It wasn’t exactly a voluntary marriage—the Griffins and Gallos were rival mafia families who tried to destroy each other for generations. Now we all eat pumpkin pie and only jokingly threaten to murder each other.
But the iron roots of our family tree remain.
The Griffins and Gallos decided to graft their branches before they burned each other to the ground.
But not all our blood feuds have been laid to rest. Not even close.
An hour later,we’re all seated around the formal dining table, with the exception of the youngest cousins, who eat in the kitchen. Nero’s daughter Sabrina was so incensed at being relegated to the kiddie table for one more year that she swiped a box of chocolates and a bottle of wine and disappeared entirely. She’s probably up in the attic, which was also my favorite place to sulk.
I’ve been amusing myself with the results of Leo’s place card swapping that have Serena seated directly between Creed and Marshall Boone, who are well on their way to a fistfight, and Aunt Aida next to Grandma Imogen, who looks appalled at the triple-decker turkey-cranberry-stuffing sandwich Aida is building.
Henry was supposed to be sitting near me, but I notice he’s now three seats down on the other side of Uncle Dante.
“How’s your residency going?” Uncle Raylan asks him.
“Excellent.” Henry takes a heaping spoonful of corn and passes the bowl down. “Other than I get no sleep and I have no life.”
“That’s what you get for being the smart one,” his sister Serena teases him.
“I thoughtIwas the smart one,” Marshall Boone remarks.
“You!” Creed Boone scoffs. “You’re not even the sixth-smartest one.”
“I heard Leo got an offer from Duke,” Aunt Riona interrupts to stop her boys from squabbling.
“Yeah, but I’m not going,” Leo says, without even thinking about it.
“What?” Aunt Yelena says a little too sharply.
Quiet falls across the table. You can hear the birch boughs popping in the hearth.
Leo glances at his mom, who’s sitting directly across from us. Aunt Yelena is tall, even taller than Aunt Simone. When calm and composed, she resembles a Viking princess. Right now, lips pale and violet eyes crackling, she’s a full-fledged Valkyrie.
Uncle Seb slips an easy arm around her shoulders. She shakes him off.
“What do you mean you’re not going to Duke? When did you decide this?”
Russian accents are scarier than Polish. That’s what I’m thinking, as even my dad’s head snaps up.
It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world to have twenty pairs of eyes turned in your direction, especially when one of those pairs of eyes belongs to your extremely pissed-off mom. But Leo squares his shoulders and answers firmly.
“I already told you—I’m going to Kingmakers.”
