Page 20 of Deathless & Divided

“Thank you,” Damian said with a smile.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Lily retorted.

Damian laughed.

No, girls like Lily never did things they didn’t want to do. He liked that, too. Too bad the whole engagement thing wouldn’t work out that way for her.

“Sure,” Damian said with a wink.

Lily’s gaze narrowed a second before she stormed off into the crowd.

Damian made sure to take note of which direction she went just in case. Evelina sighed with a shake of her head.

“That’s not going to help your case,” Evelina said softly.

Damian answered that with a shrug.

“Do you even care if she likes you, D?”

“Does it matter?” he asked back. “She doesn’t need to like me to have my last name.”

Evelina pursed her lips. “Damn, you’re proving me all kinds of wrong tonight.”

“How so?”

“I didn’t think you were that kind of guy, Damian.”

He cleared his throat and avoided Evelina’s gaze. Him and her, they were mafia kids. He had six years on Evelina and eight on her brother, but he spent time in the Conti homes as well growing up. All of their families intertwined in that way.

“Guess you don’t know me all that well, huh?” Damian asked, reverting back to his usual self.

Evelina didn’t look away as she said, “No, I just think you’re awfully good at making others believe you’re doing what they want.”

She was right.

“How much have you drank?” Damian asked.

“Too much.”

“Where’s your father?”

“Hitting on someone’s wife,” Evelina replied. “Ma’s probably watching from the corner—she likes that nonsense, you know. Gets off on it. I think the fight is like their foreplay. It’s disgusting.”

Damian laughed hard. “Yeah, you’ve drank too much. Hand it over, Eve.”

Evelina walked over and passed him her wine glass and Lily’s, but not before she emptied hers of the contents. “You always were a fucking spoil sport, D.”

“What’d you find out about the shipping deal with New York?” Tommas asked his boss. “It would be great if we could start working through there again. It’s cheaper and all to have it slide through their ports and then straight to ours since they’ve got the labor rackets and the bribes going on there.”

Damian pretended to sip on his cognac and seem disinterested in the conversation going on in Terrance’s personal office. He’d only followed the men when the boss asked them upstairs because he liked to know what was going on around him, not because he had to be there. Damian didn’t worry about crews, tribute, and bullshit like the rest of Terrance’s guys did. Damian’s work for the Outfit didn’t fall in line with that unless someone needed an extra pair of hands for something.

Usually Damian worked with Tommas on those things, anyway.

“Marcello isn’t going to let us in on that again, not after that mess a few years ago,” Terrance said before tossing back the remainder of his red wine.

“I don’t know why you bother making nice with them,” Joel muttered under his breath. “With the Calabrese and the Donati families working with us, we could easily cull the Marcellos down to nothing. We could set up a syndicate—”

“Oh, shut up with that fucking nonsense,” Terrance barked.