Page 26 of Deathless & Divided

“Whatever, Dino.”

“If I had discussed it with you, who would you have picked to get the job done?”

Was that all Lily was, a job?

Disgust rolled thick and strong in her gut, threatening to spill her casserole and salad all over the dinner table.

“Joel Trentini, maybe?” Dino continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm as a smirk twisted his mouth upward.

“Hey,” Theo barked. “I’m a fucking DeLuca, too.”

Dino nodded. “Then you know why I picked a Rossi.”

“Well, I know why you picked Damian.”

“Same thing.”

Theo cocked a brow. “Could have picked Tommas—he’s good for the job.”

Again with that fucking title.

“I am not a job!” Lily snapped, finally meeting her wit’s end.

Dino and Theo acted like she hadn’t said a thing. Neither man looked away from one another.

“Tommas is good for the final job. Make sure you know the right side to be on when the time comes,” Dino said. “Besides, I did think of Lily here, regardless of what she believes. A man like Tommas, already sniffing around a tree he shouldn’t be, isn’t going to do right by her in the end. Tommas will do right by his, to be sure, but Lily isn’t his.”

What?

Lily was so confused it wasn’t even funny. Her brothers might as well have been talking in riddles for all she understood.

“She’s not Ghost’s, either,” Theo said quietly. “Did you think of that, or are you only thinking of the past, Dino?”

Dino’s expression barely flickered with emotion as he said, “We both know D, Theo. Give him time to catch the fuck up before you start running off at the mouth, huh?”

Theo blew out a steady stream of air, nodding. “Fine.”

“I appreciate it.”

Theo shot Lily a look that was anything but apologetic. “Sorry, little one. You’re in this one for life.”

Lily’s jaw dropped.

How could he?

Not only had her brothers’ entire conversation been spoken as if she wasn’t even in the room, but they still managed to talk her in circles without including her. Lily glanced between her brothers who had both resumed eating without barely an acknowledgment to one another.

She still wasn’t sure where she went wrong here.

Theo showed up earlier without a reason, said less than a few words to Dino when their older brother invited him in for supper, and now they were acting like strangers again. What in the hell had become of their lives?

“Theo!” Lily said, desperation pitching her voice high.

“Dino’s doing right, Lily.”

That was it. That was all her brother said.

Lily dropped her fork to the table with a clatter, gaining both her brothers’ attention as she stood from the table and pushed her chair roughly away.