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Abel’s head rolled forward. “She donates blood?”
“This is Angel we’re talking about,” Roman reminded him. “Of course she does.”
“Right.” Abel chuckled. Then his brow furrowed, and his gaze became vacant.
Roman hesitated, unsure whether he should ask Abel if he was okay or not. Questioning Abel when he got that distant look on his face was always a crapshoot. Sometimes the answer to what the other man was thinking was better left a mystery. When Abel grunted as if coming to a conclusion, Roman’s curiosity got the better of him. “What are you thinking about?”
“Have you ever thought about where the blood ends up?”
Roman frowned, not following. “What do you mean?”
“Well, it could end up anywhere, right? Angel has no idea who will receive her blood,” Abel remarked.
“Right. It goes to someone in need. An accident victim, a cancer sufferer...” Roman trailed off, a pang of guilt hitting him when he realized he’d never thought to donate his own blood in the past.
Abel nodded. “Sure, sure. But I wasn’t referring to that. I meant... it could end up in some guy’s boner.”
Roman jerked his head back. “I beg your pardon?!”
“Hear me out...” Abel began.
“No. I don’t think I will,” Roman declared, shuffling the papers on his desk. But Abel was already talking again.
“Say a dude cuts off his hand with a chainsaw when he’s trimming his hedge.”
Roman looked at Abel blandly. “Hedge trimming? Really?”
Abel’s heavy shoulders moved in a shrug. “People who are trapped in suburbia do it all the time. It’s a whole thing. Anyway, say the chainsaw man needs a blood transfusion because he’s bleeding out. We both know how much a severed limb can bleed,” he added. “And then say he gets a hard-on once he’s recovered. That means the donated blood he received could technically be in his dick. Ergo, Angel’s blood could be in some random dude’s boner.”
Roman pinched the bridge of his nose, regretting asking Abel for his thoughts. “Her blood will not go into another man’s dick.”
“How do you know?” Abel retorted mutinously. “She doesn’t pick or choose who gets her blood.”
“Just... shut up, Abel.”
“You always say that when you know I’m right,” Abel said smugly.
Roman moved Abel along quickly after that. He wasn’t going to spend another second thinking about Angel’s precious blood circulating around some random person. Especially in their junk. When his office phone rang, he answered it without looking at the caller ID.
“Roman. Did I catch you at a bad time? You sound like shit,” his uncle told him.
Roman blinked at the little red flashing light on the phone that indicated it was an external call. “Armando?”
“None other,” Armando drawled.
Roman frowned, confused about the call. Armando hadn’t once reached out to him in all the years he’d been gone. And after their last interaction, he hadn’t planned to hear from the man ever again. Unless Roman needed to go to New York. And then, the dynamic was going to change dramatically. “Why are you calling me?”
“I never knew about your father’s plans for Luca,” Armando stated out of the blue.
“What the fuck?” Roman pulled the phone from his ear, looking down at it. He gave it a shake to make sure it was working right. Because there was no way Armando had just led with that. “What did you just say to me?” he demanded angrily. “And why are you saying it?”
“I only found out because your father’s lead enforcer, Marco, got drunk and spilled the beans,” Armando went on, ignoring Roman’s questions. “And when I confronted your father about it, you overheard us talking. It’s how you learned the truth.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my memory, Armando,” Roman told him flatly. “I have no idea why you’re bringing this up now, but I know you never knew about Luca. It’s why you’re still alive and not skinned like my father. If I hadn’t heard you talking that day, I would never have known the truth. And even though I’m sure you never intended to tell me, I still owed you for that. It’s another reason I didn’t kill you and why you’re still sitting on the throne of an empire that is mine by rights.”
Armando’s scoff came through loud and clear. “Are you saying you want to run this famiglia?”
“Of course not,” Roman shot back.
