“What for?”
“Maybe to prove to yourself you can do it. You can try something new.”
“I surf and try new things all the time.”
He nodded like he didn’t believe me at all.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward enough that half of my foot was on the balcony. The threshold between the two had me wobbling a little, and I immediately grabbed his hand.
The electricity that shot through me scared me just as much as the balcony. My gaze shot to his and a little smirk rose on his full lips.
Nothing more and nothing less.
Did he feel it too?
Or was he just trying not to laugh at my fears? I set my other boot on the balcony and shifted my weight. “If we die and I can make your life hell in the afterlife, you bet your ass I’m going to.”
“If we die, your grandma and my dad will make both our afterlives hell.”
I chuckled. He was probably right. A twinkle lit in his eyes and the wind ruffled his hair enough that he almost appeared approachable, like we were on equal footing.
Maybe that’s why my words flowed more freely than they should have. “I don’t know if I’m scared of this marriage or scared I’m going to take all this on and not be able to finish it. I don’t finish a lot of things I start.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Might be that my brain’s wired a little differently. My grandma always said I had a jumpiness to me. My teachers claimed it was an attention issue. Yet, I think it’s just that everyone’s different and, in the end, that’s what makes us all the same. I struggle to keep my attention on one thing long enough to see it through.”
“Well, we’ll just have to switch it up every now and then.”
“Or we can just power through these six months.” I suggested, uncomfortable that Bastian had so easily accepted something about me that I was normally embarrassed about.
“Sure, Morina,” he murmured. “Sure.” He waved me back inside and told me we needed to dial Mr. Finley.
We sat there in silent as the phone rang and rang.
When he answered, Bastian gave him the news and I confirmed it.
“I’ll check that off the list and make sure we legally document this milestone. Congratulations.”
Or condolences.
After he hung up, I announced I was going to my bedroom. What else could I do in a place with a stranger?
Later that day, I heard the front door open and close.
I didn’t see Bastian for three days after that.
16
Bastian
“What the fuck do you mean you’re on the way to my new place?” Why did I yell questions at my brother every time he was on the phone?
“I want to do a security sweep of the place and make sure the cameras are all doing what I need them to.”
“You can’t do that from Chicago?” I pointed to my driver and mouthed home. He was quick to steer in that direction. I probably would have gotten a smart comment from Dante but he’d gone to handle a job across the country.
“Well, no.” There was a pause. “Plus, we used a little bit of muscle for this Morina girl. I’m coming to meet her and, well, I’m babysitting.”
“You’re what?”
“I have our niece with me.” He grumbled, like he knew that omission would send me into a rage.
“Don’t tell me you have my niece on the jet right now.” I ground out. “Her parents will kill you. Please tell me you called Katie.”
“Well, no. They left me with her for half the day. What did they expect?”
“You’re fucking asking to die. I swear to you, Katie is a damn bratva queen.” I lowered my voice, used to talking in secret when it came to how our family used to operate. “She’s married to our enforcer. Do you understand the concept of babysitting for them?”
Rome and Katie had met when we were all just kids. As we’d taken our rightful places in powerful positions, their love had grown enough that they’d brought a child into the world. That four-year-old was our pride and joy, but also the thing we were most protective of.
“Ivy asked to go to an amusement park. They have one down there with characters and shit. We’ll go for a few hours.”
“You have to plan for a trip there, Cade. They book the damn park out!” I fisted my hand, trying to wrangle the fury I had with my brother’s flippant behavior. He was the youngest. He didn’t know responsibility like I did and he had a knack for doing things before he thought about them.
“Well, I hacked part of the system while we were flying.”
“Of course you did.” I sighed. “You can’t go today. Ivy is going to be too tired. And you better have my niece’s seat belt on.”
“Technically, she’s not your niece. Rome’s our cousin, you know.”
“Of course she’s our niece. We’re Armanellis. She’s famiglia, you idiot. Did you say that shit in front of her?”
“No. She’s squealing to go to the bathroom. I’m just trying to piss you off more, see if you’ll explode before I get there.”
He was making me go back to that damn penthouse and under these conditions. An explosion was warranted. “When’s the plane landing?”
“About 30 minutes. I intend to be there in an hour and we’re going to be hungry.”
“I’m not within an hour’s distance. Go eat somewhere first. I got Morina there and I haven’t…”
“You haven’t what?”
“I’m not really there.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. I didn’t need Cade questioning how I was handling this situation.
“You serious? You gotta play hubby and wifey and you aren’t even getting to know her? That’s not like you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means normally you can find common ground. You have a knack for making alliances, obviously. Is she that bad?”
“She’s not bad at all.” I defended her immediately and then tried to backtrack on that statement: “She’s just in my space.”
“Kind of what a wife does.”
“You know this is a legal marriage, that’s it, right?”
“Well, sort of. You have to fake it enough for it to look real. If someone believes she’s not an untouchable, that puts her in harm’s way again, right?”
I punched the backseat of the Rolls Royce. The pressure of this damn will shouldn’t have been on me. “I’m so sick of carrying Mario’s shit on my back.”
“Dad was great at building shitty partnerships.”
I cleared my throat. “Morina doesn’t know he was importing illegal shipments, okay? I need that kept out of the equation. I’m working on showing her that we’re here to shift Tropical Oil to clean energy and that it will help her city thrive. We’ll clean up the other shit quietly. Got it?”
“Why not? We ended the drug imports years ago when dad died. She should be thankful.”
“Maribel didn’t trust us enough to sell those stocks to me for that very reason. You think her granddaughter is going to want to sell them to me if she knows our father lied to her grandmother?”
“Right.” Cade sighed. “I’ll wipe it from as many places as I can. The dark web might have some mention of the drugs that were coming in.”