Chiara blinks in surprise. “No. Cassius always tells me how wonderful I’m doing.”
I sit up so fast that Lorenzo falls behind me. “That bastard! He swears that he trains you the same as he trains me, but all he does is shout at me.”
Lorenzo scowls, pushes me back on the sofa, and settles against me once more. “Maybe the difference is Chiara does as she’s told for Cassius.”
Chiara gives us her sweetest smile. “Of course I do. And when I get tired, he brings me cups of water and tells me to take a break.”
I roll my eyes. Cassius would only bring me cups of water if he were going to dump them over my head and tell me to work harder. “Disgusting. Next time, I’m coming to your training session and he can bring me cups of water, too.”
Lorenzo laugh-snorts. “You fucking wish.”
“Why don’t you come and train with us, Lorenzo?” Chiara asks him.
Lorenzo gives her a sardonic smile. “Do you want World War Three to break out? Because that’s what will happen if Cassius tries shouting at me.”
“Good point. You keep doing whatever you’re doing. It seems to be working for you.”
He lifts his shirt and pats his muscular stomach. “Thank you. I know it is.”
I pull my T-shirt off and hold my arms out. “What about me? Is all this suffering at least working? Am I enduring that bastard’s bad temper for a reason?”
“You look fantastic,” Chiara tells me. “You always did, but the training has made you look even better.”
“Thank you, kitten.” I glance at Lorenzo, one brow raised.
He stares back at me. “What?”
I throw my T-shirt at him. “I want a compliment! I know you’re capable of them. Princess, you’re adorable, princess you’re so cute. Chiara gets them from you all the time.”
“Give him a compliment. He’s dying here.”
Lorenzo shrugs, fighting a smile. “Chiara already complimented you.”
“He wants a compliment from you.”
Damn right I do.
He settles his crossed arms over his chest and regards me critically. “Your muscles look cut. Good tone. Good gains.” Then he smiles and grabs my chin. “And you’re more handsome than you’ve ever been. Look at that fucking smile.”
“Thank you,” I mutter, my cheeks heating. I look between the two of them, Chiara smiling down at the baby and Lorenzo relaxed against the sofa with his arm draped around my shoulders. In the bleakest days of my life, I never imagined we would get here. I don’t think they did, either.
Vengeance is a strange thing. I thought I’d never feel better than the day Salvatore killed De Luca and avenged our sisters in blood. We were flying high that day, our hearts in a turmoil of grief and gratitude. A weight lifted from my shoulders and I felt that Amalia was finally put to rest.
Then, ex-Mayor Romano went on trial for his wife’s murder and as an accessory to the Black Orchid murders. Chiara testified about the night her mother was killed in front of her. She held her chin up and she never cried, in public at least. The sight of her breastfeeding afterwards with tears running down her face almost made Cassius put his fist through the wall, and he cursed the ex-mayor to hell and back.
We gave testimony too, though I don’t know if anything we said was particularly convincing the jury. The defense lawyer made a lot of the fact that Lorenzo’s knife was used to kill Chiara’s mother, and Lorenzo later threw that knife away. The lawyer tried for hours to make Lorenzo lose his temper in court, to try and show that he could have been the murderer, but Lorenzo kept his gaze either on the jury or on our baby, and didn’t raise his voice once.
What convinced the jury in the end, I believe, were deleted text conversations recovered from De Luca’s “lost” phone and a burner phone that was found in Romano’s safe. They discussed Mayoress Romano’s murder in detail and they talked about our sisters and De Luca’s other murders.
Romano was found guilty on all charges and sent away for life. Chiara was ecstatic with relief and happiness that she finally had justice for her mom. I was thrilled for her and our sisters, but not even Romano’s sentencing gave me the release that I didn’t know I needed.
It was a news article I read online about the families of De Luca’s other victims. Disparate and grief-stricken families across many states who finally knew who had taken their loved ones from them. Reading them talk about their daughters and sisters I felt like I was connected to something bigger. Their grief was my grief. I didn’t know them, but I understood them, and I loved their daughters and sisters, too.
Lorenzo and I took Chiara to the prison to visit her father a few weeks ago. She didn’t sit down. She didn’t say hello. All she did was pick up the phone, look her father in the eye through the glass partition and say, “You’ll never see your grandson, and you’re not my father.”
Then she put down the receiver and calmly walked away from the man who shattered her heart.
Since that day, she’s been thriving. It was Chiara who came up with the solution to our living arrangements. She has her own home and we’re all able to stay with her there. There’s always at least one of us with her, and usually two or three. She also stays with all of us and has cribs at each of our places. She brings the baby to meetings, especially with Cassius, who loves to show the baby off, and down at Strife. Acid loves to hold the baby. Thane held Vitali, once, out in front of him at eye level. They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then the baby started to cry. Alecta rolled her eyes and took the child away from him and gave him a proper cuddle.
“How long until you’re done breastfeeding?” Lorenzo asks Chiara.
“Just a few more minutes.”
“I mean, how long until he’s on solids?”
“Soon. Why?”
A heated smile slides over his face. “Because once you’re done breastfeeding, you can get pregnant again.”
“And what Machiavellian scheme do you have to get me pregnant this time?”
“It’s a fiendish one. I plan on screwing you a lot.”
Chiara shoots him a skeptical glance. “Just that?”
“Either that or give the rest of them vasectomies in their sleep. I’ve been looking up how and it’s easier than I thought to cut—”
“Don’t even think about it, Doctor Evil,” I tell him.
Chiara finishes feeding the baby and goes to put him down for his nap. When she returns, Lorenzo follows her path across the room, his eyes glued to her ass that Cassius has been lovingly sculpting.
“Speaking of screwing…” He nods his head in the direction of the master bedroom and glances at the two of us. “Who wants to be screwed?”
“Me,” both of us say at the same time.
As Chiara reaches for my hand, she asks me, “Do you ever fuck Lorenzo?”
“I have once or twice. But he doesn’t like it.”
“Who says I don’t like it?” Lorenzo says, strolling ahead of us and pulling off his T-shirt, the tattoos moving over his muscles.
“You never ask for it. A couple of times I’ve tried and you’ve pushed me off.”