Smithie was scowling.
“Jesus. You bitches breed like rabbits,” he bitched then totally gave it all away by bending in while lifting up Lola and shoving his face in her neck.
She squealed in glee as Smithie turned and strolled away.
“Smithie,” Jet murmured as she passed us, putting something on the food table and finishing, “Total softie.”
That was the damned truth.
My eyes slid through the crowd and I saw Amalea now had Katie. This was because Mom was chasing after Callum.
Jeez.
We did.
We bred like rabbits.
I kept looking through the throng and stopped when I saw Ren, Dom and Sissy standing with Vito and Angela.
We’ll just say that after I was kidnapped and we nearly lost Darius, I was right. Vito had had a wakeup call. His “excommunication” of Ren lasted about eight hours. Then it was back to family.
I knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it up.
And I loved being right.
Especially this time.
This wasn’t to say that Ren went back to him. He’d made a commitment to Marcus. He’d followed through with his resignation and we had our two weeks at the beach where we did nothing but drink rum and fuck on the beach under the stars (and elsewhere). When we came back, Ren went into partnership with Marcus.
Dom went with him.
Vito decided to retire early, turning over the reins of the Zano criminal empire to Santo and Lucky.
Word on the street, they were doing well which was both good news (because I liked them) and bad news (because they were running a criminal empire).
This meant Dawn lost her job (the first order of business for Santo and Lucky was canning her; and luckily they let me watch, it was awesome). I’d done a check on her just because I was nosy. I found out she was living in Alabama. Still single. Still a receptionist.
But doing it far, far away.
Which worked for me.
It also meant Marcus and Ren took over the Zano Holdings offices.
So, when we could, my man and I carpooled.
“Their car’s coming up to the curb,” Stella’s throaty voice could be heard calling from the front of the house.
Everyone moved that way.
Once in positions, we waited.
The door opened and Darius walked through, holding to his hip a gorgeous little girl with cute little pompom pigtails sticking out at the top sides of her head.
He was followed by Dorothea.
And Dorothea was followed by Malia.
Coming up the rear was Liam.
“Now!” Shirleen shouted and we all started doing what she’d been browbeating us to practice for the last week.
We sang Ten Thousand Men of Harvard.
And we did it poorly.
Luckily, Tex got into it and his booming baritone drowned the rest of us out.
But it didn’t seem to matter.
Because through it, Liam stood there grinning.
Then again, what else did you do when you were serenaded by family at your college graduation party?
It.
Was.
Righteous.
*
By the way, Darius lived in LA now. He worked at Mace’s security agency.
At Mace’s request, I flew out to do jobs with them occasionally, and if you thought the Hot Bunch was hot…
Just saying…
Seriously.
*
Malia lived in LA with Darius.
Don’t ask, it’s a huge-ass story.
But, as you can tell, it had a happy ending.
*
Liam lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
That was, until very recently.
*
An hour later, I was standing having some alone time with Gracie, Luke and Ava’s first little girl. I was holding her close to my front. She was fascinated with my guitar pendant and I could see this was fascinating. I’d worn it every day for years and I was still fascinated with it.
But right then, I was fascinated with her little girl fascination.
I felt a presence get close and looked to the side to see Darius moving in there.
“Yo,” I greeted.
He grinned. “Ally.”
I looked across the room at Liam standing with Dorothea and Shirleen. He and his grandmother were grinning at Shirleen. She was saying something she really meant because her head was shaking and her afro was swaying.
I looked back to Darius to see his eyes on the same thing.
“Thanks for bringing him here so we could celebrate with him,” I said.
His gaze came to me. “Not a problem.”
I grinned at him. “So, am I still a pain in your ass?”
He grinned back and answered, “Yes.”
I frowned. “How can I still be a pain in your ass? You live hundreds of miles away.”
“Your brand of pain in the assedness extends great lengths. It might even span dimensions.”
I rolled my eyes, and on the roll back to Darius, declared, “‘Assedness’ is not a word, Darius.”
“Badasses can make up words, Ally.”
This was true. They could do whatever the hell they wanted.