“Is that really what you think I’d be good for, marriage?”
Alberto didn’t bat a lash. “A couple of decades ago, daughters of made men who couldn’t make themselves useful in other ways often found themselves of use to the family.”
“Meaning what?”
“Exactly what I already said. Housewives.”
Violet bit hard on her inner cheek, disliking how that felt like a slightly veiled threat. She tossed a look at the clock, noting the time was well after seven. “I should get back to Manhattan. School in the morning, right?”
Alberto nodded, and stood from the table. “Remember what I said, dolcezza.”
Right.
Housewife.
As her father turned to leave, Violet reached down for her purse. She grabbed the phone out and unlocked the screen, seeing Kaz had responded to her text earlier in the day.
She had just opened the message up when her father turned back around saying, “Oh, and Violet?”
Violet’s head snapped up, heart racing. “Yeah?”
“I let Gee take the night off. Call a cab to take you back.”
She nodded, glancing back down at the phone.
An ache settled deep in her stomach, traveling even lower.
Kaz had sent back his own picture. Black and white, his hand shoved down his unbuttoned pants and wrapped around the base of his length, the rest hidden where she couldn’t see. She only knew it was him because of the tattoos, and damn, because she knew his body now.
Her mouth went dry.
Another message quickly followed.
An address.
A time.
Nothing else.
She took that to mean it wasn’t a request.
Vasily was waiting in his office, a gun on his desk. Kaz shook his head as he entered, eyeing it. “Are you trying to send me a message, Vasily?”
His father looked from the gun to him and shook his head. “Of course not.”
How easily he overlooked something as simple as his weapon being out, but Kaz? Kaz rarely, if ever, saw a gun that close to Vasily, not when he had men at his back at all times.
Ignoring it for the time being, Kaz said, “What did you need, besides the whole, avoid Gallucci thing. That’s getting a bit redundant, no? After all, it’s not like I actively sought out this last encounter.”
“I’m sure you’re completely innocent, Kazimir,” Vasily said, sounding like that was the last thing he believed. “I know you better than to believe something of the sort.”
“Good to know.” He had thought about dismissing the incident with Carmine entirely, at least until he thought about what had been said. “He has a big mouth though.”
“Oh?”
Kaz sat forward, looking around with casual disinterest at the paintings that hung on the walls of Vasily’s office. “Mentioned how his family helped ours some years ago. I’d wager I was about ten? Eleven?”
Vasily scoffed. “Those Italians always believe they do more than the average man. I wouldn’t place too much credence into anything the boy said. After all, he is his father’s son.”
It was funny, seeing how easily Vasily disregarded what Kaz was saying, especially when he didn’t know what all Carmine had actually said. “True, but I did wonder what he meant by that. Oh wait,” Kaz said as though he had just realized something, “he probably was talking about that meeting. You and Alberto, his daughter and I. Considering how much you actually hate the man, what made you attend a meeting with him?”
Vasily cleared his throat, sitting up just a little bit straighter as he regarded his son. “It was necessary at the time. Do you remember that bomb that nearly took your life? Who do you think set it? If you wonder why I hate those Galluccis, look no further than that.”
“And Gavrill?” Kaz asked next. “How did he feel about you meeting with a man he wanted dead?”
There was a flash of some dark emotion in the man’s eyes, but it was gone before Kaz could read into it. “The uncle you loved and the man that was Pakhan were two very different people. You couldn’t possibly understand, not at your age. To you and your brother, he was the savior. You two treated the man like he was fucking royalty though he wasn’t.”
Had they? Kaz remembered Ruslan’s doting, but never his own. Sure, he had looked up to his uncle, loved the man, but back then, before life and its pain came between them, Kaz had looked up to his father as well.
But even with his passionate speech, Kaz still didn’t miss one important detail. “But you still didn’t answer my question.”
“No?” Vasily rested his fists on his desk as he stared across at Kaz, unblinking. He lacked the fatherly pride of only a few minutes ago, now replaced with coldness that Kaz had no trouble reading. “Why are you asking about this now, Kazimir? What has you so curious?”