“Fucking convenient.”
“Yeah. You’re looking at a real salt-of-the-earth family unit.”
“Fuck, Melanie would wet herself if she knew where her baby girl was playing house.”
“Nicole is a lot like you, Nick. Just saying. Don’t get righteous.”
Dominic laughed. “The day I get righteous, you have permission to put a bullet in my head. But she needs protecting from herself, from him, from this shit storm that seems to coming his way. So call up the troops. In case we need them.”
“I’ve already sent out the message. Everyone’s coming in from holiday.”
“Okay, thanks.” Dominic had been watching the clock. “I have to go. Kate expects me in bed when she wakes up. As for Nicole, I’ll know more after I talk to her. There’s no question she’s going to balk at going home.”
“She’d be safest there.”
“We both know that. Getting her to agree is the fucking elephant in the room.”
Max laughed. “Déjà vu. You never did what was prudent either.”
“That’s not fucking helpful,” Dominic grumbled. “We’ll talk later.”
Dominic had just pushed away from his desk, calculating that he had twenty minutes to shower before Kate woke up, when his phone rang. He pounced on it, not wanting the ring to rouse the household. His private number was private. It had to be someone he knew.
“I hear we might be relatives,” Gora said gruffly in Italian, their common language.
Dominic recognized the rough accent. “Did you set this up, motherfucker?” he growled at the mafioso, Anton Georgescu, who had almost ruined his life a few years ago.
“No. I just found out. The boy doesn’t confide. He’s also too young to know what he wants.” There was a flash of anger in Gora’s voice.
“That works out then, because my niece isn’t his type.”
“And Rafail’s not hers,” Gora said just as grimly. He’d done some checking too.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“She’s fickle, impulsive, men always buzzing around her. Rafail’s getting involved. It worries me. I don’t want him hurt.”
“Him hurt? Are you fucking kidding me? Your stepson and a friend of his have some serious enemies from Shanghai mobilizing against them. A goddamn armada coming in for the kill. What the fuck’s wrong with you? Aren’t you watching your kid?”
“It all just happened in the last few days.”
“Fuck if I care when it happened. It happened. I’m warning you now, if there’s any blowback to my family, I’m coming after you with everything I’ve got. Full-scale war, Gora.”
“Calm the fuck down. I’ll deal with it.”
Dominic crushed back a snarl and spoke very slowly. “You. Do. Not. Understand. This isn’t your brain-dead, no-neck enforcers. This is a state-sponsored, fucking no-holds-barred bunch of thugs who’d kill their own mother if they were given the order.”
“Don’t you think I fucking know that?”
“It sure as hell doesn’t seem like it when you tell me to calm the fuck down. I haven’t been calm since I found out who my niece was shacking up with.”
“I agree. The arrangement isn’t wise. I’ll talk to him.”
Dominic hissed a breath between his teeth, pissed that Gora had the fucking gall to disapprove of Nicole when his goddamn stepson was the byword for lecherous vice. “You do that,” he said with a bite to his voice. “In the meantime, I’m sending Nicole home. So when you talk to him you can give him the message.”
“I might need some names from you. My contacts are more limited since I retired. But I’ll send out a hit team, ten times ten teams, if necessary. I still can do that. He’s my boy and no one’s going to hurt him.”
“Your boy?” Dominic’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Stepson.”
“Don’t fucking lie. I heard your voice.” For a second, clear as a bell, Gora’s heartbeat rang in the word boy, and the truth slipped out into the world like a wisp of smoke.
“I don’t care what you heard. It’s none of your business. It’s no one’s business but mine. As far as Rafail knows he’s my stepson, so shut the fuck up.”
“If I wasn’t so pissed, I’d find it amusing that you cuckolded that head case Maso.”
“I didn’t know about Rafail until after Maso died. Long story. It doesn’t matter now. But he doesn’t know he’s my son and I want it to stay that way. If you tell him, I’ll see you in hell.”