by Sam Mariano
At least the Morelli children embraced my story, and now they clap for me. I stand up and give an exaggerated bow. “Thank you, thank you.”
“Great story,” Sin deadpans as I move out of the spotlight and over by the assembled parents.
“Yeah,” Rafe agrees, his brown eyes twinkling with amusement. “I especially liked how I was the beautiful dumbass in distress, and Sin got to be the hero,” he tells me.
Laurel shrugs. “That checks out. Sometimes you’re a dumbass, and Sin just can’t help being the best part of any story he falls into.”
“You might be a little biased,” Rafe tells her.
“I’m so biased,” she agrees, leaning back and stealing a kiss from Sin. “So, so biased. But I’m also right. I took a poll.”
“You only poll yourself,” Sin points out.
“And I always get the results I want,” she reasons. “My logic is flawless.”
Now that my story is no longer keeping her attention rapt, the birthday girl pushes up off the grass and toddles over to us, grabbing Sin’s leg and reaching her arms up for him.
“Dada, up, up,” she demands.
Sin releases Laurel and bends down, lifting Skylar into his arms. Her big, puffy dress covers his arm, but he still manages to look vaguely intimidating. That shouldn’t be possible with a cherub-cheeked baby in a cupcake dress in his arms, but here we are. He takes to this dad thing so naturally. “Did you like the story, shortcake?” he asks her.
Skylar nods her head, looking around, her gaze landing on the bounce castle. She points. “Jump.”
Laurel leans on Sin’s arm, adoration practically seeping from her pores as she smiles at Skylar. “You don’t know how to jump, silly girl. That’s here for the bigger kids to play on.”
Skylar scowls and points more adamantly. “Dada, jump, jump.”
Sin glances back over at the castle. “I’ll take her and let her roll around in it for a bit while none of the other kids are inside.”
“Pushover,” she accuses.
“It’s her birthday,” he says defensively.
Laurel leans in and kisses Skylar’s cheek, then she says, “I should probably go fetch our other child anyway.”
“Where is Nicky?” I ask, since the cute little prince went missing while I told his daddy’s fairytale.
“In the house with Mia. He was throwing a fit, so she offered to help,” Laurel tells me. “He settled right down. Now he’s madly in love with her.”
Rafe smirks. “Of course he is.”
“She’s an honest-to-god baby whisperer,” Laurel states. “She must be the Sin of her family.”
“I’ll go get him,” Rafe offers. “Is my cousin inside, too?”
“Your scary cousin?” Laurel questions. “Yes, he’s in there keeping an eye on things.”
“I’ll come with you,” I offer, sprinting to catch up to him. “I want to sit in the air conditioned house for a minute.”
Since the party is in the backyard, we come in through the back sliding glass doors. Bookshelves line the walls of this room, with comfy-looking furniture placed strategically and a brightly colored baby play center in the corner, presumably so Laurel has somewhere to put Nicky when she’s reading.
“Sin made her a nice library,” I comment.
“Not as nice as mine,” Rafe remarks.
“Of course not, Your Royal Highness.”
“I’m just saying. My library is objectively better.”
“You’ll have to show it to me sometime,” I tell him.
“That would require you stepping foot inside my house, and you avoid doing that now,” he points out.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I deny, feigning innocence. “I don’t avoid anything.”
There’s plenty of bottled water in ice-filled chests outside for guests, but I head into the kitchen and grab one out of the fridge. I uncap it and take a drink, but before I can screw the lid back on, Rafe steals it out of my hand and takes a swig.
I gape at him. “Excuse you.”
A smug, playful smile softens his perfect mouth. “This is mine now,” he informs me.
“Fine. You keep the water, I’m going to steal your son’s affection,” I inform him, walking right past him into the living room.
30
Rafe
Skylar’s birthday party is beginning to wind down. They went balls to the wall with this fucking party, I’ll give them that. Right now one of Mia and Mateo’s “gifts” is blowing bubbles with the kids and shaking her hips to the tune of “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid. Since it’s Skylar’s favorite movie, apparently, and the theme of the party, Mia and Mateo flew in an Ariel from Disneyland.
Ariel looks good shaking her tight little body in front of the dads, but we’re hardly paying her any attention, so she’s wasting her time.
I search the yard for Virginia, and predictably find her nesting with Laurel. Nicholas isn’t used to big crowds or being outside all day, and it’s making him fussy as hell. Virginia is holding him and making silly faces at him, trying to keep him happy. Laurel is talking to her sister, and they’re both looking at something Mia is showing them on her phone.
Rex’s voice pulls my attention back to the table I’m sitting at when he asks, “Hypothetically, how twisted would it be if I fucked The Little Mermaid?”
Adrian shakes his head. “That’s fucked up, Rex.”
“I think it might be just twisted enough to be fun,” I offer.
“She’s been stealing glances at me. I’m thinking about it.”
Mateo is seated on my left. His lips tug up in a faint smirk. “I hired her for the whole day. Might as well get my money’s worth.”
“I’m pretty sure she lives in California though,” Adrian offers.
Rex shrugs. “I’m not trying to marry her; I just want to take off that clamshell bra and see what kind of under the sea magic she can work with her mouth.”
“You should. The party’s almost over. If anyone wanted to cause trouble, they probably would have by now,” Mateo advises.
Technically, Rex is supposed to be on guard duty. What separates this party from a normal, over-the-top first birthday party—aside from the guest list, of course—is the army of men surrounding the house, at every point of entry, and stationed at various points around the party. Armed to the teeth and watchful for any signs of trouble, most of them are still on guard wherever they were assigned.
Rex, on the other hand, is sitting here with two bosses and a consigliere, shoveling pasta salad into his mouth and eye-fucking The Little Mermaid. I don’t think the kid has realized it yet, but Mateo clearly likes him. Even having him work for me all these months, I haven’t decided whether or not I do. An orphan with questionable morals and no trouble following orders from superiors, he does make a good soldier. He’s a hungry little shit, though. You can see the ambition in him, the desire to move up the ranks. Between his drive to succeed and a variety of talents, the kid is useful as hell, I’m just not sure I trust him. I’ve always been aware that even though he’s here working for me, he’s working for Mateo first. So maybe it’s not Rex I don’t completely trust, it’s my cousin. It’s just like him to keep eyes on me under the guise of helpfulness.
Rex has a vibe the ladies love, too, and sometimes that’s a pain in the ass. He’s a good-looking kid—dangerous eyes, and the ability to get women out of their panties with little more than a slow smirk. Sin acknowledges Rex’s usefulness, but he doesn’t like him on a personal level. Poor kid never even hit on Laurel, never even looked at her the wrong way, but there’s no telling Sin that.
The mermaid likes him, though. She catches Rex’s eye now and smiles a sultry little smile, then goes back to paying attention to the little kids.
“Yeah, I’m gonna fuck her,” he decides, nodding his head. Then, with a casualness that betrays the shit he’s trying to stir up, he asks, “Unless you think I’ve got a shot with Virginia. What do you think, Rafe? Think she’d go
for a younger guy?”
I open my mouth to tell him to stop being an asshole, but before I can, Mateo cuts in with a firm, “No.”
Rex was just poking at me, but he looks at Mateo, a little more surprised by his response.
“I told you, no Vegas attachments. You won’t be here much longer anyway.” Then Mateo’s gaze drifts to me and he says, “We need to talk about Virginia.”
I don’t like the way he says that. I don’t like the way Adrian, his right-hand, shifts in his seat to keep a better eye on me. I don’t like the way this just went from feeling like a vacation day with family to me sitting at Mateo’s table, under his jurisdiction.
I look around for Sin, but he’s standing across the yard with a beer in his hand, talking to Vince. I thought we were all having fun, so I didn’t feel the need to keep him close.
Unease rankles, but I tell myself it’s undue. Mateo and I have had our differences in the past, certainly, but we’re on good terms now. Sometimes my cousin can be hard to get along with because he doesn’t acknowledge the limits of his own control. Maybe he just needs a reminder that when he sits at my table, when he’s in my town, he’s not the one in charge.
“Why don’t we just enjoy the party,” I suggest firmly, reaching for my drink.
“We have enjoyed the party,” Mateo states. “Now there’s business to attend to.”
“You don’t have business here,” I inform him, my dark eyes meeting his across the table. “This is my city. I appreciate your help, I appreciate the use of your men, and I appreciate that we can all sit here and bullshit with each other at a family get-together instead of wanting to kill each other like old times. I appreciate your friendship, Mateo, but this is not your town, and Virginia is not your business, so stay the fuck away from her.”
His lips curve up faintly, amused at my speech. “And as much as your appreciation means to me, Rafe, I didn’t put you on Ben’s throne so you could fuck it up.”
My jaw locks and I break his gaze, reminding myself we’re at my goddaughter’s fucking first birthday party. This is not the place to lock horns with Mateo. “I’m not fucking anything up, and you didn’t put me in Ben’s seat; I put myself there.”
“Well, you certainly wouldn’t have it without me,” he states, not even playing at friendliness.
Before this takes an even less pleasant turn, I push back my chair, grab my plate, and tell him, “I’m gonna see you a little later.”
I mean to walk away, but before I can, Mateo says, “Don’t let Virginia leave the party until Adrian gets back.”
I freeze where I stand, plate in hand. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I turn back to my cousin. “Do not even think about going near her, Mateo.”
My cousin is a lot of things, but rarely sympathetic. Instead of being riled or even mildly annoyed by my warning, a faint trace of sympathy crosses his hard features. “You’re too close, aren’t you? You can’t see it.”
“There is nothing to see,” I state immovably.
Mateo shakes his head, looking like he pities me. “Do you know a lot of waitresses with law degrees, Rafe?”
Law degrees? What the hell is he talking about? I try to mask my confusion, and shake my head instead. “Virginia is solid. I had Sin look into her back when I hired her to work at my restaurant. I have him look at everyone I hire.”
“When was that?” Mateo asks simply. Patiently, condescendingly, like a fucking teacher with a chip on his shoulder, waiting for a particularly stupid student to catch up on the lesson. “Right around the time he lost his wife and daughter, right? You think he was doing his best work then?”
Fuck. Yes. Yes, it was.
“Now he considers her a friend,” Mateo adds. “He trusts her. We tend to stop looking at women we trust, and as you’ve witnessed, that can be a very costly mistake.”
“There’s no reason not to trust Virginia. You have bad information. Virginia isn’t a fucking lawyer; she went to school for sociology,” I tell him, hearing my own defensiveness.
Mateo nods once. “Yes. And criminal justice. Then law school. She passed the bar nearly two years ago, and judging from what Adrian has pulled up in a preliminary search, she’s fluent in at least five languages. Does that sound like someone whose life work is waiting tables?”
I feel like he just hit me in the face with a fucking mallet.
Adrian doesn’t like me even as much as Mateo, so it’s when he looks like he feels bad for me that it really hits me. “She has a photographic memory, Rafe. She can casually observe something, and write down all the explicit details about it hours later. I watched Virginia when Skylar opened her presents. She didn’t touch a pen, never once opened her phone to take a picture, just sat there and watched like the rest of us. Half an hour ago, she jotted down a complete list with names and gifts while she ate. I checked the list, and it was accurate. She’s your regular waitress, clearly you guys are close. Have you ever said anything to her about the business side of things? Did she wait on Gio? Does she know why he went missing? Does she know who else is missing? What was it she said to me the other night? She gives your guys rides home from the restaurant when they’re too drunk to drive themselves. She’s pretty cute. Think any of them might ever say anything outsiders shouldn’t hear to try to impress her? Bragged about a job, maybe even just bullshitting with their buddies at dinner and she overhears? No one ever thinks about the waitress.”
“I think about the waitress,” Mateo says dryly.
“Well, you’re fucking paranoid,” Adrian mutters.
“And not in jail,” Mateo says, grabbing his drink and tipping it in Adrian’s direction. “Pays to be diligent.”
Adrian’s gaze shifts back to me. Mateo dropped the bomb, and now Adrian takes over to clean up the mess. “Maybe you’re right,” Adrian offers. “Maybe she racked up somewhere in the neighborhood of a quarter million dollars in college debt just for shits and giggles, and she really is just a waitress.”
I don’t need Mateo’s face to tell me how fucking ridiculous that sounds, but it does anyway.
“I fucking get it,” I snap at him. “It sounds unlikely. But you don’t… you don’t know her the way I do.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Mateo says simply. “And hopefully this is all for nothing. Just in case it isn’t, I’m sending Adrian to her apartment to have a look around. If she is who she says she is, he won’t find anything damning. If she isn’t… then you have a very big problem.”
When it at all went to Hell with Cassandra, I remember the feeling of disillusionment. Going over every interaction I could bring to mind with a fine tooth comb, looking for all the shit I must have missed. It was hard, because I had to look at her through the lens of my own memory. If there was anything off about her, any insincerity in our tenderest moments, I couldn’t see it, because at the time they happened, I believed they were real.
The memory is always benevolent when it comes to someone you love.
I’m not sure if being aware of a betrayal as it’s happening is a boon or a curse. When I look at Virginia across the yard, she still looks exactly the same. Her laugh seems just as genuine, I can still see earnest love in her eyes as she looks down at Nicholas. Then her gaze catches mine, and the love is still there. She smiles at me fondly, then breaks my gaze and goes back to helping Laurel clean up the food table.
How can that be the face of someone who would betray me? Who is actively betraying me? It can’t be. Adrian is wrong, that’s all there is to it. Maybe he looked at the wrong Virginia Malloy. Maybe somehow he slipped, looked at an academic record for someone else by the same name, or… I don’t know, I’m grasping at straws, but there must be some other explanation.
Virginia is not a rat.
Virginia can’t be a fucking rat.
I want to walk across this yard, grab her by the arm, drag her into the house, and demand answers. I want to know if all that shit Mateo said was true, and if it is, why the fuck she lied to me about
it.
I can’t, though. I don’t trust myself to do that.
And I don’t like to think about it, but if Mateo did stumble onto something real, I don’t want to tip her off.
I cannot fucking believe this shit.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out to check. It’s from Rex, and all it says is, “Come around front.”
Fucking Rex. I thought Mateo pulled him aside and let him eat just because he likes the kid, but then he sent Rex with Adrian to check out Virginia’s apartment. I don’t feel good about them needing me to come around front. If they didn’t find anything, they could just come back to the party, shrug it off as undue diligence resulting in working for Mateo’s distrustful ass, and that would be that. We could all go about our evenings, and everything would be just fucking fine.
They probably found something stupid and they’re making too much of it. That’s all. As soon as I see whatever “evidence” they’ve brought me, I’ll know they’re grasping. I’ll know Virginia is innocent, and I’ll be able to breathe normally again.
When I get around front, Rex is still in the car with the passenger door hanging open. Guys up here have been repositioned. Rather than being on the lookout for trouble from outside, now they’re watching the back yard. Watching Virginia.
Fuck.
I approach Rex, waiting to see this “damning evidence.” When I look at his lap, all I see is a dictionary and a box of vanilla wafers.
“All that searching make you hungry?” I inquire.
Rex doesn’t smile. He opens the vanilla wafer box and draws out a gun. “This is hers. Did you know Virginia had a gun? Sin told me once she couldn’t shoot. Does she carry them as accessories?” he asks sarcastically.
My face goes blank. I don’t know what to say. I didn’t think Virginia knew how to use a gun either, but then I’ve never asked. I certainly didn’t think she would have one, but again, it’s not my business. It’s not damning, either. “She’s a woman living alone in Sin City. Maybe she wanted to be able to protect herself.”