"A mimosa, please." Duke chuckled, his face hitting my shoulder. I knew I was practically begging the waiter to bring me my drink tout suite, and there was no way anyone missed the tone.
"Are we ready to order brunch?" the waiter asked, totally barely cracking even a bit of humor.
Oh, he was good.
"Nope, just the mimosa for now!" I announced, flicking Duke in the forehead until he reared back with a flinch.
"That hurt!" he protested, rubbing at the spot with a crease in his brow.
"I'll have the nutella french toast with a side of bacon," Gendry said, handing his menu to the waiter. I turned my glower his way. "She'll have the crab benedict, hollandaise on the side." Not only had he thrown me under the bus by ordering his food, but the bastard had ordered mine.
It wasn't even like I could protest that he'd ordered wrong, because he hadn't. It was the same thing I got every week. I handed my menu to the waiter, shrinking back in my chair to pout while Amelia and Duke ordered their food. "I'll be right out with that mimosa, ma'am," the waiter announced before he turned to flee the table.
"How did I go from a miss to a ma'am? Did I age ten years in the last five minutes?" I teased, desperate to deflect Amelia away from the pointed way she looked at me.
"You two aren't getting any younger. When are you going to give me grandbabies?" I sighed, leaning forward to bang my head on the table. The woman had a very, very thick skull for this determination that Duke and I were meant to be an item.
"Shouldn't you be pressuring Gendry?" Duke asked. "He's older."
"And he also has never brought a girl home. I can't exactly pressure him when he's determined to remain eternally single, can I?" Amelia steeped her hands, and as soon as the waiter dropped my mimosa in front of me, I took a long swig.
"I've never brought a woman home either, mom," Duke laughed. Amelia raised a brow, turning her attention my way. "Ivory doesn't count. You know we aren't dating."
And we never would. I'd been friends with Duke since second grade. There was no way we would ever go there. "I don't understand you two," Amelia shook her head, sipping at her water in a polite way that made my gulp of mimosa seem vulgar. "I wonder who the kids will look like."
Oh, for fuck's sake.
It would be one of those days.
"I have a date," I interrupted. "Tonight." It didn't matter that I had no intentions of going on said date, but it was enough to deflate Amelia to sighing.
Duke stilled beside me. "Sadie set that up fast."
"Not him. Different date," I answered vaguely.
"Where did you meet this one?" Amelia asked with pursed lips. A look passed between her and Duke, and I ignored it. Neither one of them were fond of my failure of a dating life, for very different reasons. Duke worried I'd get involved with the wrong man and get hurt. Amelia hated everyone who wasn't her son.
"I've known him for a long time," I evaded. They both let the subject drop, and Gendry was nice enough to steer the conversation toward work and the tension melted away.
As much as I hated Amelia's insistence to make something out of nothing, Duke's family was as close to me as my own.
They were my family too, and when his hand rested on my thigh and he took my hand in his, I knew they always would be.
No matter what a colossal fuck up he might think I was when he found out about Matteo.
Seven
Matteo
I flipped back and forth through the pages. The folder Donatello had handed me felt obscenely light, and I knew there was no way in Hell he'd included everything there was to know about Ivory for twelve fucking years. I'd wanted to give the man the benefit of the doubt, since he so rarely did anything less than a thorough job. A quick scan confirmed there was something missing. A mishap with the printer no doubt.
I shoved the papers back in the file folder, standing from my desk chair and going in search of the man. There was a matter of hours before I would pick Ivory up for our date, and I needed all the information I could get.
God knew I would need it.
The sound of Donatello's voice reached me, his voice a loud hum as he puttered around in the kitchen with fixing lunch for my guys on duty. I tossed the folder on the island counter, not angrily, but impatient as I ever was. "Where's the rest?" I asked, slipping my hands into my pockets. He turned from the stove, quirking his lips at me and shaking his head like he couldn't quite believe it himself.
"That's all of it."
"It can't be. She's an adrenaline junkie, and you expect me to believe that she's spent the last twelve years cooking and moving from one failed career to another until she finally settled on a blog? Ivory's way too social to be content with a career like that. She'd never survive not being surrounded by people nonstop, not unless something happened." I shook my head, picking a kalamata olive out of one of Donatello's little bowls that he kept pre-measured ingredients in. The man was meticulous.
"I looked at everything," he admitted, rolling out the dough for what appeared to be his Mediterranean flatbread. "There was nothing there, Matteo. From what I can see, that adrenaline junkie you remember disappeared without a trace at eighteen."
"What happened at eighteen?" I reached for another olive, shaking out my hand when Donatello smacked me away with the rolling pin. I narrowed my eyes on him, and he grinned back at me. The old man knew he was one of three people who could get away with something like that and live to tell the tale.
"No idea." He shrugged, setting down the rolling pin in favor of combining his toppings in a small bowl. "Before that, as you saw in the folder there were some parties. She snuck into a club at least once and got caught. Went out joyriding with a college guy who had a motorcycle when she was a junior, normal teenage stuff." My fists clenched at the reminder she'd been with other men. Even if there was no evidence to suggest she'd been sexually involved with the biker, I knew from looking through her file there'd been others.
I had no right to be pissed. No right to be jealous since I'd been the one to walk away from her.
That didn't make me feel any less murderous.
"She wouldn't have just stopped."
Donatello twisted his lips up into a grimace. "Did you consider the fact that maybe she was only an adrenaline junkie because of you? You encouraged that part of her, without that influence she might have settled into an easy life. It would explain why she went through so many career changes before she found a successful one."
"And not being social now?" I pinged my eyebrows up, watching him coat the dough in olive oil with a silicone brush like it was an art canvas.
"Well, for what it's worth, that seems like it may have changed immediately after you left her. She remained close to Ms. Hicks and Mr. Bradley, but her friendships with others dwindled by the time the next school year started. Given what my granddaughter says about school, I suspect that once you dumped her, she lost her popularity and the bulk of her friends. She was never the it-girl by her own merit, but because of your interest in her. Once you moved on—"
"So did the rest of the school. Fuck," I groaned. I always seemed to underestimate just how cruel women were to one another.
"I imagine being betrayed by you, and subsequently by most of the people she considered her friends, would be enough to make her hesitant to put herself out there again. Perhaps less trusting of strangers." Donatello sprinkled the topping mixture and feta cheese on the flatbread before shoving it in the oven.
I sighed, knowing his theory probably had merit. Ivory had never taken rejection well, and she'd always been too trusting. While part of me wanted to be pleased that she'd learned that valuable lesson, I hated that they had ostracized her because of me. I'd never wanted to hurt her, let alone cause other people to hurt her too. "You realize it's ridiculous that you cook a fucking flatbread for my security, right?"
He froze. "Do they not like my flatbread?"
I shook my head with a smile. "They like it, Don, but they're killing machines. You'll giv
e them a complex with that shit."
He sighed in disappointment. "I dislike it when you curse."
"Of all my sins, cursing is the big concern?" I chuckled.
He rolled his eyes, shooing me out of his kitchen. I didn't have the heart to point out that once I'd moved Ivory in with me, it would become her territory. "It is the most unnecessary."
"Did you get me a jeweler yet?" I teased, even as I backed out of his space. I'd let him enjoy it while it lasted.
"She'll be here noon tomorrow."
I grinned at him, and I knew it was the one I wore when I'd conquered something impossible. "Perfect."
Eight
Ivory
It was normal for Duke to walk me home after brunch. The restaurant wasn't far; it was midday, and I walked just about everywhere if I could. That didn't stop him from thinking I needed an escort. Since his house wasn't far from mine, he'd taken to hitching a ride to the restaurant with his brother so he could escort me home.
He'd tried walking me there in the beginning, but you know, he got sick of asking if I was ready yet. I got sick of him asking if I was ready yet. It was better for both of us he wasn't there to nag me in the morning.
I hated waking up.
The silence between us wasn't typical, and I knew he could tell that I wasn't telling him everything that needed to be said about my date. Duke knew me as well as anyone. So, on the way home, I called Sadie. I needed her advice on what to do about Matteo, so she might as well save me the trouble of explaining twice. She'd been putting in a ton of extra hours at the gym since her dad had handed over the reins but was fine to skip out. It wasn't like she did training or worked the front unless someone was out, so she had more freedom to set her own hours.
Her empty car was in my driveway by the time we made it there. Not surprising since she and Duke were both prone to using their keys nearly as often as I used mine. Flashing a quick, awkward smile for Duke, I led the way up the steps to my little cottage of a house. The door opened, since Sadie never locked the damn door.
Sadie had her ass planted on one of my bar stools at the island, as she flipped through the notes, I made for the next few recipes I'd be sharing on the blog. "I want to eat this one," she said, stabbing a finger into the page for my swiss chocolate mousse cake. It wasn't uncommon that she and Duke would call dibs on specific recipes, as if there wasn't always plenty of food for both, anyway.
"It will go straight to your ass," Duke smirked, ducking when Sadie hurled the binder at him.
"Hey!" I protested, scurrying to pick it up and shoving loose pages back in - praying to all that was holy that they weren't mixed up. I did not have time for that shit.
"You! What was so important, Miss Cryptic Phone Call?" She spun on the stool, jabbing that finger in my direction.
I chewed on the corner of my mouth, casting a glance at Duke out of the side of my vision. His jaw tensed, that strong, angular bone structure of his highlighted in the light flooding in my windows. "Why don't we sit?" I sighed, making my way over to the couch. Sadie hopped off the stool, plopping into her favorite armchair dramatically.
"Will there be yelling?" she asked, eyeing Duke where he stood too still. I knew he'd be pacing back and forth any second.
I nodded. "Safe bet."
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Ivory. What did you do?" I paused before answering, considering my words carefully. Perhaps there was a way to get through the coming storm without mentioning Matteo's name. Duke dropped his head to his chest, mumbling under his breath. "Why? Just why?" I knew he wasn't talking to me; his mumbles were always directed to himself.
I ignored them.
"I uh, just need advice. Best way to get out of a date."
"Just text him and say you changed your mind," Sadie answered, scowling at me like I'd lost my marbles. I'd canceled plenty of dates in the past.
"Well, I don't have his number, actually," I pointed out, wiggling my toes in my heels. The polish on one of my toes was chipped, and I immediately scowled at it.
"Please tell me you're kidding me," Duke hissed, and the telltale sound of his shoes thudding over my hardwood floors announced the pacing had begun. "Why exactly are you going on a date with a guy if you don't even have his number?"
"Well, I mean—" I paused with a sigh. There wasn't much to be done for avoiding his frustration. "I didn't exactly agree to go on the date at all." I drew out the first words of the statement, rushing the rest out in a mumble in a pathetic hope it could somehow be misinterpreted.
No such luck.
He froze, and Sadie turned wide eyes his way. As irritating as his pacing might have been, we both knew it was terrible when he was still. "Excuse me?" That voice was a deadly whisper, and while my friend was volatile and emotional, quiet was something he rarely ever achieved. When he was silent, it was just bad.
"Honey—" Sadie tried to soothe him, sensing the shit show hovering just under the surface.
"Why is there a date in the first place if you didn't agree to it, Ivory?" he asked.
"He told me we were going out. Said he'd pick me up at seven," I whispered.
His eyes closed, and his voice remained a whisper for the next words. "You told him where you live?"
“No! Don’t be ridiculous," I protested.
"Then what is the problem?" Sadie asked. "He can't exactly pick you up if he doesn't know where you live." Her voice melted into a laugh, but Duke's face didn't change. He knew I wasn't quite so dramatic that I would risk his anger for no reason.
I winced, twisting my lips into what I knew was a very unattractive grimace. "I'm not so sure that's true in this case."
"What does that mean?" Duke's voice dropped further, and he crossed his arms over his chest as he strode over to stand in front of me.
I tilted my face up to look at him fully, giving him my best innocent expression to placate him. "I—well, he's probably capable of finding out where I live pretty easily," I admitted.
"Who?" Duke's voice trembled, and I knew he had a very good idea.
"Duke—" I started.
"Who is the fucking date with, Ivory?" he warned.
"Matteo," I whispered against my better judgment. Duke's body went taut, and he stared down at me in disbelief before storming through my living room and out my back door to the yard.
Okay, that seemed dramatic.
"Honey, where did you see Matteo?" Sadie's voice asked softly, and I didn't miss the way she stared after Duke. Like his pissy fit was more important than getting me out of the stupid date I didn’t want.
"The robbers at the bank, they recognized me somehow. Begged me to tell Matteo that they didn't hurt me. I wanted answers so I—"
She cut me off with a gasp. "Oh no, please tell me you didn't!" she shrieked, drawing Duke back into the house. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, his normally neat blond hair all messy.
"Didn't what?" he asked, slowly. "What did you do, Ive?"
I steeled my shoulders. I didn't care if it had been stupid in hindsight, I wouldn't be treated as if I was a child incapable of making responsible decisions because I'd made one mistake. "I went to talk to him. I wanted to know why they would recognize me."
"Jesus Christ," Duke hissed. "What were you fucking thinking?!"
"I thought that I had a right to know!" I yelled back.
"You also had a right to just be grateful that they didn't shoot you in the face and leave it at that. If someone is connected to criminals, you do not go to their house and make demands!"
I stood, storming my way into the kitchen and grabbing a cutting board out of it.
I needed to cut something.
I figured a vegetable was probably better than Duke's pretty face.
"Well, I did. It's done," I sighed, pulling a cucumber from my fridge and tossing a container of Duke's favorite homemade hummus onto the island.
"Okay, okay," Sadie stood, giving Duke a wary glance as she stepped up and leaned onto the counter. "Don’t get dressed. Put on some sweat
pants, throw your hair into a knot on your head, and look a mess. Matteo Bellandi does not take a woman on a date when she looks more prepared for a movie night at home."
"Okay, okay that works. I can do that," I sighed in relief. I grabbed the peeler from the island drawer, making quick work of the cucumber. I knew she was right. Matteo probably took his dates to high-class restaurants and made them think they had a future before dumping them on their ass when he was done with them.
"Pack a bag," Duke interrupted, taking a furious bite out of a cucumber as soon as I sliced it. "You're staying with me for a few days."
"I can't do that. I have to work. I have photos to take tomorrow. Your kitchen isn't my favorite for that," I argued, shaking my head and discounting it immediately. There was no way I would be forced out of my home.
"Then I'll bring you back and hang out with you while you work tomorrow." Once he'd made quick work of the cucumber, he put the cover back on the container of the hummus and shoved it in the fridge. I widened my eyes at the counter, before turning them his way when he snatched the knife out of my hand and brought it and the cutting board to the sink to wash.
Since when did he wash my dishes?
I shook my head, turning and leaning back on the island. "You only have one bed."
"We'll make it work," he shrugged, acting far too casual considering his outburst before.
I did not like the sound of that.
He shoved the cutting board and knife in the strainer, turning to Sadie. "You want to pack for her?" Sadie stifled a laugh, because even she knew this was uncharacteristic behavior for Duke. He wasn't pushy. He wasn't an asshole.
His hand hit the railing of the stairs, and his foot was on the first step when I called out to him. "I'm not going, Duke."
His eyes hardened as he turned his glare to me. "You are."
"No. I'm not letting him chase me out of my house just because he said he'd pick me up for a date." I omitted the other stuff he'd said about making a dinner out of me if I wasn't ready. That definitely wouldn't help the scenario at the moment. "Look, if he shows up. If anything escalates, you're close. I know to call you. Odds are, he won't even turn up. I can't imagine I'm worth the effort of tracking down my address. It's not like he's lacking for company." I knew I was placating Duke, but I hated the protectiveness he constantly showed over me with men. Like he was determined that every man who was interested in me was a douchebag, just because Matteo had been. He sighed, dropping his head to stare at the stairs.
Bloodied Hands: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 1) Page 5