Chapter 15

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  I blush a little to hear Christian’s private nickname for me on Nico’s lips. “How do you…know about that?”
  “Oh my g od,” Nico says, shaking his head and staring at me as he sits slowly down next to Frankie. “Whenever Christian ever does talk about the years before he came home, he changes names so that no one can figure out where he was or where he came from. So, you’re Kid’s sister?”
  I smirk a little. “Yeah, I guess I am,” I say, wrapping my arms around myself and remembering Christian’s. nickname for Damon. “Wait, who did you think I was?”
  Nico just laughs a little. “I Just thought you were some h ooker the boss wanted brought back. I mean, I figured out pretty fast that he’d met you before, but I figured…” he hesitates, shrugging suggestively, and I squeak a little in protest.
  “Nico! I am not a h ooker!”
  “Well, you are a stripper!”
  “They are not the same!” I shout, grabbing a throw pillow and hurling it at him. Nico just catches it, laughing.
  “Look, I’m sorry,” he says, smiling, “but I honestly just figured that he had been previously impressed by your…. talents. And that he was saving you from Bonetti’s dirty cat houses, which are not nice.”
  “How do you know they’re not nice, Nico,” I say a little wickedly, leaning forward and narrowing my eyes
  eves at h “You been inside? Do you go like, biweekly?”
  do you w
  Nico laughs darkly at me. “Why to know, Iris? You going to apply for a job there, after you get whatever information out of Christian that you came here to get?”
  him.
  “I am not a spy,” I insist again, glaring at him. And then I take a moment to flick my eyes over him, really taking him in for the first time. Nico – he’s not a bad looking dude, with his dark hair and his chiseled features, but he is so tense all the time, so worried. “Besides,” I say, “you’d better pray I never work at any cat house you attend. Because even if you could afford me, with how freaking wound up you are? The experience would probably knock you out cold.”
  Frankie tilts his head back and howls with laughter. I can’t help the smirk that spreads across my face. Even Nicol laughs a little after glaring at me for a second, conceding that it was a good dig.
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  Chapter 15
• 083% 13:10

5

Just then the buzzer rings and Nico gets up, moving to the door, murmuring something about pizza. And when he comes back into the apartment ten minutes later with his arms full of groceries and indeed a hot pizza balanced on his hand, I am relieved to see that the tension between us has indeed broken, at least a little bit.
Even if he doesn’t trust me yet, he’s not as wary as he was a couple hours ago.
I help in the kitchen, sorting groceries and setting out plates for the food. When I see that Nico is just shoving groceries into the fridge with no apparent order I click my tongue and shoo him away from it, making him go sit down with Frankie and eat while the pizza is hot.
The two bodyguards chat to me while I organize things, and I’m glad they let me be useful. As nice as it might be for some people to watch video games and television all day, it’s kind of torture for me – I like to be busy. Sol fuss over the bodyguards a bit, laying out their salads on plates and listening eagerly as they answer my very basic questions about Christian’s life.
The details that they-spill-I mean, I guess what Frankie said is still true, they don’t tell me anything I couldn’t learn from reading the thousand newspaper articles that have been published about my old friend. But still – it’s rather shocking.
My eyes are wide as I pop the caps off of beers and set them in front of Frankie and Nico, listening to them tell me about how Christian’s father found the woman who ran away when she was pregnant and brought the preteen Christian back with him, refusing to let his son grow up outside the fold.
They tell me, too, about how good Christian is at this work, even though he wasn’t raised to it for the first thirteen years of his life like his brothers were. But Christian – he’s accomplished. Apparently, he has a knack for seeing through his enemies’ lies, for staying a step ahead of their plans. His talents, Nico informs me, reflects his father’s prowess in a way that his brothers did not inherit.
Nico only gets up once, pouring a glass of wine and pushing it generously in my direction when I’m finished. unloading the groceries. “Here,” he says. “Thank you for organizing the kitchen. That is not…something that’s precisely in our skill set.”
I shrug, a little pleased to have made inroads with this man who was so clearly ready to be my enemy: this morning. “I like to help,” I say simply. “So…” I say, a little hesitant. “Christian’s brothers don’t…mind? That he seems to be the favorite?”
“Oh, they mind,” Frankie says, reaching for a third slice of pizza with his eyebrows raised. “Especially because he’s a half-brother. The other three – they sort of stick together, but it’s undeniable that Christian is just better at this than them. Plus, Lorenzo – who should be the heir- he’s got way too much of a fondness for the nose candy to be reliable-”
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Chapter 15
Nico smacks Frankie on the shoulder as I finish my salad and take a bite of pizza, watching them.
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“What!?” Frankie protests, gesturing towards me with an open hand. “Half the h ookers on the city’s west side could tell you precisely how Lorenzo Romano likes his coke cut, and besides it’s Daisy – she probably knows way
more about Christian than we ever will.”
“That’s not true,” Nico says, ruffled a little and turning his glare on me now. I’m surprised, a little, by his defensiveness. Is it important to him that he be closer to Christian than me?
“Maybe not the stuff since he turned fourteen,” Frankie says with a shrug, talking another big bite of pizza. “But
all of the stuff before? Yah.”
Nico narrows his eyes a little at both of us. “No way,” he says. “I grew up with him-
“So did I!” I protest.
“Not like I did,” Nico says, possessive.
#
“All right, Nic,” Frankie says, grinning at him, a little wicked. “How does Christian take his waffles?”
“What?” Nico says, staring at Frankie, baffled.
“Bambi?” Frankie says, turning to me with a grin and flourishing a hand through the air, inviting me to answer.
“And th
“A little butter in every single crevice,” I say instantly with a smug little grin. “And then syrup on the side for dipping, not on top.”
“One for Daisy!” Frankie says, laughing.
“That’s ridiculous,” Nico says, crossing his arms over his chest, “that doesn’t even matter – that’s breakfast trivia
“Fine!” Frankie says, turning to him again. “Favorite Christmas movie?”
Nico scowls, looking away. “That is such bullsh it,” he murmurs. “He stopped watching Christmas movies like the rest of us, because we grew up.”
“Bammmmmbi?” Frankie says, turning to me with a grin and resting his chin in his hands, expectant.
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Chapter 15
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“Trick question,” I say quietly, a little pleased with myself. “He likes to watch The Goonies at Christmas, because Damon got it for him one year as a gift. And it’s the only movie he had for a really long time.”
“See?” Frankie says, his smile softening now. “I didn’t know that part. But that is two for Bambi.”
Nico scowls further and Frankie laughs, shoving him on the shoulder as I begin to collect the plates and put them in the sink, getting ready to wash up. As I do, I listen to the boys argue, enjoying the banter a little bit – and suddenly I’m shocked to find that I’m…comfortable.
That I’m kind of enjoying myself, even if I am the captive of the Mafia King, staying here under the watchful eye of his two stranger body guards.
“Don’t be so jealous,” Frankie teases, “just because you don’t know him as well as Daisy does.”
“You’d better watch yourself, Frank,” Nico replies, clearly getting pis sed now. “Because the boss is not going to like hearing his pet name for the girl coming out of your filthy mouth.”
“D amn right I don’t,” Christian’s voice says, making me jump and spin. Immediately I see him standing behind Nico and Frankie, frowning with his arms crossed over his chest. The two guards gasp and turn, Frankie going pale and Nico blushing to be caught being less vigilant than he should be.
“I’m sorry,” Frankie says, shaking his head and putting up his hands. “Come on, boss, you know I kid around -”
But I go a little pale myself when Christian looks at Frankie like…well, like he just might murder him for calling me by the name that is reserved for him, and him alone.
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