Chapter 159
Vincenzo's POV
“I thought the end of all this war, doom, and gloom would mean you had more time for me.” Lorenzo swaggered into my office and plopped down across from me. He was trying to frown, but he couldn’t quite hide his amusement with himself. “I’m a mess without you, compadre.”
I rolled my eyes. “Raella hasn’t seen Calista around much lately, either. You have any idea where she’s been?”
The most obvious grin spread across his face as he shook his head. “Nope. Haven’t seen her.”
Lorenzo wasn’t fooling anyone. Raella and I knew exactly what kind of debauchery our best friends were up to. But bring it up and it was deny, deny, deny.
“I guess it’s hard to see clearly when the lights are off and you’re tangled up in sheets together.”
Lorenzo faux-gasped. “The fact that you think I’d have sex in the pitch dark like a teenager is… it’s insulting. If I ever had the pleasure of a night with Calista—which I’m neither admitting nor denying—then I would do it in full daylight with the windows open and enjoy every delightful second.”
He would have been describing those details to me at painful length if Calista hadn’t been making him keep their relationship on the down-low. Left to his own devices, Lorenzo wasn’t discreet enough to keep anything secret, let alone when he was having copious amounts of sex.
My second-in-command blinked away his thoughts and looked at me, a dopey smile still plastered on his face. “Anyhow—if I could do that, then I would. But since I can’t, I’m here in your office, wondering why you are here in your office. I thought everything was settled.”
“Everything is settled. Mostly.” I powered down my computer and leaned back in my chair. “But there’s always more to do.”
“Later,” Lorenzo said sternly. “Right now, we celebrate. The Falcones agreed to the terms you sent them. We split profits from gunrunning, one of our least profitable sectors, and otherwise, they are going to fuck off. Dominic wasn’t wrong: we threw shit on the ground and they licked it right up. That is a major win deserving of a few weeks away from your computer, at least.”
“It’s not finished yet. There still hasn’t been any word from Damian.”
Raella hadn’t said it, but I knew she was worried about how her stepfather was going to react to the fallout of everything. So far: silence. He could have been gathering his forces for retaliation as far as we knew. I wouldn’t have put it past him. The man was desperate. Raella had been his only real asset, so without her, he would have to succeed based on his own merits.
Which meant he didn’t stand a fucking chance.
Lorenzo waved away my concern. “Damian is a nobody. Toni told me he’d relay the details of the arrangement to him, including your ‘marriage’ to Raella. Beyond that, he doesn’t matter. His only power was in working with the Falcones, but now, the Falcones work for us.”
I wavered. “They don’t work for us; they work near us. We aren’t partners and we have to be ready for them to find a better deal somewhere else and betray us.”
“I am ready for that. I’m looking forward to it, actually.” Lorenzo grinned. “I want another crack at those assholes. Let’s give them what they deserve.”
“If it wasn’t for Raella, they’d already be dead. But I can’t risk having the Falcone army out for blood. They’d come for Raella and she has been through enough. I don’t want a war.”
Lorenzo let out a long, low whistle. “She really has changed you.” At the sharp look I tossed him, he held up his hands. “In a good way, man. You’ve always been a strong leader. Better than your dad ever was. For a while there, I was worried you’d burn yourself out fighting every slight against the mafia. Now, you know what’s really important. The men trust your leadership.”
It was rare to catch Lorenzo in a serious conversation, but he wasn’t smirking or tossing out a secret wink between sentences. He meant it.
That meant something to me.
“I think we’re both made better by the women in our lives,” I said.
Lorenzo started to nod and then caught himself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m free as a bird. No woman in sight.”
“Right. Then I guess I won’t remind you to tell your woman that you and I have plans tonight. It’s our first rendezvous with the Falcone lieutenants. A gun shipment is coming into the harbor.”
“Oh. Shit,” he groaned, digging his phone out of his pocket. “I forgot. Luckily, I have no one to text and cancel plans with. I definitely won’t tell her to come hang out with Raella tonight so she’s here when I get back to the mansion.”
This was the Lorenzo I was used to. Even him keeping things on the down-low meant him sharing all of his thoughts, feelings, and plans.
“Good thing, because Raella is busy tonight and can’t hang out with anyone.”
Lorenzo’s face fell. “Really? You’re letting her out of the house?”
“Fuck no. Not yet. But she and Raphael are meeting up here for dinner.”
“Wow. That’s a big deal for her.” He finished his text to “Definitely Not Calista” and pocketed his phone. “Is she nervous?”
“She said she wasn’t, which is a lie. But she’ll be fine.”
Lorenzo stood up and sauntered towards the door. “I’m sure she will. She has a lot of practice with this.”
“Practice spending time with her dad for the first time in ten years?”
“No. Practice dealing with emotionally closed-off men who are desperate to get to know her.”
Lorenzo barely darted out of the door frame fast enough to dodge the pen I chucked at his face.