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I sigh. “Not to interject, but why am I here again?”

“Your cousin needs reassurance, and I need my best here to ensure her that you will do everything in your power to make sure the day goes as planned,” my father insists.

I stare at him blankly. “I thought the wedding meant little to you.”

He clears his throat. “I was speaking too harshly. Of course I care about the wedding.”

I chuckle and shake my head. “Tess, why don’t we get something in the kitchen while these two figure their shit out.”

She nervously looks between my father, her mother, me, and Marco.

I nod out the doorway and push off the wall. After another moment, she crosses the room to me.

“I need to meet with a couple of our dealers,” Marco says, and makes his exit as well.

I hear my father say something about bringing one of our security team with him, but I’m too busy leading Contessa to the kitchen to pay attention to anything else. While most of the time our family has important shit to do, there are always at least a few meetings about the most ridiculous bullshit every year.

“That was…” I mumble, and mime shooting myself in the head as I lean against the counter.

Contessa looks around the enormous kitchen, opening cabinets and getting everything she needs to make some tea. “At least it didn’t involve blood and guns,” she tells me. Her shoulders aren’t tensed up by her ears anymore. She moves less cautiously and her voice isn’t like a mouse’s now that it’s just us in the kitchen.

“Blood and guns are the best part.” I grin at her.

She shakes her head. “I don’t know how you can enjoy this so much.”

“Enjoy what?” I ask, watching as she puts water in a kettle on the stove.

“Being a part of this…incredibly messed-up family. Knowing the things they do,” she says.

“I do them, too, Tess, and the only reason you don’t is because your soon-to-be wife does,” I remind her.

Her brow furrows. “I’m aware of that.”

“Bein’ the stay-at-home wife to a killer doesn’t make you any better than me.”

Contessa steps over to stand next to me. “I don’t think I’m better,” she promises me. “I just think you’re really traumatized and…coping differently.”

I snort. “We’re all fucked-up, baby girl,” I remind her. “You might be in a different way than me, but we’re all family, and we’re all stuck in this together.”

She cracks a smile. “That’s true. Look, I don’t hate our family, blood or found. But I want to do something different with my life.”

“So do it.” I wave a hand. “There’s nothing’ saying you can’t do what you want to do and still be part of the family. Use the system for your fucking benefit, Tessa.”

She purses her lips. “I guess.”

“You gotta toughen up. Use your voice. Don’t let your mom and my dad push you around. Show them you can handle yourself and you don’t exist for them to use however the fuck they want,” I insist, my tone getting rougher with every word. “You keep mousing around them, and they’re going to toss you around like a doll.”

“I’m scared,” she admits. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be smaller, weaker…a woman.”

“No, I don’t, but I know if you talked to the others, like Lena and Pepper, they’d be there for you. They’re chicks and they’re tough as shit. They can help you pull yourself together and get what you want,” I tell her. “What is it you want, anyway?”

The kettle whistles and Contessa turns the burner off.

“I want to teach art,” she tells me. “Elementary school art, specifically.”

I nod slowly. “You can do that if you speak up. Fuck, they’ll even pay your way through college if you remind them how good a cover an art teacher is.”

“It wouldn’t be a cover, though,” she insists.