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His brow pinches as he looks at me. “Because you don’t seem to have your priorities straight.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about. I’m working on finding Ezio Renzetti. He is hard to find. Even Giancarlo Renzetti doesn’t know where he is.”

“Roland is taking care of that now. He seems much more motivated to take his father’s seat, unlike my own son.”

“I’m handling the Renzettis. No one else is,” I command.

“Is that because you are fucking one of them? Is that what you mean by handling them?”

I clench my jaw. How the hell does he know that? “What are you talking about?”

He shakes his head at me then opens a file drawer at his desk. He drops the file open and shoves a picture toward me. “It looks like it’s hard to find Ezio when your head is stuck between the legs of his sister.”

I mentally count backward from ten to not flip the fuck out on my father. The picture he’s pointing at is a picture of me taking Bella’s sandals off on the beach before I dragged her behind the rocks. The moment captured when I inhaled her scent through her dress. The rest of the photos on his desk are all from Malta. Us at the bar, my hands under her skirt. Us eating dinner, her hand over mine. Us in the ocean, her body wrapped around mine.

“I’m fucking her to get information on her brother,” the lie slipping easily from my mouth. “She means nothing to me.”

My father studies me and I think for a second he believes me. Until he says, “Give Roland whatever information you have. Let him fuck the brother’s location out of her if he needs to. I know he doesn’t mind sticking his dick wherever he wants.”

“Father,” I say, but he holds up a hand, cutting me off.

“You want to prove to me you are worthy of being a Partner then do as I say. Roland’s father is concerned with your behavior, just as Hajar and Kozlov are. I might not kill my own son but I guarantee the others will not hesitate if you betray us again.”

18

MIRABELLA

Ilaugh as Aria throws flour into my hair. We are making cupcakes for a fundraiser for her football club. “You know the flour is supposed to go into the batter not all over the kitchen.”

“But it’s fun to see you covered in it.”

“It’s fun to see me in it. What about you?” I tease.

She looks at me curiously before I blow a handful of flour right in her face. “Mom,” she shrieks as she runs around the island with me chasing her.

“You brought this on yourself, Aria.”

“Noooo!” She giggles as I chase her. I grab her around the waist and smear frosting across her face. “Ewww!”

I laugh as she tries to wipe the frosting off her face but ends up smearing it all over the place. “You should go take a shower. I’ll finish frosting these cupcakes so you can take them to practice today.”

“What about the ones we are keeping?”

“I’ll let you frost those tonight. You need to get a move on. We have to leave in forty-five minutes.”

She runs up the stairs and I turn back to the mess in the kitchen. There is flour and batter everywhere. She really wanted to help with the cupcakes, so I let her do most of the work. I start to move the cooled cupcakes to the individual containers and frost them with a simple buttercream, then throw some sprinkles and a football ball decoration on top.

By the time the last batch is done, I have no time to clean up. I figure I can do it later. So I grab Aria’s football bag out of the closet and make sure all her things are inside.

She comes pounding down the stairs. She definitely ate too much sugar before practice. “Did you get all the cupcakes packed? Tina was just asking me if we made them all.”

I point to the four bags of cupcakes near the door. “All ready to go. Can you grab the fold-up cart out of the laundry room?”

She nods and skips to the back of the house to grab it. I use the mirror by the front door to wipe excess flour off my face and shirt. I should change but I don’t want her to be late.

“Ready!” she yells as she slides back into the living room.

“You don’t look ready. Grab your coat and shoes. I’ll load these up,” I tell her as I grab the cart from her hands.