Page 28

“I’ll get bored.” It’s a stupid thing to say, considering the circumstances, but the words slip out anyway.
He lets out a sharp, humorless laugh. “You think I give a shit about you being bored? I don’t. No gadgets. No books. No internet. Nothing. You sleep, you shower, you eat, you repeat. Throw a tantrum, waste away, hell hang yourself if you want. But until you cooperate? You suffer.”
My stomach turns. “So, I’m a prisoner.”
He doesn’t bother answering. Just steps toward the door, pausing long enough to throw one last insult over his shoulder.
“Take a shower and get some rest. You smell like shit—Oh, and dinner’s at seven.”
The door slams behind him, the sound final.
He didn’t need to answer. The suffocating weight of the room, the pit in my stomach—they say it all.
I’m a prisoner. His prisoner.
And this room… My own personal gilded cage.
Chapter seven
Dominic
“Isthisbrunchreallynecessary?”
Enzo, my youngest brother, strolls in late as fucking usual. Crisp white button-down, cream slacks, Dad’s black Rolex on his wrist. Eyes glued to his phone like it’s feeding him oxygen. Always too goddamn important for family shit.
“You sound like a fucking eight-year-old,” Matteo scoffs from across the table, already three whiskey sours deep and halfway through his second bagel. Matt never misses a meal—even dodging bullets or burying bodies. I’ve seen him stop mid-job for a sandwich. Man would risk a prison sentence for a good steak. Priorities fucked beyond repair.
How he keeps that body with the garbage he shovels in his mouth is beyond me. His stomach’s a black hole, but his muscles didn’t get the memo.
“This is how you welcome me back, brother?” I smirk, watching him drop into the chair next to Luca’s empty seat.
“We’re doing just fine without you, Dom,” he reaches for a grape. “Vegas celebrated when you left. Even the Vitales haven’t shown up at our properties. I drove through this fucking downpour for brunch with the same assholes. Nothing’s changed except I’m wet as shit.”
Rain hammers the windows like it’s trying to break in. The sky bruised dark, swallowing any hint of daylight. The kitchen sits in that gray half-light that makes everything feel like a bad omen.
“That’s what she said,” Matteo snickers.
“I’m surprised you’re not at the gym,” Enzo fires back. “Isn’t that all you’re good at? Lifting weights?”
“Yeah. I’m also good with snipers, and of course, picking up women at the bar.”
“Of course,” I mutter, stabbing a piece of cantaloupe—just another fucking Sunday with the Gianellis.
“Manwhore.”
Matt’s brilliant when he isn’t thinking with his dick, or drinking away our profits or balls-deep in some cocktail waitress at theBellagio, he’s... actually, that’s all he does. Zero fucking ambition beyond the next piece of ass. Red flag at our age, but whatever.
“Where’s Luca?” Enzo asks, glancing around like he just noticed.
Brunch in this family is sacred—Dad’s rule, passed down like a blood oath. I remember being eight, pissed off, trapped at this table listening to men talk business, when all I wanted was to be anywhere else.
Then Mom died. That first Sunday after her funeral, brunch was the only normal thing left. Dead silent, Dad staring at her empty chair, but we were together. Should’ve appreciated that shit before it was gone.
That’s the Gianellis for you—loyal to our own, true to our word, honest to our wives. At least that’s the bullshit Dad fed us before he ended up in the ground too.
So yeah, brunch. No one skips it, not even if you’re bleeding out. Sundays are for family.
“He’s waiting for Gabriella.”