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“Maybe they don’t know,” Saff suggested.
“Know what?” Renzo asked.
“Know that we have an alliance with the other families now?” Saff said. “It is still new.”
“It’s possible,” Renzo said, nodding. “Unless they have a file on all the Costas. They would know Lore is one of them, and that she’s married to me now.”
And then, it happened.
Everyone looked to me, expecting answers from me.
And I didn’t have shit to give them.
“Any news on that Russian guy who got pulled in on trafficking charges?”
“Still locked up. But from what I can tell, he’s someone important to the organization, so I imagine they are working on some way to get him out.”
“That’s why they are flirting with cops and politicians,” Saff concluded.
“Seems like it,” I agreed.
“And I’m sure Elian is all over that shit,” Cinna said, appearing out of nowhere to move next to Dav, who instinctively put an arm around her.
Not gonna lie, it was still weird as fuck to see them together after so many years of their little dance. But they looked happy together so I was happy for them.
I gave Cinna a nod, my eyes full of the gratitude I was feeling for having her support.
“On a real note,” Renzo said, leading me away from the group and toward his office, “you look like shit, El. This job is important, but you gotta sleep.”
“Really?” I asked, smirking. “This? Coming from you? Up until you settled down, you were pulling sixteen-hour days for over a decade.”
“Fair enough,” he agreed. “But you got a family. Make sure you’ve got time for them. Or my ass is gonna have them at my doorstep pitching a fucking fit about overworking you,” he said, giving me a smile before walking off.
“He’s right, you know,” a voice said, making me jerk and turn to find Lore, Renzo’s wife, curled up on the couch in the office, cuddled under a blanket, with a massive book open on her lap.
Lore, as much as she’d gotten used to being around the family since she came to live here, still preferred books to people a lot of the time.
“Hey, Mrs. Lombardi,” I said, smiling at the way she rolled her eyes at the title. “How you been?”
“Good. I miss seeing you every day,” she admitted. When she’d first come here, finding herself isolated and unsure of herself, I’d been her first friend. Once she and Renzo sorted shit out, I figured she wouldn’t miss me much. Clearly, that wasn’t the case.
“Miss seeing you too. Rather spend my time grabbing you coffee or following you to bookstores than sitting in a car watching a bunch of men carry on with their lives.”
“Why don’t you have one of your men help you out?” she asked.
The answer was simple on that. I didn’t really have a lot of men. My main priority for years had been working for Renzo, even if I was, technically, a capo.
I had a few men and they did little jobs here and there, enough to keep some money coming in, to provide a kick-up to the boss.
But because my crew was so small, I really couldn’t afford to move anyone around right now. And it would hurt my pride a little too much to ask one of the other capos to borrow one of their people.
“Renzo wants my eyes on this,” I told Lore.
“I’m sure he doesn’t mean that your eyes should be on it twenty-four/seven,” she reasoned. “You need to have some downtime too. Promise me you’ll go see your family this week.”
“I promise,” I told her, knowing she was right. I’d already skipped out on several family dinners. And while everyone understood that work was important, I knew they must be missing me.
“Good. Now, go, so I can figure out who is trying to poison the queen,” she said, flashing her book at me, dragging the first real smile out of me in what felt like weeks.