Page 18 of His Deadly Devotion
“Little Aurora Valentino, Lorenzo didn’t tell me you were coming to visit,” the distinctively Australian accent of Bray Mancini, aka the underboss of the Mancini Crime Family in Sydney, calls out to me.
“Funny, he never mentioned you’d be here either. I would have made a welcome cake or something.” I walk over and hug him. Because I was raised with manners. It’s not that I don’t like Bray. I do. It’s just that I know he’s going to be an ass to my boyfriend. The same boyfriend who physically drags me away.
“I thought you said they were cousins,” Connor says.
“They are,” I tell him.
“You’re related to the Mancinis?” he asks with a raised brow.
“In a long, drawn-out way, yes. Wait. How do you know him?” I point to Bray, who is smiling like a cat that just caught the canary.
“Connor O’Malley, of all the gin joints, this is not the one I ever expected to see you at,” Bray says.
The two men meet up and do that weird guy-hug, slap-the-back thing. “You didn’t see me here,” Connor tells him.
“Word on the street is there’s a pretty price on your head,” Bray says.
“What?” I gasp. “How much?”
“Heirs tend to run a hefty price, Aurora,” he tells me.
“Okay, hold the fuck up. How do you two even know each other? And I swear to God, Bray, if you so much as think of cashing in on my boyfriend’s head, I will remove yours from your body and send it to your brother in a pretty gift basket surrounded by blueberry muffins,” I threaten.
“That’s oddly specific.” Connor laughs.
“The threat is in the details.” I shrug.
“Boyfriend? How are you still breathing, mate? You must have the luck of the Irish.” Bray laughs at his own joke.
“Something like that,” Connor replies.
“Are you both going to ignore me?” I ask, getting annoyed.
“I would never ignore you,mo mhuirnín. I know Bray because our fathers did business together a few times. We’ve hung out in Dublin once or twice,” Connor explains.
“Seriously, you two? I don’t get it. How? And what the fuck did you two do to get that price on his head?” Bray asks.
“What’s the price, Bray?” I repeat.
“Ten mil, and it’s on both your heads, twenty combined.” This comes from Lorenzo, who storms into the kitchen. I swear he got that scowl from Zio Theo.
“That’s it? Pfft, I, for one, am worth way more than that.” I shake my head.
“Ten million is a lot of money for desperate people, and desperate people do stupid shit, Aurora,” my brother tells me, like I don’t already know this.
I look to Connor. I can see him contemplating something. Whatever it is, it’s not good. I point at him. “No.”
“What I do?” he asks me.
“Whatever you’re thinking, just no,” I tell him before turning back to my brother. “How do you find them first?”
“You don’t do anything. You stay put in this house until I tell you otherwise,” Lorenzo says.
“You do know who she is, right?” Bray directs to Lorenzo. “You really think she’s just gonna stay put because you said so?”
“No, she’s gonna do it, because if she doesn’t, I’ll kill her pretty little boyfriend here,” my brother replies.
“Yeah, you can’t,” Bray says.