Page 58 of Satin Empire

Noah looks terrified and mouths help me but I only shrug and flip him off. Serves him right for stealing coffee.

“Don’t worry, Carlo will be nice,” Stefania says, but she doesn’t look sure about that at all. “Anyway, now that I’ve got you here, I want to hear everything about you. Where are you from, what do you do, absolutely everything.”

Her energy is infectious and I give her the rough rundown of my sad little life, doing my best to sand down the rough edges. When I’m through, she asks a few questions, and we end up talking about her time at college.

“It was pretty great, honestly. I got the degree thinking I’d end up working for the family in some capacity, but it turns out Renzo is an old-fashioned prick like everyone else, and he doesn’t want his little sister, in his words, ‘Doing a bunch of crime shit.’ As if it’s time for him, not for me.”

“Are they all protective like that?” I ask, glancing over at where Noah’s laughing nervously and looking like a kidnapping victim. I swear he’s blinking for help in Morse code.

“Pretty much, but you get used to it.”

“College though, that must’ve been amazing.” I ask her more questions about it because I always wanted to get a degree in biology and maybe become a doctor or a nurse one day. The medical field is brutal, but I like the idea of helping people, but it’ll never happen, not now that I’m married.

“Unfortunately, here I am, still unemployed, doing absolutely nothing, no direction in my life, and not using the expensive degree my family paid for. I shouldn’t complain though, the boys have it way harder with this whole war thing.”

“Is that why Carlo was in a bad mood last night?”

She shrugs and nods her head toward him. “Last night and today, you mean. But no, I don’t think it’s the war. Something happened with him and Saul. I guess they got into some shit again? They’re not talking, or at least Carlo was doing his best to avoid running into anybody when he picked me up.”

That makes me want to ask a thousand questions, but I settle for one. “What’s with those two, anyway?”

She sighs and leans on her elbows, getting closer and dropping her voice. “They’re just total opposites. Saul’s all serious and stuff, and Carlo’s got a chaotic streak to him. Saul thinks Carlo doesn’t care about anything, and Carlo thinks Saul’s a heartless hard-ass. They’re both partially right, but I think Carlo’s a little bit more right in this case, but I don’t know. They’ve always been at each other’s throats, even when we were kids.”

“I thought they all got along,” I say and start to see Carlo in a new light. He’s been dealing with this stuff ever since he was a little kid, and it’s remarkable how well he tries to hide it.

“Don’t get me wrong. Saul and Carlo love each other to death. They’d take a bullet for the other in a heartbeat. But family fights.”

We move on to other topics, chatting a bit about the other wives and their kids, until Carlo mercifully dismisses Noah. My cousin leaps from the table, gives me a wave, and runs out of there like my husband’s going to chase after him. Carlo comes and joins us, and we talk for a while more until some customers arrive.

“I’ll see you at home,” Carlo promises.

“And it was great talking,” Stefania says, waving as her brother hustles her out.

Leaving me to worry more. I don’t like that Carlo and Saul are fighting, but I’m not sure how I can help. Carlo clearly doesn’t want to talk about it or else he would’ve brought it up on his own, which means I’m sort of stuck.

Only I have to find a way to help him deal with this situation, because I’m starting to actually care about my husband, and that’s very inconvenient.

Chapter 29

Carlo

It took a week of digging through public information before I finally manage to track down the owner of that warehouse. He’s cagey when I call, and doesn’t seem to trust me at all, but I make what I think is an extremely fair offer, and he laughs me right off the phone.

“I think the guy’s insane,” I admit to Alana later that night. We sit out back with wine, our chairs right next to each other, our knees touching, while soft light flickers from a candle on the table.

“Come on, it can’t be that bad. What’d he say?”

“I told him what I wanted, and I told him how much I was willing to pay, and he said, ‘You must be fucking insane, you stupid man, now go away.’”

She makes a very serious face. “You might be onto something then.”

“I called him four more times, but he didn’t pick up, just kept sending me straight to voicemail. Whoever taught old people how to use the fuck-you button is a monster.”

“Agreed. We should hang them in the Hague.”

I put my hand on her thigh and give her my best, most charming smile, which immediately puts her back up because the girl isn’t stupid. Her eyes narrow, and I flutter my eyelids a little while subtly flexing a bit. I am a shameless piece of trash.

“I have an idea, but I need your help.”

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