Page 29 of Wild Ace

you come and tell me to stop yourself.

See you soon, dolcezza.

- Vinny

The pair on him.

Walking over to my car, I grab a pen from my bag and write my response. Folding the note, I slip it into the envelope and hand it to Jimmy.

“You can give this back to him.”

“I’ll make sure he gets this when we’re done.”

“I’d expect nothing less from his errand boy. You can also tell him he’s lucky I like the sign. Or, unlucky, actually. Because if it was ugly, I would’ve gone to yell at him like he wants.”

Jimmy just smiles and slips the note back in his pocket while I walk inside for my morning coffee.

Chapter 11

Vinny

“How’s Tessa?” I ask Alec, taking a seat in his office with my coffee in hand.

He narrows his eyes. “She’s fine, why?”

“Just asking.” I shrug. “I haven’t seen her in a while and I miss her.”

“You shouldn’t. And she’s busy. And tired.”

“Tired? From what? Dealing with your cranky ass?”

“No,” he growls, rubbing his forehead.

“Is she sick?”

“No,” he growls again, the damn animal. He’s always been closed off and guarded, but when Tessa came into his life, he changed. Softened for her. Only her, but still, he found a balance in his life with her.

“What’s going on? What did you do, knock her up?” I joke, then pause midway of bringing my cup to my mouth when I see the blank look on his face. “Wait, did you really?” He gives me a curt nod and my smile is instant, hurting my cheeks. “Congratulations, cousin. That’s fucking great.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, it is,” I assure him, and then add seriously, “Because with your kid, you’ll be a good father. Better than yours and better than mine. You are who you are in spite of him, and that’s exactly how you’ll be with your kid. Tessa will make sure of it, too.”

Alec looks relieved by my faith in him, and I meant what I said. He will be better than our fathers. His was worse than mine, though. Michael Carfano was a sadistic son-of-a-bitch that would hold training sessions in the back house of his Todt Hill compound on Staten Island for his sons and nephews.

To be fair, there was a lot of physical training like sparring, boxing, knife throwing, shooting, and lifting weights that wasn’t sadistic. But then there were the other things he considered training. Like learning torture techniques, and being at both the giving and receiving end of said techniques to learn how to survive and not break.

Michael was the head of the family and harder on Leo, Alec, and Luca – his own sons and heir apparents. Especially Leo, who took over for Michael when he and my father were killed six years ago. But that doesn’t mean my brother and other cousins got away easy.

We’re all scarred in one way or another by what we endured, but we survived.

Carfanos are survivors. So long as we can, we will.

“How far along is she?”

“Eight weeks.”

“I’m guessing security here is going to be upped.”

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