Page 15 of Catch Me If You Can (The Mancini Way)

“I know you’re a hard headed son of a bitch who’s more trouble than he’s worth; what game are you playing now?”

“Adrien you worry too much you’re worse than a mother hen, Cierra’s no threat to me.”

I saw Jaxx studying me out the side of my eye and I already knew what he was looking for; If I gave them the slightest hint that I was even remotely interested in this woman they’d be on me in a heartbeat. My brothers were very overprotective of me they were the only ones outside of the organization who knew what it was that I really did, not even my parents have that privilege because I’m afraid it might put mama in an early grave. They knew my life wouldn’t be worth shit if word ever got out and they also knew I had no intentions of ever letting that happen.

“I don’t know Hank this is very dangerous always before they operated from afar, this time they’re right on your doorstep and you’re letting them in. If Adrien hadn’t gotten a whiff of what was going down you’d be walking blind and from what I hear the sparks were definitely flying between you two last night.”

“Scorching hot’s what I heard.”

“Your wives are nosy as fuck.”

“Stop evading brother what the fuck are you doing bro?” Adrien and his impatient ass was like a dog with a bone.

I’m not in the habit of keeping shit from my brothers it’s the bro code or at least it’s ours but if I let them in now it could open a whole slew of shit that I wasn’t quite ready to deal with, still I didn’t want to start keeping shit from my boys especially not while pulling the tiger’s tail.

“I like her.”

You could hear a pin drop as the two of them looked back and forth between each other before turning back to me.

“You like her!”

“Yeah Adrien I like her.”

“Like really like her?”

“Yeah Jaxx, really like her.”

“Fuck!”

“Yeah Adrien that about sums it up.”

“Are we talking Juliet Mancini’s dinner table on a Sunday like? Or your usual two months is the cutoff like?”

That was the question wasn’t it? One I’ve been asking myself which in itself was grounds for fear; I’m a solitary animal by nature, but in my dealings with the fairer sex I’ve always been more aloof, more careful if you will. I didn’t intend to be trapped in anyone’s web and besides my lifestyle did not lend to the whole settling down thing. For some reason when I look into her eyes that all changes.

“I’m not sure bro.”

They did that exchanging of looks thing again before both hanging their heads; it came to mind that they did that a lot when dealing with me, even while we were kids.

“You can never do anything the easy way can you bro? Fuck this is gonna be a shit storm; I better keep my nose to the grindstone so I can keep your ass out of a sling because chances are if you’re gone over this woman you’ll be ass stupid in no time and making fucked up mistakes that might get your ass either killed or in jail.”

“Never happen bro.” I had to laugh at his assessment, what he described just wasn’t me at all.

“Tell him Jaxxon since he thinks he knows it all.”

“It’s true bro, the right woman gets her hooks into you you lose all sense of anything for a while until you have them locked down and you can breathe again, then things start to right themselves. Since you’re at the starting gate it’s going to be a while yet before you exit the danger zone.”

“I never said she was the right woman for me.” And why did the sound of that make me feel…whole? That’s it, the idea that she could be it which should make me run for cover actually made me feel good. Fuck.

“The fact that you said you didn’t know was answer enough bro, we know you; if she was like the others we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. I can’t wait to meet her now, the one woman who’s going to bring the great Mancini to his knees. You better not wait too long to introduce her to mama, that’s a whole other shit storm you do not want to walk through.”

“I think you’ve lost your mind.” I felt, not fear but something, something new and unfamiliar that unfurled in the pit of my stomach. They couldn’t be right, I was attracted to Cierra yes, okay very attracted but there’s no way I was ready to go there. Was I?

“Sure bro keep telling yourself that.”

“We just met, there’s no way I’m going there.” Was that my voice sounding almost desperate, the fuck?

“Sabra and I were married three months after we met, Adrien and Star lasted about four, what makes you think you’re gonna be any different?”

---