Page 2 of Unlawful Lies

She follows her father to the desk and stands directly behind him with her hand on his shoulder once he situates himself comfortably. Her dark eyes flick over to mine and drop away just as quickly.

Maybe she teases me to make her daddy mad.

Either way…I drag my gaze along her curves, those wide, flaring hips and tiny waist. Her slender peach bosoms and the soft fall of hair. Her lower lip is larger than the top, and it is all I can do to keep myself from imagining how she’d taste if I bite her.

She knows it, too.

She counters my scrutiny and never takes her eyes off of me. The look is potent enough to stroke my skin in a way that brings goose bumps to life.

I react whenever she joins us. I fucking hate it.

“Perhaps it’s time someone taught you manners.”

Arden chuckles as if my father’s thinly veiled warning is a joke. “Oh, Giovanni, there’s that famous Balestra humor. And Edward, it’s good to see you again, young man. A chip off the old block if I’ve ever seen one.” He spreads his palms out flat against the desktop like he’s laying all his cards on the table.

“Let’s get straight to the point, Salvatore,” Father snaps.

Surnames only.

He hates being called by his first name, another thing he sees as a weakness. He is the helm of the Balestra crime family, and he has been since his father dragged him and his brother to the States in their teens.

Nicola’s father, on the other hand, has risen through the ranks over the past decade to establish himself as one of our city’s most notorious gang leaders. With a famously bad temper and a drinking problem to boot. Arden has been a thorn in my father’s side for years for establishing a rival operation to our drug smuggling.

And damn it, but the man is getting big enough to be a real threat, too. His son is groomed to take over the same way I’ve been shaped and molded into my father’s creature.

Thus, the meetings.

Arden blows a raspberry and reaches into the depths of the desk for a bottle. “Knock it off, Gio. We know you’re the big fish here, but that doesn’t mean I’ll allow you to determine the speed of these things. You’re in my house, after all. Sit.” He unscrews the silver cap and takes a long swig without offering. “Make yourself comfortable and take a load off. God knows you need it.”

My father stands up straight yet, his shoulders thrown so far back as to look inverted. “We’ll stand.”

The man is drunk already.

I gasp air into my lungs. It’s the middle of the day, and Arden is three sheets to the wind, forced to his chair out of necessity. Now that I’ve noticed, it’s impossible to ignore the stench of stale liquor in every inhalation. His breath is potent enough to light on fire.

Not to mention the pale set of Nicola’s face, the way her dark eyes are even wider, blacker, set further into her skull. She hasn’t said a word yet she’s scared beneath the layers of bravado. Scared to even be in the same room with the man.

My fingers clench into fists at my side, and I hurry to shove them between my back and hide them from view.

Arden has a lot of nerve showing up to a meeting shit-faced, even more nerve to drag his daughter along with him today and force that expression on her beautiful features.

Fury is a song in my blood, and I force my attention to remain on Arden and his ruddy cheeks. The silver flask clasped in his hand.

“We’re here because you’ve sent your men across our territory lines,” Father continues. “We came to an agreement, should you continue to pursue your avenue of shipping. Our contracts are in place for a reason. I’ve been lenient thus far. None of your people have been harmed, but the intrusion is jeopardizing our shipments.”

“We’re not hurting anyone,” Arden insists. His smirk, his chuckle, add up to grind my teeth together.

I expected him to offer up an excuse, not an admittance of guilt.

“So you aren’t choosing to deny my claim.”

Father isn’t playing around, and it doesn't take a genius to see the way his calm is nearing its shatter point. There is nothing he detests more than belligerence, especially when it accompanies a good drunk.

“You’re too high up on your pedestal to see the bigger picture here, Gio.” Arden leans forward and laces his fingers in a steeple in front of him. “It’s about expansion for all of us. We’ve come this far working together. What are territory lines but imaginary walls between us? Your contract is a choke collar.”

Nicola shaking her head catches my attention.

So this isn’t a new argument, then. Something her dad has harped on before. How many times has she heard it before?

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