Page 5 of Married to the Mafia

The breath rushed from her. She hadn’t considered that perspective.

He wouldn’t spend money on that. He’d been controlling her for her entire life. The fact that she had shown up to this unplanned dinner, or had done anything at all other than run straight to the police after he’d threatened her into applying for the available position at DS Security Solutions, was proof enough that he still had his claws in her. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen that.

Brandi backstepped away from her father, fear slithering through her.

“Now pull yourself together and come back to the table, Brandi,” Wesley said as if they’d merely had a small disagreement.

Her head spun and she knew it had nothing to do with the single sip of wine she’d consumed. “I’m not hungry. I’m going to go home and turn in early.” It was only half a lie. She didn’t know how she’d sleep, not until she at least narrowed down the possibilities of who might really be following her. Could it still be someone in some way connected to her father? Or was her stalker entirely separate from him?

Brandi ignored her father’s displeased tone as she finally lifted her purse from the table in the foyer and stepped out the door. It was nothing unusual for him to be upset with her. He’d find a way to punish her soon enough and she would figure out either how to overcome it or cope with it, as she always did. Currently she was much more worried about the wildcard she had so outrageously misjudged.

She caught sight of the SUV before she was out of the neighborhood. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. Maybe it’s some random guy and he’ll lose interest soon. That happened, right?

She told herself that wasn’t impossible as she made her way back toward the heart of the city. She purposely took all the same roads, not wanting to reveal any of her other familiar detours to this stalker on the off-chance she knew the area better than they did. It crossed her mind to go to the police station instead, but what would she really say? So she’d seen the same SUV in her rearview mirror lately. She’d never seen a glimpse of the person, her home never appeared to be violated, there was no other sign of personal or psychological trespass. More than likely a cop would tell her there was no proof and so nothing they could do other than to recommend her to ‘be cautious.’

No shit. Every female past puberty learned, to some degree, that she needed to be cautious in certain kinds of situations.

Brandi pushed out a breath as the SUV continued past her driveway, as it so often did. She didn’t trust that, of course. Her usual hurried routine felt more chaotic as she dashed from the car to the condo, quickly locking herself inside and resecuring the alarm system. Then, for the first time, she flicked on all the main lights and went through every room. She took stock of everything she could think to take stock of, but it all looked fine. Nothing seemed changed from when she’d left forty minutes earlier.

Finally, Brandi dropped onto her sofa with a heavy sigh. Maybe she would turn in early. Maybe she was paranoid. Maybe I’ll take a good, long soak first.

“This is going to put extra responsibility on both of you for a little while,” Dante said when he was finished explaining why he’d summoned them to his home that evening. “But you’re the only ones I trust to do the job.”

Mikey’s gaze flicked toward their middle brother, Romeo, gauging his response. Romeo was more recently married and had equally recently discovered his wife was also expecting—to no one’s great surprise. Still, Mikey figured that might change the response he’d have once assumed his brother to have.

Romeo’s face split in a genuine smile. “Brother, you don’t need to ask. It’s literally my job to step in when you need the help, anyway.”

Guess I overthought it. Mikey inclined his head. “Anything you need, just say the word.”

Dante inclined his head. “I want to keep word of my taking leave as quiet as possible. Publicly, I’ll be out of office for most of July and roughly half of August.” He nodded to Romeo. “I’ll arrange the necessary exceptions with you and Grace before-hand. You can handle anything else that comes up as far as DSI is concerned.”

“Of course,” Romeo said. “But I expect equal consideration when it’s my turn. No complaining about that leaving you twice as short-handed for a month.”

Mikey rolled his eyes. “You spend maybe half a day at your office usually, anyway. Grace’s maternity leave is the one that will hurt.”

“We’ll make it work,” Dante said.

Romeo turned a smirk on Mikey. “I can’t wait until it’s your turn so I can throw all this shit back at you.”

Mikey waved off his brother’s comment, leaning back against the leather sofa in Dante’s home office. “Not interested. I’m busy enough without trying to raise kids. I don’t mind playing uncle, but I don’t need any of my own.”

“You say that now.”

Mikey ignored his brother’s stupid comeback and shifted his focus again to Dante. “You want me to secure temporary management for the flower shop, too?”

Dante drummed his fingers over the armrest of his chair. “Megan’s going to handle the bulk of it, but one or two extra staff couldn’t hurt. Iris insists she still wants to oversee at least the online side of the business, but if that becomes too much for her, we’ll need a plan in place to pick that up until her energy returns.”

Mikey nodded. “No problem. I’ll find a few options, draft up a fallback, and have it ready to run by you in a couple days.”

“You settled on a name yet?” Romeo asked even as Dante nodded.

Mikey snapped his gaze immediately back to Dante. Sooner or later they’d all know, of course, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t curious about his soon-to-be nephew’s name.

A proud smile settled on Dante’s lips. “Vittorio.”

Romeo chuckled and Mikey felt himself grin.

Dante’s phone buzzed and he immediately snatched it up. “What do you need?”

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