Chapter 1
Leo
“Hey, catch!”
Fearful it might be a prank on the groom, I reach up and grab the object flying his way. As his best man, I can’t have something happen an hour before the wedding.
It’s a square box. Magnum-size, but still.
“Condoms? Seriously?”
“No baby-making on the wedding night,” Stephano replies.
“The baby would be born nine months after,” I counter.
“Forty weeks, people. A full-term pregnancy is forty weeks,” Angelo, a medical doctor, quips.
“What if it’s a preemie? Then he’s fucked.”
“My kid was born at thirty-two weeks. Thought Milly’s dad was gonna come at me with a shotgun, thinking I got her pregnant before our wedding,” Michael quips.
Mattia, the groom, turns away from the mirror. “No worries about a trigger-happy dad. Hana’s an orphan.”
The bottle of vodka making the rounds across the room where the groom’s side is getting ready reaches him. He declines, as doI.
Stephano takes a long glug.
“Damn it. Those Bratva boys always have the best vodka.”
I wince, thinking of our trip to Brighton Beach yesterday. Little Odessa has the best strip clubs, run by the Bratva. While I can’t say we’re associates, our families—the Pellegrinis and the Bonuccis—are on good terms with the Russian mafia. We don’t step on their toes; they don’t step on ours.
“Lucky bastard,” someone slurs. Gio, of course. He’s been drunk since yesterday morning. “Hana’s hot.”
“Shut your mouth.” There’s no bite to the words, though. Mattia knows it’s in jest.
“Now you know who else is hot? Bianca. Man, saw her earlier, and she’s a bomb—”
“Shut your trap or I’ll shut it for you!” Mattia says calmly.
Too calmly.
Quiet descends on the room.
“All you fuckers listen to me. Think of your grandmas. That’s how you look at my sister,capische? Better, you don’t look at her. You don’t get near her. Any one of you touches her, I’ll fucking kill him. Bianca’s been promised to Ardian Abrashi, and this alliance better go without a hitch, or we’re all fucked.”
“The Accountant? You’re marrying your sister off to that bastard?” Angelo asks.
Mattia’s turning red, which is not a good sign. I place a hand onhis shoulder and shake my head softly.
“It’s an alliance with the Albanians,” I say to Angelo.
“Those fuckers still angling in on us?” Stephano frowns. “Let’s all go kick their balls—”
“The Rosettis tried that,” I remind him.
“Damn Albanians.”
Loaded silence fills the room. Damn Albanians, indeed. Those guys sprang as if from nowhere. A few years ago, no one had even heard of them. They’ve muscled in on every base of operations in Europe. London? Down. The entirety of France? Dismissed. Now, it’s the US East Coast’s turn to deal with them.