Page 94 of Kingmakers, Year Two

When we meet up with Ozzy and Miles outside the stone walls of Kingmakers, Ozzy stares at Chay with a stunned expression.

“You’re just . . . perfection,” he says.

Instead of laughing and agreeing like she usually would, Chay says, “That’s really sweet of you, Ozzy.”

“He stole the words right out of my mouth,” Miles growls, slipping his arm around my waist. “What can I tell you now—what’s better than perfection?”

“This,” I say. “This moment right now.”

The evening is warm and still, the fresh scent of new grass sweet in the air. Tiny paper-white butterflies flit over the wildflowers in the field. The light is golden and soft.

I shouldn’t let Miles touch me while we’re still within sight of the school. But there’s no one around. I feel safe and flushed with happiness.

“Where should we go?” Chay asks.

Ozzy hoists his backpack on his shoulder. “I was thinking we could go to the cliffs above the Moon Beach,” he says. “Watch the sun go down.”

We tramp across the field, through a strip of woods, and then westward through the vineyards. The vines are just beginning to flower, the leaves green and lush but the grapes still tiny and hard.

“The deck behind my parents’ house is covered in fox grapes,” Miles tells me.

“Oh really?”

“They’re old vines, brought all the way from Italy two hundred years ago.”

“Your family brought them over?”

Miles nods. “We had this old Georgian house in Chicago. It was in the family for generations. My grandfather Enzo lived there, my mom was born there, lived there all her life. The fox grapes grew up the side of the house and over the pergola on the roof. But the house burned down.”

I groan with sympathy.

“Actually,” Miles gives a short, mirthless laugh. “Dean’s grandpa set it on fire. Alexei Yenin—just picture Dean, with KGB training and an even worse attitude. Leo’s father married Alexei’s daughter, you know that?”

I nod. Anna told me when she explained the tortured history between the cousins.

“Anyway, Leo’s dad Sebastian, he was in the house at the time, with Dean’s father Adrian Yenin. Alexei didn’t care. He firebombed the house with his own son inside. Sebastian left Adrian to die, and he almost did. He was burned over half his body.”

Ozzy and Chay are listening as intently as I am, though I’m sure Ozzy at least has heard this story before.

“Uncle Seb fought Alexei Yenin. He killed him. It was revenge, because Alexei had already killed Grandpa Enzo. Tried to kill the rest of my uncles, too. Seb and Uncle Miko—Anna’s dad, you know him.”

Chay nods.

“They beat the Bratva. Took back their half of Chicago. But the house was totally destroyed—the books, the photographs, my grandmother’s piano, even Uncle Nero’s cars in the underground garage. My family was devastated. They didn’t try to rebuild.

“The next spring, my mother came back to the lot before it was going to be cleaned up and sold. She found one sprig of the fox grapes still growing. Green where the rest of the vines were nothing but ash. She dug it up and replanted it out at the lake where she and my dad were just starting to build their own house. It grew perfectly. The grapes are thicker than ever. The bees and the wasps get drunk every fall.”

I’ve never heard Miles talk like this before. He loves to discuss his plans for the future. I’ve never heard him sentimental.

“The lake house is gorgeous,” Ozzy tells me. “I visited—you can see trees and water from every room.”

Miles told me about the house, about his little brother and sister, and about his parents—the stern Irish mafia prince and the wild Italian princess who were married against their will to avoid all out war between their families.

Obviously, I hate the idea of any kind of forced marriage, but Miles assured me they didn’t stay enemies for long.

“Once they were done trying to kill each other, they got along great,” he laughed.

That’s an outcome that could never occur for Rocco and me.

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