Page 134 of Mob Bride

“Not my fault your guards don’t know how to look up.”

Sean’s house is the closest, and he just got a very expensive drone that does more than take photos. Matteo doesn’t have many windows left.

He goes silent, and I’m certain he’s scrambling to figure out what I’ve unleashed. I hear a phone notification ping in the background.

“You will?—”

“What? Hmm? What now, Matteo?” I’m patronizing as fuck.

“What the fuck did you do to my Bronx project?”

“You should lock up your demolition supplies better.”

We have people at the station working some low-level Cartel guys over. Matteo’s an architect, and he has a venture capitalist breathing down his neck to finish a project that fell behind. Now it fell apart.

Great coincidence it was a block from the abandoned train station where we handle our most unsavory tasks. I send one more text. The line remains quiet except for the sound of his fingers on his keyboard. Then he erupts.

“I’m the petty bitch? Youmi fa cagare!” It means you make me shite. He basically called me despicable.

“If I can’t have it, then neither can you.”

“You had someone blow up the fucking yacht,faccia de cazzo!” Testicle face.

“Yup. I was going to steal it today anyway, so my guys were there already.” I had. It wasn’t until I waited for Carrie to come out of the restroom that I thought to give it to her.

“Enough! Kill Angela or do whatever the fuck you want. I don’t give a shit. I don’t have time to deal with her today. But don’t go near Maria. I’m serious, Shane. Things are different now. If she was untouchable before, you have no idea what my family will do if you upset her even for a second.”

That makes me stop. “Is she pregnant?”

“Yeah, and high risk, so stay the fuck away.”

The call’s on speaker. We all hear the catch in Matteo’s voice. I look around at the guys. They all nod.

“Do you need anything? I know she knows Ally already, but should Finn tell her to talk to Maria?”

My sister-in-law’s a neonatologist, not an OBGYN, but they’re also friends. Ally’s pregnant too.

“No, but thank you.”

“Should our moms send over food?”

Matteo chuckles, the tone a hundred-and-eighty degrees from what it was a moment ago. “No. Our moms have already made enough to keep us fed till the second coming.”

“So, she’s not in any immediate danger?”

“No. She needs to take it easy, though.”

“Then I guess Carmine’ll have to make up for it.”

“You sick fucker.”

“I like your wife. I don’t like any of the rest of you. Killing you will stress her out. She loves her cousin, but he’s not you or her brothers. He also works closest to you. If I fuck him over, then I fuck you over without messing up a hair on your fucked-up looking head.”

“What do you want, then?”

“Well, the yacht’s not an option. We’ll take the high-rise project you just got in Brooklyn. The incoming shipment from Jamaica. And I’d like that house Carmine just got Serafina on Corsica. That can be Carys’s wedding present.”

“You—”

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