Page 27 of Enforcer

I’m so lost in my head about what to do about Dante. I don’t even realize we’re there until Dante touches my leg softly with his hand to rouse me from my stupor.

“We’re here, minaccia.”

Back to menace. Great.

CHAPTER NINE

DANTE

The meeting room isn’t filled with men yet. We’re the first to arrive.

As Alyssa hugs Brynne on entry, I hear ungodly squeals. I watch them giddily bounce up and down, which looks absurd as two prominent leaders of a New York City crime family.

“The fuck is that about?” I ask Slate, standing beside him, where he’s pouring coffee from the metal carafe into his mug.

Brynne arranged and catered to the meeting within the short time frame she had to get both sides together.

“Probably about the engagement ring,” Slate says offhandedly, sipping his black coffee and wincing from the heat.

“What?!” I say a bit too loudly and gain the quick flick of Alyssa’s eyes.

Slate chuckles and nods. “Gave her Mama’s ring, fits her like a glove.”

I swallow. That’s huge for him to propose.

I grin. “Is that how you’re going to merge the families?”

He shrugs one shoulder in the Ardesia Ricci way. “It would’ve happened anyhow; we might as well speed the process and use it to our advantage.”

“What would’ve happened? You would have married her either way?”

He pins me with a stare that says he thinks I’m being dense. “Yes, Dante. I would’ve married her anyhow.”

I smile, clapping him on the back as I congratulate him.

“Keep it to yourself for the moment. Brynne wants to break it to the men at the right time today.”

I nod. “You think this is going to go well?”

He laughs. “Hell no, but we’re ready. Whether either side likes it or not, these families are merging, so they’d best deal with their feelings on their own time.”

I sigh as Bianchi men file in, along with the odd Ricci man who snarls at them.

“Well, let’s get this shit show on the road,” I tell Slate, turning to take a seat directly across from Alyssa.

Even though I showered and brushed my teeth this morning, I can still taste her. I still smell her on my skin, like she’s tattooed there permanently.

Brynne starts the meeting by getting right down to the reason for it and pulling no punches about the merger.

“So, you’re telling me,” Lorenzo starts, “that we will work together. Like...closely?”

I pipe up, “Yeah, what about territory?”

Alyssa eyes me with an edge that would cut a lesser man, and I grin at her.

I can learn all I need to know from Slate later after the meeting, and she knows that. She knows I’m just egging the men on for entertainment.

“Yeah, what about territory?” Lorenzo says.

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