Page 95 of The Devil's Den

“And she would’ve.” Raquel pulls back, saying, “If it weren’t for the guys stopping her, she’d go fighting.”

Chiara shrugs, tipping up the edge of her mouth. “I killed my father after all.”

My eyes round. “Faro is dead?”

“Oh, girlfriend.” Chiara throws an arm around my shoulder, moving us to the sofa. “We have so much to catch up on.”

And we do. They fill me in on the fact that the Bianchi men are now all dead, and at the news, Matteo and I look at each other and smile. It’s really over. They’ll never hurt us anymore. But for the first time, I’m sad not to belong to this family.

“I should tell you…” I turn to the girls on the other side of me. “I’m not your cousin. Agnelo…” I take in a shallow breath. “He kidnapped my mother and me, so we’re not—”

“Not what?” Chiara folds her arms, tilting up her chin. “Not family? Because let me stop you right there. We may not have been close growing up because of him, but you’ll always be our family. Blood isn’t always thicker than water, cuz. We all should know that better than anyone. So…” She throws a palm to my knee. “You’re stuck with us.”

Raquel nods from behind her with a soft smile. I find it hard to speak, and it seems all I can do is cry, not knowing how to express the amount of appreciation and love I feel in this moment. We may not have grown up close, but to them it doesn’t matter. They’ve accepted me as one of their own, and for that I’ll always be grateful.

Chiara scoots closer, enveloping me in her arms. “If anyone ever messes with you again, you tell me, and I’ll make sure they regret it.”

“I don’t know,” Matteo interrupts. “With the way she killed Agnelo, you may need her to defend you.” Our eyes meet and he looks at me proudly.

“Really, now?” Chiara backs away, her gaze narrowing. “And you were saying we’re not family.”

* * *

MATTEO

After Raquel took care of my bullet wound and patched me up, we headed toward the bar in the corner while the ladies continued to catch up. Raquel said I was lucky the shot only grazed me. I honestly forgot all about it until my brothers noticed it.

“What the hell is this?” I smell the honey-colored liquid in my glass, looking curiously at Enzo. “You realize I’ve been in a basement for fifteen years, right?”

Enzo and Dante chuckle, downing their own drinks.

“Damn showoffs,” I say under my breath.

“Give it a week, you’ll be drinking just as easy as us.” Enzo slaps me on the shoulder.

“Fine, fuck it.” I take a swig and… “Shit! This tastes like ass. What the hell?”

“I’ll get you a beer.” Dom laughs, his whole body rocking as he lowers to get one from the mini fridge.

“Baby bro is a lightweight. We gotta start him slow,” Dante throws in.

Dom pops the cap off and hands me a cold bottle. This time when I take a sip, I don’t feel like I want to toss that crap in the garbage.

“Look,” Dom says to me, suddenly appearing serious. “We want you to know you never have to worry about a thing as far as money and everything. We’ve got plenty of it now. What’s ours is yours.”

“That’s right,” Enzo says. “Except my cars. You can’t touch that shit.”

“Yeah, he’s right,” Dante adds. “That’s sacred territory.”

“When do I get one of those?” I swallow another swig of the beer, only half-kidding around. It’d be good to have one so I can take Aida on all the dates I once promised myself I would take her on.

“Oh, we’ll hook you up.” Enzo drapes his arm over my shoulder. “Any kind you want. Hell, I’ll buy you three.”

“One is good.” I chuckle.

They tell me more about what they do for work and how they got to be where they are. I’m glad they got something out of this, not that it’d replace anything they had gone through, but at least they didn’t struggle for the rest of their lives.

“If there’s anything you ever need,” Enzo says, “we’ll make it happen.”

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