Page 5 of Mine, Forever

“Allegra!” Darla called out from the office. I watched as Allegra turned and marched over to her mother. Giordy was coming over to me with a grim expression matching Darla’s on his face.

“Ebony… can we talk?”

My heart sped up. Was he going to fire me already?

“Yeah?”

“I need you to cover today. We need a table set up in the back room with the finest of everything. I’m sending Allegra home, and the restaurant will be almost empty save for a few people that are regulars.”

“Oh,” I responded. “What kind of setup would you like?”

“Just standard, but make sure you have a bottle of the cheapest whiskey placed in the middle of the table with glasses from behind the bar and a bucket of ice.”

I nodded and set about the task of getting the drinks sorted while Giordy disappeared in the back office. Allegra and Darla must have left while Giordy was talking to me because I didn’t see them again. It made me wonder what was going down that Giordy would send them home, leaving me, the most inexperienced of them, here to manage on my own.

As I set up the back room, I noticed it had shades that allowed you to see out but no one could see in. Shady as fuck! I knew Giordy was into bad shit—hell, the whole family was—but this just freaked me out.

I prayed the police didn’t rock up and see me, assume I was doing something wrong and arrest me just because I was related to him and the fact I had a record. I had spent enough time behind bars, there was no way I was going back.

Giordy came out as the customers were starting to arrive. He looked at me and winked before greeting some of his regulars. He hadn’t been wrong about it being quiet. I only saw some of the people I knew from the family barbecues back when I was a child sitting in the room. They all seemed to recognize me, yet I couldn’t place a name to one single face if my life depended on it. I tried to play nice, allowing them to smack me on the behind without retaliating, even though I wanted to slap them hard across the face. One patron even had the audacity to feel between my legs, under the apron, for “tightness” as he called it. I’d thrown up in the staff bathroom afterward. The guy had to be pushing sixty. I mean I knew they didn’t lose their sex drive or whatever, but that was the type of disgusting behavior I expected of teenage boys or even men in their early twenties, not grandfathers.

I could sense Giordy was feeling a bit off about whoever it was he was meeting with in the back room. As it approached eleven a.m., I could see he was sweating, wiping his palms on his suit jacket and pacing.

Who the hell could elicit such a response from Giordano Torelli?

My question was answered when I turned to see who was making their way through the door. Two muscled men had opened the door and let through an attractive man with slicked-back black hair and the most piercing green eyes I’d ever seen. He glanced my way briefly before moving past me toward Giordy.

The entire room was mumbling, watching the interaction between Giordy and this mystery man. The only person who could do that to an entire room of gangsters was the one man I hoped never to see in person.

Jesus Christ, Jett Black had just walked right past me.

JETT

Giordy sat across from me in the back room of his restaurant. He fucking loved this restaurant, which was why I so badly wanted it.

Fuck, maybe just some different place settings or even a little renovation over the cracks in the ceiling, because just sitting here was giving me hives.

“Jett.”

“Giordy.”

“Giordano to you.”

“Not likely. Speak before I catch some disease from sitting here too long.”

I watched Giordy’s lips whiten as he firmly pressed them together. It was so damn easy to get Giordy to react. That was probably why he couldn’t handle a war like this without trying to get rid of me, which was exactly what he was doing by inviting me here. I wasn’t a fool. I would never walk into a death trap, but I had to know my facts before I did anything against him. It was a tactic I’d learned from my father—never underestimate your opponent.

All the patrons outside were part of the Torelli family in one way or another, whether it was by blood or close friendship and loyalty. I looked out at them, realizing if I hadn’t have broken away from my affiliations with them, I would have been one of them right now, sitting out there like ducks about to be slaughtered.

I wasn’t meant to be a drone who only followed commands by the Torelli’s. I needed to be my own man, and that’s precisely what I’d become, killing off any peace with the family who helped raise me into the killer I am today.

“Get to it,” I said.

Giordy told his men to get out of the room. I did the same with my boys. When we were finally alone, Giordy turned to me.

“I know you killed my pa.”

“And?”

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