Page 15 of Convenient Mafia Vows

“What did you promise her?” Kyle slips easily into lawyer mode.

“Anything she wanted.”

“Anything?” He scratches his left ear. “What did you say to her specifically?”

“Specifically, I believe I said, ‘Name your price, Victoria’.”

“To which she responded…?”

“‘Can I think about it?’”

Kyle’s fingers are tapping across his keyboard. “Okay, we need to draw up a prenup agreement. Set a limit, financially. We don’t want her claiming fifty percent of the Wraith when you decide that Olivia has taken the hint and backed off.”

When Kyle puts it like that, I suddenly see the whole fake proposal situation in a whole new light. It has been ten yearssince I dated Olivia. Our relationship barely lasted six months, and she still believes that I’ll marry her someday.

What happens if she never backs off? There will be no alliance if Olivia continues to make it personal, but more importantly, what happens to Victoria, worst-case scenario?

“We’ll offer her reasonable compensation.” Kyle’s words barely penetrate my thought process. “What’s her background?”

I think of the sidewalk brawl where I first set eyes on Victoria. “Her brother’s a loser.”

“Great.”

“She ended up temping here. I think there’s a connection to Denise Cartwright.”

“Okay, I’ll look into it.” Kyle talks while he types. “A year’s salary would be fair.”

A year’s salary sounds like a fucking kick in the teeth, even to me. I don’t even know why I care. The woman obviously has baggage in the form of her loser brother, and she clearly can’t hold down a job. But she stepped in when I needed her, no questions asked and didn’t even demand on-the-spot compensation.

That’s what it is, I tell myself. It has fuck all to do with how hot she looks in a little black dress, or the dream where she was bent over my desk while I fucked her from behind.

Nothing at all to do with that…

My phone rings. My brother Cassius, or Cash for short.

“Caleb, we have a problem.”

I glance at Kyle. His fingers stop tap dancing across the keyboard when he spots my lowered brows. “Shoot.”

“Olivia just waltzed in with an entourage.”

Fuck! I thought it would take a little longer than twelve hours for her to start kicking off. “Keep her there.” I end the call.

“Olivia is at the Titan.” I stand up and stare at my phone as if I could draw out a message from Victoria through sight alone.

“Alone?”

“Sounds as if she brought back-up.”

Kyle rolls his seat away from the desk and hands me an official document. “Basic prenup. I’ve kept compensation deliberately low. Gives us room to barter.”

I glance at the figure Kyle has included in the document. I’ll remind him to add a couple of zeroes when I’m finished with Olivia. Leaving the agreement on the desk, I walk to the door, Kyle behind me, his limp only noticeable these days because I know it’s there.

“Caleb, don’t do anything rash. We want the Dragonetti family on our side.”

I don’t ask him if that includes Olivia.

Cash’s casino and Titan resort sits just outside the city, unmissable from Newark airport, as the name suggests. It’s a goliath of a building and a blueprint for the kind of Vegas-worthy resort that offers visitors everything they could possiblywant under one roof and subsequently ensures that their cash remains in-house.

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