Page 55 of Convenient Mafia Vows

My fists instinctively clench at the thought of Olivia trying to hurt Victoria. How can she be so naïve? She shared a few words with the man and now she thinks that he has her best interests at heart.

“Whoa, what’s going on?” Emily appears from the decking end of the kitchen, Abigail by her side. “I can feel the heat from outside.”

“I’m just trying to convince Victoria to stay here for a while.” From the way Emily’s eyes slide towards Victoria and back again, I can guess that she knows the truth about our agreement too.

“And I’m trying to tell him that we should stay together.” Victoria’s tone is defiant.

“I like it here,” Abigail says, and Victoria flashes me a look that says we should leave Abigail out of it.

Emily grins. “Now, now children, anyone would think that you’re an old married couple.”

Yep. She knows.

“I don’t see what the problem is. Why can’t she stay wherever she wants?”

Emily is Terry’s baby. Sure, he brought us up like his own sons, but when Emily came along, the first girl in the family, it was the turning point for him. Rather than encouraging her to learn about the family business, he was determined to do everything in his power to keep her out of it. Like a parent warning their eldest child not to spoil the magic of Christmas for their younger siblings, he insisted that none of us ever divulged the true nature of our business to our baby sister.

So, Emily is still blissfully unaware that her mom, dad, and brothers are all part of one of the strongest mafia families in the city, even if we’re not the most violent. She sailed through high school, got into Cornell, and is studying to be a vet. Sometimes,I envy her the normal path her life follows even if she does have the wealth behind her that most kids don’t have. But it means that she often views the world through rose-tinted glasses with no idea of the strings being pulled in the background to offer her this idyllic future.

Victoria is still watching me, waiting for me to respond to my sister’s question, daring me to tell her the truth.

“Does this have anything to do with Mr. Dragonetti?” Emily asks. “He seems really nice. He came and said goodbye to me and Abigail before he left. Said that we’d be seeing a lot more of each other.”

I could mention the shooting incident, but twenty-one years down the line, and Terry’s warning is still imprinted on my brain with indelible ink.Emily never finds out the truth. If I hear one of you told her, you’ll have me to deal with. I don’t know what the don meant when he told Emily they’d see a lot more of each other, but my tongue remains firmly tied when it comes to telling her the truth.

“Okay,” I relent. “You can come back to the apartment with me. But on one condition.”

“I’m not getting Lauren to run errands for me.” Victoria is still standing her ground, and I have the sudden urge to bend her over my knee, pull down her panties, and slap her ass. And yep, like fucking clockwork, my dick responds to the mental image.

“This is the twenty-first century.” I force myself not to let my eyes travel any lower than her lips because if my gaze reaches her breasts I’ll remember leaving my mark on them, and I might as well kiss goodbye to being the one in control. “We have internet.”

“Speaking of.” Emily swings Abigail up into her arms and deposits her on the counter. “We’ve been looking at schools, haven’t we, Abigail?”

Abigail nods seriously. “I want to go to Sudbury Valley.”

Victoria moves closer, her hands instinctively fluttering towards the child to prevent her from toppling off the counter. “I don’t know anything about Sudbury Valley, sweetie. I don’t even know where it is.”

“It’s in Massachusetts,” Emily chimes in. “My friend went there. It’ll be perfect for Abigail because the children get to study whatever they want. They choose their own education. If Abigail wants to play with computers all day, that’s what she does.”

“What about the rest of her education?” Victoria’s gaze flits between me and Emily. Curiosity has already gotten hold of her though. “What about reading and Math and history?”

“What about it?” Emily shrugs. “Have you ever used algebra since you left school? Why should every kid in the country be forced to take the same exams at the same time when they all have different abilities and different learning levels?”

“I can read,” Abigail says.

Victoria wrinkles her nose. Pensive.

If I don’t step in, she’s going to drag me all the way to Massachusetts to look at a school where kids run amok. But then I remember that I don’t know Brailand’s whereabouts, and that I told Catherine Montgomery that we were not interested in sending Abigail to the Lutheran Prep Academy. Like her education is any concern of mine.

Massachusetts is what … a three-hour drive from New York City? If they have boarding facilities, at least Abigail would be safe there with a bodyguard to keep an eye on her. Do people send their five-year-olds to boarding school? Would Victoria agree to it if she knew about Olivia?

“You want to go check out the school?” I ask Abigail.

“Can I?” She holds out her arms for me to get her down off the counter.

“I’m coming with you,” Emily says.

Victoria isn’t smug when we get back to the Wraith. She’s withdrawn as if she has pulled her tough shell back around her shoulders and climbed inside, curled up on herself like a tiny snail wary of peering outside at the rest of the world.

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