Page 14 of A Game So Reckless

I push all the confusion to the back of my brain. Elio is likely just enjoying the happy coincidence that he no longer has to deal with Dario as the closest thing he’ll ever get to a brother-in-law driving us crazy at family functions.

“Don’t know what the fuck you look so fucking pleased about,” Papà snaps at Elio. He points a finger at my throat. “She would have been a fucking Fabbri! Good family, not to mention the connection to city council.”

Elio shrugs again, that uneven rise and fall of his strong shoulders.

“Well, he’s dead now,” my cousin says. “So maybe we should go inside and figure out what the fuck we want to do.”

Chapter8

Valentina

Despite the fact that Dario was technically my fiancé, “figuring out what the fuck we want to do” apparently doesn’t involve me at all. Elio, Curse, and Papà immediately disappear together into Papà’s office without a backward glance while Mamma fusses over my streaky makeup and matted hair.

“It’s fine, Mamma,” I tell her, gently swatting her hands away. She purses her chapped lips, the gloss from earlier gnawed away. Probably from anxiety. I know she’s dying to go have a bath, chug a bottle of wine, and collapse into bed right about now. But that desire is clearly warring with some kind of maternal instinct that’s making her hover over me.

“It’s fine,” I repeat, a little more sternly this time. “Why don’t you go have a bath? I have to pee.” I move towards one of the main floor bathrooms near the foyer we’ve just come in through.

“Are you sure?” she asks, but her eyes are already going to the stairs that will take her to the magical land of hot water, bubbles, and stupefying alcohol.

“I’m sure.”

Mamma nods, then pats my cheek and gives me a sympathetic grimace. It’s the sort of expression a person might make if something inconvenient but ultimately unimportant has just happened, like dropping a cake on the floor. An “oh, dear, better luck next time” face.

Better luck with the next fiancé, I guess. Let’s hope that one doesn’t die at your first meeting.

It’s times like these I realize how detached from reality families like ours really are.

Mamma heads up the massive central staircase, her high heels clicking on the white marble. As soon as her brownish-burgundy hair and the sweeping skirt of the back of her gown are out of sight, I turn around, ignoring the bathroom and heading for Papà’s office. Before I get halfway down the hall, I stop and take my shoes off, not wanting my footsteps to echo loudly the way Mamma’s had on the stairs moments ago.

The door is closed, of course, but I try to listen anyway. Luckily, both Papà and Elio have the same deep, rolling fire in their voices, and it makes the sound carry through the door as I press my ear up against it.

“She says he jumped, he jumped. Case closed. Makes things easier for everyone.” That’s Elio talking.

“I don’t believe for a fucking second that he jumped,” Papà spits back. I bite on the inside of my cheek, stomach flipping at how easily my lie’s been torn up, like crumpled paper.

“You already said no one came up either elevator,” Elio points out. “So if he didn’t jump, then Valentina did it, and that’s a shitstorm no one’s going to want to deal with. The suicide story makes sense. It’ll be an easy push. Especially with all this bratva shit. Maybe he really did jump.”

“What bratva shit?” There’s a dangerous edge to Papà’s voice now. Not just anger. But warning.

He doesn’t like not knowing things.

Must run in the family, considering the way I’ve got my ear shoved against his office door right now.

“Apparently he’s been accepting bribes from the Russians for months now,” Elio says. “Helping either pass or squash motions that the bratva either do or don’t favour.”

“The fuck?” Papà explodes. “He’s supposed to be doing that shit for us! The hell you mean, he’s in bed with the Russians? And I didn’t fucking know about it?”

“Well,” Elio says dryly, “maybe marriage wasn’t as tempting a prospect to him as money.”

Papà snorts bitterly. “He doesn’t need more money.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Elio counters. “He might have been Rocco’s heir, but he wasn’t CEO yet. Maybe he looked at his dealings with the Russians as a way to strike out on his own. Besides, interest rates have risen. The condo market’s collapsing. Investors are shitting their pants.”

“Are you trying to tell me that, what, the Fabbris have been cooking their books just to pull one over on me? So that I’d be more open to the union between ourfamigliaand theirs?”

“I’m just theorizing. The market was better last year when you and Rocco arranged the marriage. Books might have been fine then.”

Silence stretches for so long my heart begins to beat faster in anticipation of the door being wrenched open. But no one opens it, and after a moment Papà says, more quietly now, “Throwing people off rooftops or out of windows has Russia written all over it.”

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