Page 51 of Hidden Ties

Trying her best to move the awkwardness of the situation, Maria raised a brow at her brother. “Lucca, then?”

Lucca wrapped an arm behind Chloe’s back, clearly enjoying the show and comfortable where he was. “That’s all right. I’ll save myself the embarrassment.”

“One man standing.” Kat’s smile turned into a wicked sneer from excitement. “Go on, Sal.”

“Oh, this will be good.” Amo grabbed the popcorn from in front of Valerie for himself. she had asked for a snack to keep up her energy to kick their asses, and it was now being passed around for the others to enjoy as they witnessed history. The oooing and ahhing continued as Sal took the controller, ready to face off in a battle of bloody guts and glory.

This match didn’t go down like the others, where Valerie had triple KO’d each one of them. They started out the gate in a rare tie with everyone’s eyes glued to the TV.

Scared to get beaten, or to win, he knew he’d never hear the end of it either way, knowing either the guys would make jokes that a girl was finally able to beat The Great Salvatore or Valerie would accuse him of cheating like she had last night in Mario Kart.

It was a lose-lose situation; under no circumstances was Sal coming out of this a winner.

Valerie wipedthe sweat off her forehead with the inside of her elbow. Fucking hell, he was good, but she’d be damned if he ended her winning streak.

“What the hell do you do?” Amo asked, looking at Valerie in disbelief when they went to another tie.

“She designs video games,” Kat said appreciatively.

“Well, that explains the nerd-off,” Amo huffed, watching them go at it. “You’re not able to look up our Internet history, too, are you?”

Thankfully, Valerie laughing didn’t cost her the game when she realized how it was that Sal put the fear in the big men. “I don’t really use my gifts for that. I more so use them on myself.”

“Someone could learn something from her,ahem”—Amo coughed loudly—“Sal.”

“What do you mean by that?” Sal asked, responding to Valerie and not the annoying cougher.

“Like, I mostly just incognito my shit.” She shrugged between mashing the buttons. “For instance, you probablytriedsearching me up, huh?”

Sal’s heart dropped as she continued on, knowing full well he had.

“Then all you found were some speeding and parking tickets, and I’m sure you found out that I’m broke.”

His silence made all of their mouths drop, hanging on to her every word while they simultaneously watched the screen.

“Well, that’s not news to anyone.” Valerie laughed, uncaring that she was airing out her business. “The trick is you keep that stuff for show ’causeno one’ssqueaky clean.”

Fucking hell, that was smart.He had to admit he hadn’t bothered to try to look into her deeper, taking the surface level as good enough.

“That’s why I left my speeding tickets, ’cause, I mean, who the hell pulls someone over and gives them a ticket for going eleven over?”

Sal, still dumbfounded he hadn’t thought of that, tried his best to take in this new information all while trying to murder her in the game.

“You got a speeding ticket for going eleven over?” Vincent ended his vow of silence there, getting pissed. “That’s foul.”

“Well, technically, I was going ten over. I know ’cause I had my cruise control set for it. I thought going ten over was an unspoken rule for being okay.”

“Nah, it’s five,” Amo told her, popping another kernel into his mouth.

“Ten,” Kat visibly disagreed, making Dominic give his baby sister a scolding look.

“Five.”

“Ten,” Maria corrected her husband.

“Agreed,” Adalyn and Angel chimed in.

“Five is always a safer bet,” Elle said, but her boyfriend challenged, “You shouldn’t have gotten pulled over for that. That’s just a waste of everyone’s time.”

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