Page 80 of The Villain
He shrugs a shoulder. “I’m curious how things will play out, I suppose. Also, she’s cute. Young but?—”
“She’s seventeen! You stay away from her.” I find I’m leaning into his face, his shirt bunched in one fist. “She’s not a part of this.”
“Well, with Malek Lombardi for a father, I’m pretty sure she’s in it up to her eyeballs,” he says with a casual chuckle as he peels my fingers off. “I took the liberty of adding my number to your contacts list.”
I unlock my phone and sure enough, there’s Jet’s contact. Amal knew my password to unlock it, so I guess she did that for him. I look up at him. “Is this some sort of trick? A test or something?”
“You are very suspicious. Can’t someone just do something nice for you? Haven’t I done that for you twice now?”
I study him, try to read him, but it’s impossible. “You and Cassian, are you his friend or his enemy?”
“That’s exactly the question I keep asking myself. What about you?”
That makes me pause because what about me?
As if on cue, the curtain opens just a little, just enough for one of Cassian’s soldiers to peek his head in and give Jet some sort of signal. Jet nods and the curtain drops. So, are they double crossing Cassian? Or did Cassian set this up to test me? No. Why would he? To test my loyalty? It could be, but I don’t think he’d do that.
“I mean, why try to be a friend to someone who doesn’t want your friendship, am I right?” he asks me. “Take care, Allegra. Cassian is dangerous and his…” he clears his throat. “Claim on you puts you in danger. You don’t want to be in the middle of this. Bad things can happen.” Am I imagining it or does he glance at my hand with its missing finger when he says that.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Save me a dance, will you? If Cassian lets you out of his sight, that is.” He walks toward another curtained wall, so many curtains in this place, and slips through, but pauses, turns back to me. “The red one,” he says with a tilt of his head toward the dress.
21
CASSIAN
“You sure you don’t want me to look after the girl?” Enzo asks just before I enter the dining room where Angelo is seated in a corner table.
“I’d like you with me, Enzo.”
“Got it,” he says, expression as neutral as ever. He glances at his father, who stands, smiling. Enzo nods his greeting, but surprises me when he remains standing at the door rather than walking over to say hello. Their relationship has always been fraught, though, even when we were younger. Enzo was a quiet boy and he is now a quiet man. I wonder if it has to do with his parents separation and the fact that my uncle took full custody of him. I don’t know the particulars, but for my part, I don’t even remember my aunt’s face.
“Cassian,” Uncle Angelo says after clearing his throat.
I cross the room to shake hands with him. “What’s up with you two?” I ask quietly.
We sit. Angelo shrugs his shoulders and gives a little shake of his head. “Just a little disagreement. You know how it is with fathers and sons.”
I nod because I do.
I’ve known my uncle all my life. He is my father’s brother and was his trusted consigliere. When dad started to get sick and Seth declined so quickly, in many ways, Angelo took up the spaces they left behind. But even before that, Angelo’s always been more to me than an uncle. My own relationship with my father was always fraught. My mother died in childbirth, a complication the doctors didn’t see coming. I don’t have a single memory of her. Although never outright, my father always blamed me for her death. I was never excluded from the family, and to the outside world, I was equal to Seth, except that I was not first born. To anyone looking in, they simply see the favorite. Parents are human too, after all. But I knew it went deeper than that. Seth was the best big brother anyone could have. He understood what was happening at a young age and between him and my uncle, I was loved and cared for. But it didn’t quite make up for missing my father’s love. For knowing every time he looked at me he saw our mother, the woman he loved. The woman whose life ended the day mine began.
“Something to drink?” Angelo asks.
I see the carafe of coffee and pick it up to pour myself some. “Coffee’s good. Tell me what you’ve found.”
He opens a folder, turns it so I can read it. “The weapon was registered to Blackstone’s and, unsurprisingly,Severin Blackstone reported it stolen just this morning.”
“Hm.” I read as I listen.
“We have to think this through, Cassian. What reason would Severin have for sending a loaded weapon to a child? What message was he hoping to get across?”
“Who the hell knows with him?Ifit was him. I suppose it could have been Jet or even Sybil. But I don’t buy that it was stolen.”
“No, too convenient.”
“Given dad’s decline, I know they would be happy to be rid of me. Rid of the Trevino name. Our continued partnership might benefit me more than it does them at this point.” Blackstone’s launders money for me. It goes through the casino and although that money was once their lifeline, it no longer is. With Severin at the helm and Sybil no longer controlling the company, they’ve done well.
