Page 3 of Blood Lust

“That’s exactly what I’ve been telling her,” my father chimed in from the other room.

“Shut up, Lorenzo! No one asked you!” Mom grumbled. “Gabriel, you might be the big boss in Chicago, but here, I’m your mother, and you won’t dictate where I go and what I do—no more than your father will.”

She said the last bit loud enough to ensure my dad heard her. He snorted from his recliner in the living room.

“Mom,” I started again.

“No.” She held up a hand to silence me. “Do you know that some of these authors write and work full time? Some of them are just starting out, some are established. For some, this is their sole source of income. But each and every one of them look forward to these signings because as excited as we readers are to meet them, they are just as excited to meetus. If I never attend another one after this, I’ll be happy with this experience.”

“It’s bad enough you two insisted on opening an Italian restaurant here. You can’t be running around in public,” Vittorio added to my argument.

“It’s not even in our real names. Everything with the restaurant is in our assumed names,” Mom came back with. “And good Lord, we go out in public all the time.”

“No, but the Demented Sons know who you are,” I argued. “And I wish you wouldn’t go out so much.”

“And we trust them. They look out for us, and they are good people.” Mom was going to give me an aneurysm. “Gabriel, I’m going. So many of my favorite authors are going to be there. Did you know M. Merin will be there? She’s from Chicago. Well, she was, but then she moved to Minnesota.” Mom rambled on about Kristine someone, or were there two Kristines? God, I couldn’t keep it straight. Then someone named Darlene, and Sapphire, and Liberty, and Kathleen, and Amy, and—Jesus, the list didn’t end. These couldn’t be their real names.

I was the head of the Chicago family, and yet I couldn’t disrespect or refuse my mother. Christ almighty.

Finally, I met my brothers’ gazes one by one. My shoulders sagged in defeat. We weren’t winning this one.

I grabbed my phone from where it was charging on the counter and messaged Pietro.

Dad had booked four of the resort’s little cabins for us to stay in at the signing. One for Pietro and Dario, Vittorio’s man. Then one for Mom and Alessio, one for Vittorio and Leo, and the last for me. Mom’s cabin and mine were sandwiched between theirs, and we looked out on the lake.

“Why do you get your own cabin?” Leo grumbled. Vittorio smacked him lightly on the back of the head.

“Because he’s the boss,” Vittorio snapped.

“So?” Leo slouched on Mom’s couch where we were waiting for her to get ready. Pietro and Dario sat on the front porch. They were both scary enough that anyone who walked by quickly averted their gaze and kept moving.

“You can’t wear that to the signing!” Mom cried with her eyes bugging and waving her hands like our clothes were flies she could shoo away.

I glanced down at my Armani suit. It was the least expensive one I owned.

“What the hell is wrong with it?” I pushed back the unbuttoned jacket and propped my hands on my hips.

“You look like… the mafioso!” she snapped back. With her fists propped on her hips, she glared at me. The similarity in our stances wasn’t lost on me.

My hands dropped to my side, and I gave her a deadpan stare that screamed, “Really?”

Vittorio, Alessio, and Leo all stared at her and me, waiting to see who would come out the winner in this argument. They were evidently safe, since they were dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts.

“Just go change.”

“Ma, I don’t have anything else with me except my gym clothes!”

“That works. Now, go change, or we’ll be late!”

My mouth hung open.

Surely she wasn’t serious.

She was.

“Rest In Peace”—Dorothy

“Ican’t wait to see you again!” Merin practically squealed.

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