Page 102 of Lies like Rubies, Part One

Lorenzo and Dante had moved to the dining table, their heads together as they quietly made plans for protecting Lizzie and our Sofia. Their similarities struck me. Dante’s salt and pepper curls fell over his forehead, and Lorenzo didn’t have laugh lines around his eyes yet, but otherwise, they could be cousins.

The two looked at me together, and the contrast in their eyes made all the difference. Dante’s eyes were dark, almost obsidian, and radiated violence. The only time the darkness lifted was when he gazed at Sofia. Lorenzo’s eyes were lighter, the color of whiskey glinting in candlelight, fires banked, as if he were holding himself back.

I took my place at the table, well aware that I was about to break the one rule I’d held for myself my entire life—stay the fuck away from the mafia.

“What’s the plan?”

Dante’s eyes darkened to pitch black. “Sofia’s going to go public with our relationship.”

I raised an eyebrow. A public claim by Dante?

“Our polyamorous relationship,” he continued.

My eyebrows hit my hairline. “Three weeks before her finals?” I asked.

Lorenzo pressed his lips into a grim line. “There’s a gala the night of her last exam, the night before graduation. If Sofia begins to withdraw the money he used her name to launder, he’s going to get desperate. If he’s wants to marry her, he’ll have to make a public statement and claim to her. He’ll take advantage of the furor of a poly relationship to go after her. The gala will be an opportune moment.”

He turned toward me, scrubbing his tired face. “If we fail, this will leave her reputation in tatters. Even if we succeed, it still might. You’re the only one of the three of us who could possibly pick up the pieces.”

Fuck.Lorenzo was right, though. The only shot Sofia had of restoring her reputation if our plan went sideways was dating the respectable Doctor Nicolò Lombardi.

“We have to run this by her first,” I said.

Dante raised an eyebrow. “My deal with her says I don’t.”

Before I could blink, Lorenzo had a gun to Dante’s forehead. “That’s not how this works anymore, asshole.”

“To the contrary,” Dante continued, as if he didn’t have a gun pointed at his head. “If I had my cage here right now, I’d have Sofia napping in it, and she’d be happy to fucking do so. She needs someone to take the weight of the world off her shoulders, and that someone is me.”

“That someone isus,” I interjected. “And we’re going to ask her about this plan, whether you want to or not.”

Dante’s eyes tightened with fury. “Do you want to catch Sergio Accardi?”

Lorenzo laughed bitterly, not moving the gun away from Dante’s forehead. “Don’t be disingenuous, Dante. You’re inYorkfieldbecause you want to catch Sergio. You’re inSofia’s apartmentbecause she’s a fucking queen who has her claws deep in your dick, same as the rest of us.”

“My relationship with Sofia is my fucking business.”

I scoffed, appalled at his arrogance and his willful rewriting of history. “You fucking dragged me into your relationship with Sofia. Lorenzo too. Our relationships with Sofia are all of our business now.”

Lorenzo cocked the gun. “I’m not fucking around, Dante. Sofia’s in charge.”

Dante shrugged.

Fucking emotionally stunted mafia assholes.“Dante, do you actually like Sofia? Outside of the shit you put her through in the bedroom?”

Dante and Lorenzo looked at me like I’d grown a second head. I took a different tact. “Do you want her to trust you? Outside of fucking?”

He narrowed his eyes.

“Then you have to trust her to know what’s best for her and Lizzie.”

Dante’s heated stare bored into me as he reflected on my words. He might have the emotional maturity of a ten-year-old, but he wasn’t fucking stupid. If I’d judged him wrong and he wasn’t catching feelings, this whole thing would be a shitshow.

“As you like. Sofia’s in charge,” he agreed.

Lorenzo put the gun away, and just in time, too. Lizzie toddled into the living room. “Where’s Mamma?” she asked, eyes half closed with sleep, trailing an overlarge stuffed animal behind her.

Lorenzo swept her into his arms. “Let me take you to her room, sweetheart,” and stepped out of the room to do just that.

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