Page 20 of Forging Caine

“Where’s the Italian?” Nathan came around the corner, sporting a smile far less fake than Cass’s. He wore a blue dress shirt which lit up his bright blue eyes.

I inclined my head toward the window.

He joined us in front of the sink and kissed my cheek. He’d likely been part of the ruckus in the basement. “Sucking up to my niece, is he?”

I frowned at him. “You know you’re not actually her uncle, right? She just calls you that because she’s polite?”

Nathan pinched my arm that wasn’t holding the wineglass and I instinctively smacked his shoulder. He was my brother-in-law’s best friend, who I’d met when I was twelve and he was in college with Cass. He and Kevin had claimed me as their little sister right off the bat.

I’d grown up with Cass and Mom. No other siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, or grandparents. It had struck me as odd that we didn’t have anyone else around. Had my father’s job been the reason for that?

So much for the party providing a distraction.

“I should mingle,” said Cass.

“Itisyour party.” I clinked my glass with hers. “Lucy’s here somewhere, right?”

“Last I heard, she was upstairs with Logan, yelling at video games.” Cass chuckled and headed toward the living room.

Nathan leaned his back against the counter. “You look stressed. Wasn’t Antonio coming home supposed to fix that?”

I feigned a glower. “Shouldn’t you be downstairs watching whatever Kevin has going on the big screen?”

“A couple of women came down to the bar to pour themselves a glass of something and they were talking about the hot guy with the sexy car they’d never met who just went outside with Emma.” He shrugged. “I figured that meant you were here.”

I snorted. It must have been the ones from the porch. “I don’t even get a mention anymore?”

“Not from the women.” He folded his arms, looking way too serious for a party. “Now spill. What’s going on?”

I ran a hand over my cheek and stared into my wineglass. I didn’t want to tell him, but he’d find out, eventually. “Fiori contacted us.”

He pushed off the counter, eyes flying as wide as I’d expected. “He what? Did you call—”

“Shh!”

The couple at the counter only glanced at us, and the ones at the breakfast table must not have heard him over the music.

I stepped closer to him and lowered my voice. “We called Elliot right away. He advised us to go, but to be careful. Antonio arranged for a private table at The Train Station.”

Nathan’s body went rigid, his fists clenching and eyes narrowing to slits as he shifted his gaze out the window toward Antonio.

“It’s not his fault. Fiori wants to see both of us.”

“What’s he doing here?” Nathan ground out.

“You read Elliot’s report from January, right?” I hadn’t and could only guess at what was in it, but I assumed anything I’d told Elliot was in there. “It must have included that Giovanni thought Fiori was going to come after me because I’ve impeded too many of his illegal activities?”

Nathan’s death-glare subsided. “It did. It also included the theory that Fiori wants to recruit Antonio.”

“We have to find out what he’s up to. Why did he reach out? Why today, when Antonio just got home? It’s either that or we wait for him to show up when we’re not ready for him.”

“You may have trained with the FBI, but you have no practical experience. You’re playing right into his hands.”

I could have hit him. “Maybe you need to revisit a few of Elliot’s reports. You figured out Antonio and I were his CIs in January in Rome. Before that, it was December, right here in Brenton. September in Naples. And before that, I’ve worked on other cases with him and—”

“Calm down, Sam.” Nathan put his hands up. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

The glass door by the breakfast table slid open.

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