CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Dante

HIS NAME WAS Chris.

What the hell kind of Italian name was Chris?

I hated him already.

It was a completely irrational feeling.

Deep down in the darkness of my chest where my heart attempted to make me feel things — I knew, I knew he’d done nothing wrong but get saddled with a Chris when he should have at least been a… I glanced back at him again and tilted my head as I memorized his features. Maybe he was a Chris.

Maybe I was over thinking it.

Because Chris was the guy you took home to your parents. God, his button-down shirt looked like it had been ironed a dozen times. His red tie tight around his neck like he was going to a funeral.

At least he wasn’t still in his blazer.

A fucking blazer.

It was blue.

He literally showed up at our house looking like an American flag, maybe that was on purpose — he wanted to look like the American dream? A perfect American little husband?

I scowled while Nixon continued introducing him to the rest of the family. I’d been sitting at that table for the last five minutes wondering how long it would take El to politely send him on his way.

“You look beautiful.” Chris reached for her hand and kissed it in front of everyone and then casually sat and laid a hand on the chair she was sitting in like he was ready to wrap his arm around her.

Like he had a right to.

He didn’t even know her!

“How old are you?” I asked, careful to keep the strain from my voice right along with the disgust and jealousy.

His brown eyes lit up. “I just turned twenty-six.”

He turned back to El.

I wasn’t finished.

“What do you do for a living?”

Chase snickered into his cup before Nixon gave him a cut it out look.

Chris’s left eyebrow arched at me, like he was amused with my questions. “Maybe we should just get this over with.”

“What do you mean?” I would kick his ass in a fight, I had at least thirty pounds of muscle on his lean Chris-like frame.

He removed his hand from El’s chair, some of the tension left my body, and then he was grabbing his wine and talking again. “I’m a VP at my father’s clean energy corporation and have a few holdings in Italy, I graduated with my masters in international business, can speak French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian fluently — and I’m a Pisces, anything else?”

Glaring, I clenched my teeth.

“Sounds good to me.” Chase nodded in appreciation. “Right, Dante?” He grinned at the rest of the table. “Protective brothers, am I right?”

I choked on my water and almost spit it across the table directly into Chris’s face.

Chase smacked me on the back.

“Right,” I said hoarsely. “Protective brother…” My eyes found El’s and locked on, she gulped and suddenly found the napkin in her lap more interesting than the way that Chris tried to get closer to her.

“So,” She cleared her throat. “Thanks for, coming… tonight.”

“I was in town for business, it seemed prudent to at least meet, don’t you think?”

Did he just say prudent?

Meet?

Longest night of my life.

“Where are we on the whole dinner situation?” I asked the table.

“Thought we were waiting on Mil?” Nixon nodded to Chase. “She say how long she was going to be?”

Chase’s lips pressed together in a firm line before he shrugged. I knew that look, it was the same one he wore before he asked to spar with me a few nights ago. “You know women — let’s just eat without her.”

Nixon frowned. “You sure?”

“Positive,” Chase snapped as another pop of tension expanded around the room. He took another long gulp of wine and slammed the glass back onto the table hard enough for it to shatter.

Frank and Sergio shared a look before Frank stood and said a blessing. Tex and Mo took their seats. And my sister stared at me from her spot at the far end of the table as if I was a stranger. She was doing that a lot lately like I was some sort of puzzle that was missing every single piece needed to make it complete.

We were another five minutes into the meal when Tex tossed a roll at my head. I caught it midair and flipped him off. “Nice try.”

“Man your reflexes are getting so much better, last time I did that you got jam on your chin.”

“Last time you did that, you’d just beat the shit out of me and my eye was swollen shut,” I countered amidst the male chuckles around the table.

“Look at you now! All grown up…”

“Yup last night I shot someone without crying and everything, so grown up.” I scowled. Everyone fell silent.

Chris paled across from me, his throat bobbed like he was having trouble swallowing.

“No business during dinner,” Frank warned from his seat in the middle. He’d barely touched his food and was already on another glass of wine. In fact, most everyone was drinking more than they were eating.

Everyone except Chris, who dug into his food with such vigor I was concerned he was going to suffocate from lack of oxygen.

I grabbed the roll Tex had thrown and tore off a piece, it tasted like cardboard in my mouth and my chewing was just loud enough to make it difficult to hear what Chris was saying to El.

Her face flushed.

I clenched my hand around the roll.

“Has the roll offended you?” Chase teased, but the minute he saw the direction I was looking he sobered and said quietly. “We’ll spar tonight, yeah?”

“I’ve got plans.”

“With enemies or friends?”

“Both.” I dropped the roll onto my plate and sighed.

“Keep me updated.” He turned and whispered something to Nixon who made a signal to Tex while Phoenix wrote something down in one of his damn folders.

Secrets. So many secrets.

And the fact that Mil wasn’t there just added to the tension.

As if I conjured her up, Chase reached into his pocket and glared down at his phone. “Be right back.”

Phoenix grabbed a bottle of wine, then took Chase’s empty seat, he leaned back and winked at his wife while his left hand dipped under the table.

I followed it with mine and grabbed the piece of paper just as he released it and stood. “What’s for dessert.”

“Wine.” Tex eyed the bottle in Phoenix’s hand while the wives all shared a look of displeasure. Mo elbowed Tex. “What?”

“Eat.” She shoveled lasagna onto his plate and then froze. “Oh shit I sound like a mom.”

“Eat, eat,” Nixon said in a thick accent before snorting out a laugh.

Tex gave Nixon a challenging stare before grabbing Mo’s hand and kissing the inside of her palm. “I’ll eat later…”

“More wine,” Nixon snapped his fingers while Sergio chuckled into his glass.

“Oh please, we all heard you and Val last week in the laundry room.”

I started choking on my bread while Val blushed across from me.

“Freaking love family dinners,” Bee announced.

Phoenix leaned over and kissed her cheek, then said something under his breath and kissed her neck below her ear.

“Hey, hey!” Tex waved his glass in the air. “None of that at the table.”

I sighed and hung my head.

I was surrounded by horny couples and my bleak future sat right across from me in the form of a Chris who probably wore white briefs and watched America’s Got Talent — hell the closest that guy had probably ever been to a gun was while watching his weekly recordings of dateline.

I shoved my plate away, it made a grating nose across the large wood table. I felt like a petulant child when Val gave me a murderous look. Please I was allowed to be immature, I was only twenty. Give me a break.

Trace scooted her chair out. “Chris why don’t you hang out with the men for a bit while we go clean up.”

Nixon frowned. “Sweetheart, you don’t need to clean shit, let the guys get it.”

The guys, me included, groaned in unison.

“Maybe the dish soap will help wash the blood from our hands,” Chase said as he waltzed back into the room, face indifferent. “I’ll wash if Nixon dries.”

“Hey I get to dry!” Tex argued. “Last time I washed I almost drowned.”

“Maybe don’t get drunk next time,” Phoenix piped up.

Frank stood. “I’ll wash.”

More groaning.

“I’d love to help!” Chirpy Chris said. Yup that was going to be his new name, Chirpy Chris. God, I wanted to punch him in the throat so bad my fist burned.

“Easy tiger,” Sergio whispered under his breath as he stood and pointed me toward the kitchen. “Your jealousy’s showing.”

“I’m not jealous.”

He snorted. “Right, you just keep reaching for your knife to make sure it hasn’t dislodged itself from your extreme sitting?”

“You’re a pain in my ass.”

He laughed. “Ah but at least I’ll keep your secret — not that it matters since the guys are about to clue in real soon if you keep clenching both fists like you’re about to charge her.”

I exhaled loudly and said through clenched teeth. “His name is Chris.”

At that Sergio laughed so loud we earned weird looks from Nixon and Tex. Sergio laughing was still a weird thing to witness — he’d been dealt a shitty blow and still had lingering guilt over it — but mainly his constant stress was bringing Val into a world he wished she never had to see.

And for that, I couldn’t hate him.

Not when I saw the way he touched her.

Cared for her.

“Dante, you helping?” Tex chucked a towel in my direction, I caught it mid-air and sighed, then twisted it into a whip and snapped it in his direction. The towel connected with his thigh. He cursed.

More towels were dispensed.

And war was started.

It was almost too easy with them.

Dishes forgotten.

We all took cover.

And poor Chris was defenseless.

I smirked at him.

Game on.