He nods.
“Then that’s my cue.”
I turn and walk back toward the shadows.
“The house always wins, Kratos,” Lukas calls after me.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to be the house, won’t I?” I toss over my shoulder before I disappear into the darkness.
I’ve got somewhere else to be.
Other shadows to stalk.
Someone else to be watching over.
Like I said: a promise is a promise. And I never break a promise.
5
BIANCA
“So, what do you think? Pretty good, huh?”
Silence fills the table. I glance to my left, locking eyes with Nico as a slightly distraught emotion creeps across his face. His throat bobs as he valiantly swallows the mouthful of what we’ve been told is cacio e pepe. Instantly, the pained look on his face deepens.
“Well?”
We all collectively pretend not to hear Vito’s hopeful question. I pull my gaze from Nico, turning to glance at Tempest sitting on my other side at the dinner table. She’s got an equally revolted look on her face. But after she downs her first bite heroically, she forces a huge smile onto her face.
“Oh, wow, Vito! This is…” Her smile falters a little as she looks past me at Dad. “I’ve never tasted anything like it…”
“Fuckin’ awesome, Pop,” Carmy beams, clearly the best actor at the table—or the one with a complete lack of taste buds.
It’s been two weeks since that night in the alley, and we’re all over at Vito’s house for a dinner he’s…well, I think “cooked” is an insult to real cooks. Concocted, maybe? Summoned from a demon realm with a blood curse?
Whatever he did, the bite of what can only very loosely be called “food” in my mouth is perilously close to making me gag.
“Yeah?!” Vito beams widely. “Fantastic. Eat your fuckin’ heart out, Emeril.” He clasps his hands together, rubbing them gleefully as he stands from his seat at the head of the table. “I’m gonna go open that second bottle of Chianti. You guys dig in.”
Everyone is all smiles until he leaves the room. Then it’s a mad rush to spit the bites of fuck-knows-what out into our napkins followed by large swigs of wine and water.
“That is straight-up poison,” Dante mutters from the other side of Tempest. “Fucking hell.”
“Oh c’mon,” Carmy grins. “It’s not…” He lifts a shoulder. “I mean it’s got its merits.”
Nico rolls his eyes. “A, no it doesn’t. And B, how do you fuck up cacio e pepe?? It’s literally cheese and black pepper on goddamn pasta.” He shudders, gulping down more Chianti. “I’m hiring him a chef.”
“The fuck you are,” Carmine grunts with a sharp glare across the table. “He loves cooking.”
“Yeah, but I like visiting without wondering if dinner is going to kill me,” Nico mutters back.
Carmy waves him off. “Suck it up already. It makes him happy.”
“Yeah, so does sunbathing in the nude,” Dante snickers. “But that doesn’t mean he’s allowed to do it in full view of the neighbors anymore.”
I make a puking face as Tempest cracks up next to me.
Carmy grins across the table at my brother. “Nah, just at your place, right? Lucky.”
This is all true. Vito was very much in the habit of “sunning himself” on the house’s rooftop patio. But as New York developed around the building, and more and more new neighbors had the misfortune to look out their window and see a sixty-something Italian man sipping Fernet and letting it all hang out, he was forced to change it up.
Now if he wants to sunbathe he has to drive out to Dante and Tempest’s Hamptons estate.
And they’ve now implemented a bathing suits required dress code.
“Anyone need seconds while I’m in here?” Vito yells from the kitchen.
The resulting near-unison “NO” from the table has us all covering our mouths and trying not to laugh.
“I’m good, Pop!” Carmy calls. He braces himself and starts to shove our dad’s disturbing attempt at cacio e pepe into his mouth.
Nico turns and dumps the contents of his plate into the container of a house plant behind him.
“You’re cleaning that shit up,” Dante mutters at him.
“Right, I mean, wouldn’t want to kill the begonias.”
Vito arrives back in the dining room with the open bottle of Chianti and takes his seat again. He grins at me, nodding his head encouragingly as I take another bite and force a smile to my lips.
