“I’m making sauce, babe, I told you, no yelling when I’m making sauce!” He was, very clearly yelling just as loud as she was, though in the brief moments I’d been with any of the families I’d come to notice that was just how they communicated. Loudly. And often.

“Chase!” Mil rolled her eyes. “Can’t you see we have company?”

“Russians…” Phoenix, the Nicolasi boss nodded in my direction. “…aren’t truly company, more like—”

“A necessary evil?” Maya popped up.

Chase slowly turned around, his eyes zeroing in on Maya and the way she attached herself to my side. “You.” He pointed with the sauce covered spoon. “You can stay for dinner.”

“Chase has spoken.” Frank, boss to the Alfero family walked around us and took a seat at the head of the table and began pouring himself a generous amount of wine. “Nikolai…” He cleared his throat. “How is business?”

All talking ceased.

Smoothly, efficiently, I pulled the gun from the back of my pants, slid it across the table, released Maya, then pressed my hands against the wood. “Business is too good to mess it up by getting shot… surprised you didn’t search me sooner.”

“Consider it an olive branch,” Nixon said from behind me, his hands patting my chest, then legs, then arms.

When he was done all eyes turned to Maya.

“What?” she whispered. “You don’t think…”

“I’ll do it.” Mil stepped forward. “Although the guys are all happily married, I wouldn’t trust them not to cop a feel, especially my husband.”

“Shit, Mil, you know I’m not like that.”

“You’re getting sauce on the floor, Chase!” she snapped while he blew her a kiss and kept stirring the pot.

Everything was filled with life, even though everywhere you looked there was death. Maya probably had no idea that we were doing just that, courting death, by simply eating dinner with these people, but we were. And I wasn’t stupid enough to think that one false move wouldn’t end both our lives.

It was what they were good at, the Italians, disarming the situation, making you think that you really were walking in on a simple family dinner, when in all reality each person had a different weapon trained on you, just waiting for you to make a false move so they’d have an excuse to inflict bodily harm, and smile while doing so. It was their way. So completely foreign from the way I’d always done things, the entire situation felt eerie.

“Clean.” Mil stood and then winked in my direction. “Nice work, Nikolai, she’s got a great ass.”

Maya blushed profusely.

I cracked a smile, it took a giant effort not to burst out laughing. I’d always loved Mil. She reminded me of Andi in so many ways.

Just thinking of Andi’s name made an all familiar ache to spread from the middle of my chest out toward my limbs.

And like a dark cloud, the room once again was filled with a tense silence.

“She died well,” Frank said after a few seconds, his wine glass lifted halfway in the air. “She died brave.”

“Did she hurt?” Maya asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“No.” Frank’s blue eyes blurred with tears. “Had she been in pain, Sergio would have taken care of it.”

I wanted to be angry that Sergio offered to kill Andi… but I knew, in his mind, in the mind of the mafia, it would still be an honorable death, something she deserved.

“I wish I could have met her,” Maya said in a small voice.

I didn’t do comfort well, wasn’t sure if I was emotionally capable of doing anything more than wrapping my arm around her—especially in front of people who, up until six months ago, had been sworn enemies.

Mil was the first to speak. “She’ll always be with you, she’s persistent like that… Sergio says he sees her in the way rain falls, constantly hitting your face until you have no choice but to lift your chin toward the sky.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Then again he also sees her in a baseball bat, so maybe he’s come unhinged.”

“Do I get to meet him?” Maya asked.

Phoenix shared a pointed look with me before glancing at Maya. My stomach clenched with unease. Phoenix and I had a shared pain. It was only too easy to read emotions from his face, and he seemed not only worried but tired. “It’s probably best that you meet him later, at the funeral, right before you leave.”

Maya didn’t push him, though I’d expected her to.

“Shall we sit?” Frank motioned to the empty chairs. “Chase has prepared a meal for us to share.”

I wondered if Maya understood the importance behind breaking bread with your enemy—or the significance. That if Frank hadn’t offered food, we’d be on the opposite end of a gun instead.

Once pasta had been dished up, everyone began eating, everyone but Tex. I should have known the Cappo would have his doubts about me. He was, in essence, the godfather, though young, so young that I would have laughed at his power trip. But it wasn’t an act, he was a Campisi. He’d killed his own father in cold blood then shot two bullets between his eyes just in case.

He was ruthless, cold hearted, rumored to have no conscience. At times I wondered if we were related, since the same things had been said about me.

“Campisi,” I snapped. “Keep looking at her like that, and I make you squawk like a chicken every time someone snaps their fingers.”

Nixon chuckled behind a mouth full of bread while Tex’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “Do it and I’ll pull your intestines out through your ass.”

“Lovely,” a female voice said from the direction of the kitchen as she made her way along with two other women into the room. “Intestines? Really?” Mo Abandonato, Tex’s wife slid into a chair next to him followed by Phoenix’s wife Bee and Nixon’s wife, Trace.

They made the necessary introductions with Maya.

Tex bit down on his lip then reached for Mo’s hand while she whispered something in his ear.

“Squawk like a chicken?” Maya asked under her breath. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” Chase interjected from Maya’s other side, “that he’s a freaking hypnotist, amongst other things. Heard that last year he had one of Petrov’s men willingly walk into a raging fire. He burned alive, you could smell the singed skin hours later.”

I groaned, clenching my teeth together in rage, while Maya tensed next to me. Of course she did, it wasn’t exactly a glowing review of my humanity.

“So, how did you two meet?” Chase changed the subject. It would have been a welcome change, except for that story wasn’t exactly table conversation. I sighed. Then again, neither was talk of intestines coming out of asses.

“I work for him,” Maya said in a slow and steady voice.

Frank choked on his wine and began pounding his chest.

Shit. I knew exactly what Frank was thinking.

“Employee,” I said loudly. “Not a patient.”

“That is your business.” Frank answered.

I let out a sigh, the pasta feeling like a brick in my stomach. “She’s working on her master’s thesis on the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. During the day she does research for me. At night—“

“Do tell.” Chase chuckled darkly. “What do you do for the good doctor at night?”

Maya didn’t miss a beat. “You mean before the naked examination or after I screw him in my nurse outfit?”

His eyes widened.

Mil cackled. “You deserved that.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “You’re kidding?”

I smiled. “I think if she was being serious it would be a lot more exciting than a simple screw on an exam table, don’t you?”

Chase’s eyes narrowed.

I noticed Frank check his watch out of the corner of my eye. “It is time.” He stood, and the bosses followed while the spouses stayed sitting.

“Coming?” Phoenix challenged.

“Yes.” I stood then reached for Maya’s hand, pressing a kiss against her knuckles. “You’ll be safe. I promise.”

Her panic-stricken eyes didn’t make it easy on me. “Where are you going?”

“Don’t worry.” Bee winked at Maya. “We’ll watch movies and eat junk food… the guys will be just fine.”