"She doesn't like instructions," Avi told his father and grandmother.
"Hey, friends don't narc on friends," I told him, tossing an olive at him. It landed in his pasta, splattering up onto his chin, getting a belly chuckle out of him.
When I glanced back at Santi, there was another unreadable look on his face.
I had no idea what it meant.
But I did know how it made me feel.
Like a warm sensation across my chest.
Whatever the hell that was about.
Chapter Nine
Santi
We'd dealt with the whole shower scene the same way we'd dealt with the kiss.
Meaning not at all.
Avoidance wasn't my communication style, but in this situation, I wasn't sure how else things could be dealt with, and Alessa could continue to take care of Avi.
I couldn't exactly keep her on if we both admitted aloud that we had inappropriate thoughts about one another.
Sure, we both knew it without a shadow of a doubt now, but not actually saying the words made me feel justified in not going to my brother and explaining the whole situation.
Besides, after that night, nothing else had happened.
The first couple of days, we'd both given each other a wide berth when we crossed paths, always having Avi around as a buffer, only discussing things pertinent to his care.
After that, we'd fallen back into usual rhythms, even sharing a little conversation over morning coffee or after Avi passed out for the night.
I couldn't speak for her, but the time spent around her only made the situation more difficult for me.
It was fine to be attracted to her. She was beautiful. It was natural.
But to genuinely like her? Yeah, that shit was problematic at best.
I mean, for all I knew, all she saw when she looked at me as someone she wanted to fuck. It might have been purely biological.
"This office is not what I expected," Brio said, pacing around my space, picking up random items, tossing them up in the air, then putting them back in the wrong places. "Milo said you were rolling in it."
"And?" I asked.
"And this place looks like the office of some middle manager of a small tire company," Brio declared.
"Nice visual," I said, flipping through a pile of files on my desk.
"Your place looks like it's out of a design magazine, and you work like this?"
"Brit designed the apartment," I explained.
"And a blind five-year-old designed this place?" Brio asked, sitting up on a credenza I was pretty sure wasn't meant to hold that kind of weight.
"The furniture was here when I bought it," I told him, shrugging.
I'd been hardly more than a kid at the time, using a loan I'd gotten from the bank at a back-breaking interest rate, and dead-set on getting something going for myself, for my wife, for my kid. I didn't want to work for my father. And I didn't want to take my brother's pity money when he'd offered it.
I wanted to prove myself.
I wanted to give my family the life they deserved.
The business grew around my office. The main offices were professionally designed, had all the high-end shit.
"I keep it like this to remind me how far I've come," I told Brio, shrugging.
"Roots and shit. Get that."
"What's your place like?" I asked, smirking at him. "People hanging from meat hooks in the kitchen?"
"Don't be ridiculous. That would be unsanitary," he said, smiling big. "If I gotta string people up, I do it in the bathroom. Like a decent human being."
"Got anyone strung up right now?"
"Nah, man. Got someone on ice, though."
"I don't think I want to know what that means."
"Well, you know liquid nitrogen?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Funny. You wouldn't think something so cold burns. Big old fucking blisters. Hurts like a mother fucker too."
"Yeah, really didn't need to know that," I said, shaking my head.
"Eh, when we find the fuckers who killed your wife, figure you might want some ideas. I mean, you can't go wrong with the classics," he said, pulling a knife out of his pocket to start cleaning under his nails.
"I want them dead," I said, shrugging.
"Dead is good. Pissing themselves while you slice off fingers is better. But, hey, to each his own," Brio said, waving his arms out. "You about ready to bounce, or no?" he asked.
For who knew what reason, my brother wanted me to join Brio, acting like a bagman, collecting the big—the interest owed to us from a loan. It was a job beneath the brother of the boss of all bosses. But that said, I hadn't been in the job since the jump like the others were. I had to make my bones. I had to have my face on the streets, so people got used to seeing me, respecting me.
I wanted to be part of the Family. Even if it meant accompanying Brio's psycho ass on street work. But as we started making the rounds, I couldn't help but have my mind wander to Bryant Park instead, where Alessa was taking Avi ice skating.