My eyes flared wide. "I have."
Eoghan, Declan, and Aidan shook their heads. "No," they murmured, confirming they had no idea who the family was.
"Seriously?" I muttered. "Call yourself mobsters? Don’t you know who the enemy is?"
"While you’re completely correct, Savannah, my brothers aren’t complete dimwits. The Valentinis were extinct by the sixties.
"As far as I know, they retreated to Sicily to lick their wounds after the Fieris came close to wiping them out when they took over New York."
"Jesus," Conor murmured. "That was way back in time. But I remember Da and Grandda used to bitch about them. Said they were sons of bitches. But it was kind of nostalgic? Like, those were the good old days, kind of thing. By comparison, while they were enemies and Italian, they were angels." To me, he said, "Da hates the Fieris."
"Not that there are many left now," Declan said with some satisfaction.
I snorted. "Not sure anybody ever liked them. But are you supposed to like a Mafia family?"
Conor snickered. "Remember who you’re talking to."
I shot him a sheepish smile. "Oops."
Conor grinned, his humor morphing and transforming his entire face once more. "I like her."
Declan nudged him in the side. "You don’t like anyone."
"That’s not true. I’m just very particular. Is it my fault that people are sons of bitches?"
Eoghan shook his head. "Your intolerance is showing."
"I didn’t realize I had to be tolerant," Conor said with a frown, his confusion clear.
"Don't feel like you have to be tolerant for my benefit," I said, amused at how perplexed he was. He grinned at me again, erasing at least five years off his face with that one small gesture. "See? I knew I was right to like you."
Hiding a smile of my own and deciding to get the subject back on track, I turned to Brennan and queried, "I've never heard of a Valentini who did half a Cheshire cat grin."
"What do you know about the Valentinis?" he countered.
"Everything. I'm a mafia/mob aficionado." I shrugged, unashamed to admit to such a pastime. "I've always been fascinated by the underworld. I'm pretty much an encyclopedia on the topic," I boasted.
"Let me guess, that's how you got into trouble with the family," Declan said wryly.
"You'd be right. But let's face it, if I hadn't met Aidan, I might not be here today. So I figure everything happens for a reason."
"You'll have to explain that logic," Eoghan countered. "As far as I can tell, there's no correlation between the two.
"Whether or not you knew us, that attacker would still have come after you. You exposed a lot of powerful men yesterday, that was always going to have repercussions."
"I'm only in this building because I know it's owned by an O'Donnelly." I cast Aidan a look. "That's why I moved underneath the penthouse. Everybody knows the O'Donnelly boys live in their father's apartment buildings." Because I was nosy, I asked, "I know that he doesn't hand them out eldest first. So... what do you have to do to earn an apartment?"
"That's enough family history for one day," Aidan argued.
"I've barely heard any family history at all," I complained.
Conor snickered. "Some shit you really just don't want to know. Anyway, Miss Encyclopedia, tell us about the Valentinis."
"It's a little off topic, isn't it? From, you know, the murderer downstairs..."
"You're alive," Conor reasoned. "That means he's not a murderer. Yet."
I squinted at him. "Attempted murderer, then."