Page 24 of Days Of Valentino

“He wouldn’t do that to me,” my brother says a little too confidently.

“Sure about that?” I raise an eyebrow at him.

“Nope.” Alessandro shakes his head from side to side.

Then I turn back to the rest of the room. “What are you all doing here?” No one answers me. Everyone goes silent as I look at Zio Romeo.

Running a hand through his hair, he sighs. “Your father sent us,” he says. “There’s been some threats against the family and he wanted us here with you.”

“What threats? From whom?” I ask him, although I know he’s not going to divulge that kind of information to me.

“Just some fuckers who think they can take us on. He’ll have it handled in the next couple of days, and then you can kick us out. Until then, I’m starving. What have you got to eat in this place?” Zio Romeo calls over a shoulder as he walks out of the room.

I follow him into the kitchen. “Where are Tilly and Zia Livvy?” I find it hard to believe he’d leave them in New York and come here if the family was under threat.

“They’re at Antonio’s,” he says.

“And you just left them? With him?” I’m sure he can hear the disbelief in my tone.

“Okay, look, I don’t want you to freak out, because we have it under control,” he says.

“Freak out about what exactly?” I press him.

“The threat isn’t against the family as a whole,” he says. “It’s against Travis.”

“What?” I screech, and not even a second later, Travis comes running into the room.

“What’s going on?” he asks. He’s now holding out my robe to me. I snatch it from his hand and shove my arms through the sleeves before knotting the tie around my waist.

“It’s fine. We’re handling it, Lil,” Zio Romeo says.

“It’s not fine. What’s the threat? What’s been said?”

“That,I’m not telling you,” he replies. “Some things you can’t unhear.”

“What’s going on?” Travis asks again.

“There’s no threat against the family,” I tell him. “Just you, apparently.”

“What threat?” Travis wraps his arms around my shoulders before pulling me against his chest.

“It’s nothing either of you need to worry about. Like I said, it’ll be handled in a few days,” Zio Romeo tells him.

“Fine, it’s nothing we need to worry about.” I turn in Travis’s arms. “Let’s go to the market. I want fresh flowers.” I smile up at him. And I swear every time I look at this man, I swoon.

“You wanna go to the market?” he asks.

“Yep.” I nod my head.

“You’re not leaving the house, Liliana,” Zio Romeo grunts.

I wink at Travis, then spin back around to face my uncle. I put on a huge fake-ass smile. “But you just said it was nothing we needed to worry about. That means we can go out,” I remind him in a sugary-sweet voice.

“Jesus Christ, the females in this family are going to be the death of me,” Zio Romeo hisses under his breath. He straightens up and aims a finger in my direction. “You didn’t hear this from me.”

I nod eagerly at his warning. “Got it.”

“Your apartment in the city was broken into. Whoever it was left a note that mentioned some things about Travis.”

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