Page 31 of Dominance

Ciro’s eyes bulge, then narrow. “Ooh, I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to turn this thing around on me. Reverb psychology.”

“It’s reverse psychology, dingus.”

“Exactly, see?”

“Is there an echo in here?” I mutter, rubbing my face with both hands. “If you two want to just pretend I’m not here, I could actually just go…”

“And do what?”

“Anything else, literally,” I laugh.

“Oh, so leave us here to do your job watching Dom and marrying his hot daughter? I don’t think so, Adri. You know, you could stand to think about someone other than yourself every now and again.”

I glare at him, feeling my temperature rise quickly.

Ciro explodes into laughter after a tense second of staring me down. “Fuck! That look on your face could scare the stripes off a tiger!”

His laugh and his absurd comparisons break my irritation like nothing can.

“So this is it. This is what we got left. What we got to work with?” Ciro follows up, sobering some.

“This and each other. We’re a family. Never forget that.”

I can’t believe how much I sound like Alessandro.

“Right. A family minus one, minus an empire, minus millions and millions of dollars in assets.”

“Well, we got some assets. There are accounts Dom doesn’t know about, fortunately.”

“That we can’t really use.”

“For now.” Ero looks at both of us pointedly.

“For now,” Ciro agrees.

“The most important thing to remember right now is that we need to stick together, keep our heads on straight, figure out what we’re going to do next. One step at a time.”

“Gee, gosh, coach, that’s a good game plan,” Ciro snickers.

“Thanks for this, Adri,” Ero adds, nodding sincerely.

“I wanted you to know that I am trying. Let’s get moving before anyone wonders where I got off to, huh?”

We climb out, covering the entryway, and heading back to the car.

“Speaking of you getting off, how’s your fiancée doing?”

“She’s, uh, shut the fuck up?” I snap back.

“Oh, come on. Tell us about her.”

“I don’t know much. That’s the problem. I get the impression she doesn’t want to marry me any more than I want to marry her. Except when she’s acting just like her father. So yeah. Sometimes she’s a snake. Sometimes she’s…different.” I shrug, feeling frustrated and more than a little worked up.

“Alright, that’s fair. What do you know about her, though? What’s real?” I know what he’s trying to get at, and he’s not wrong.

But I’m feeling difficult.

“She has red hair.”

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