Bloodied Hands (Bellandi Crime Syndicate 1)

"I think I'm missing a certain requirement for having children," I chuckled. The waiter saved from whatever response she might have when he came over.

"Can I get you something to drink, miss?" he asked, and I gave him a smile that was probably a little too happy. I needed a drink for the way the conversation was about to turn. As much as I loved Amelia, I just couldn't sometimes.

"A mimosa, please." Duke chuckled, his face hitting my shoulder. I knew I was practically begging the waiter to bring me my drink tout suite, and there was no way anyone missed the tone.

"Are we ready to order brunch?" the waiter asked, totally barely cracking even a bit of humor.

Oh, he was good.

"Nope, just the mimosa for now!" I announced, flicking Duke in the forehead until he reared back with a flinch.

"That hurt!" he protested, rubbing at the spot with a crease in his brow.

"I'll have the nutella french toast with a side of bacon," Gendry said, handing his menu to the waiter. I turned my glower his way. "She'll have the crab benedict, hollandaise on the side." Not only had he thrown me under the bus by ordering his food, but the bastard had ordered mine.

It wasn't even like I could protest that he'd ordered wrong, because he hadn't. It was the same thing I got every week. I handed my menu to the waiter, shrinking back in my chair to pout while Amelia and Duke ordered their food. "I'll be right out with that mimosa, ma'am," the waiter announced before he turned to flee the table.

"How did I go from a miss to a ma'am? Did I age ten years in the last five minutes?" I teased, desperate to deflect Amelia away from the pointed way she looked at me.

"You two aren't getting any younger. When are you going to give me grandbabies?" I sighed, leaning forward to bang my head on the table. The woman had a very, very thick skull for this determination that Duke and I were meant to be an item.

"Shouldn't you be pressuring Gendry?" Duke asked. "He's older."

"And he also has never brought a girl home. I can't exactly pressure him when he's determined to remain eternally single, can I?" Amelia steeped her hands, and as soon as the waiter dropped my mimosa in front of me, I took a long swig.

"I've never brought a woman home either, mom," Duke laughed. Amelia raised a brow, turning her attention my way. "Ivory doesn't count. You know we aren't dating."

And we never would. I'd been friends with Duke since second grade. There was no way we would ever go there. "I don't understand you two," Amelia shook her head, sipping at her water in a polite way that made my gulp of mimosa seem vulgar. "I wonder who the kids will look like."

Oh, for fuck's sake.

It would be one of those days.

"I have a date," I interrupted. "Tonight." It didn't matter that I had no intentions of going on said date, but it was enough to deflate Amelia to sighing.

Duke stilled beside me. "Sadie set that up fast."

"Not him. Different date," I answered vaguely.

"Where did you meet this one?" Amelia asked with pursed lips. A look passed between her and Duke, and I ignored it. Neither one of them were fond of my failure of a dating life, for very different reasons. Duke worried I'd get involved with the wrong man and get hurt. Amelia hated everyone who wasn't her son.

"I've known him for a long time," I evaded. They both let the subject drop, and Gendry was nice enough to steer the conversation toward work and the tension melted away.

As much as I hated Amelia's insistence to make something out of nothing, Duke's family was as close to me as my own.

They were my family too, and when his hand rested on my thigh and he took my hand in his, I knew they always would be.

No matter what a colossal fuck up he might think I was when he found out about Matteo.

Seven

Matteo

I flipped back and forth through the pages. The folder Donatello had handed me felt obscenely light, and I knew there was no way in Hell he'd included everything there was to know about Ivory for twelve fucking years. I'd wanted to give the man the benefit of the doubt, since he so rarely did anything less than a thorough job. A quick scan confirmed there was something missing. A mishap with the printer no doubt.

I shoved the papers back in the file folder, standing from my desk chair and going in search of the man. There was a matter of hours before I would pick Ivory up for our date, and I needed all the information I could get.

God knew I would need it.