Family Ties (Morelli Family 4)

Chapter Thirty Seven

Salvatore

Francesca’s pretty out of it after she learns of Joey’s death. I feel kind of bad for not telling her beforehand since I knew, but I didn’t want to be the bearer of that particular bad news.

I guess it worked out, but I still feel awful. I know she was looking forward to bringing me to their family dinner tonight after the disastrous incident of her meeting my mom. Now she’s going through the motions as we follow everyone else to the dining room. Mateo takes his seat at the head of the table, and Mia pauses by presumably her seat, right between Vince and Mateo. That’s gotta be comfortable. She leans down and murmurs something to Vince before heading to the kitchen.

Francesca takes me over to two chairs on the opposite side of the table. There’s an empty seat on Mateo’s other side, presumably for the woman he’s actually engaged to, and lucky me, looks like I get to sit by her. Which puts me directly across from Vince.

Well, since I get a front seat, maybe I can figure out why he’s still alive, because damned if I can figure it out. Mateo clearly knows he was involved in the attempt on his life, and I don’t know what his play is, so that makes me nervous. There’s no way he lets him live after pulling something like that. He can’t. It would read to Vince as blatant weakness, and that’s not how Mateo runs his shit. Add to that the fact that he clearly has feelings for Vince’s girl, seems like a well-placed bullet would solve a lot of Mateo’s problems.

Then again, that didn’t work out so well for Vince. Doesn’t seem to me there’s much love left between Vince and Mia, but she shouldn’t have any for Mateo either, and she’s alienating her own boyfriend for trying to kill him. Maybe Mateo is waiting to see how that shakes out. If she gets over Vince trying to kill Mateo, stands to reason she’d probably eventually get over Mateo killing Vince.

Women have a tendency to get weird when you want to kill someone they used to love. I would know; every time I try to get all chivalrous and take out some worthless asshole for wronging them, the women in my life have a cow.

There’s a little confusion I don’t immediately understand about who’s going to serve Alec. Apparently Francesca always used to, but now that she has me she shouldn’t? Adrian’s lady winds up saying she’ll just do it and heads to the kitchen before anyone can agree or disagree.

Once Francesca takes her seat to my right, I lean over and ask, “Why weren’t you allowed to give your brother food?”

“Women only serve their own men on Sundays. It’s a respect thing. You’re not a Morelli so it doesn’t matter to you, but it’s tradition.”

That’s dumb, but whatever floats their boats, I guess.

She no more than says that and I sense a surge of tension across the table. I glance over and see Mateo’s hand on Mia’s wrist, apparently to get her attention. Vince clutches his knife and cuts into his salad like it just insulted him.

I hear Mateo murmur to Mia, “My place setting is missing a salad fork. Could you go grab one for me?”

“Of course,” Mia says, immediately pushing her chair back and rising to do his bidding.

Once she’s in the kitchen, the woman to my left remarks casually, “I could’ve grabbed it for you.”

“You’re already sitting.” He gestures with his eyes to her midsection, apparently blaming her wound. How considerate of him, not to make her stand back up. I have to smirk a little as I grab my own fork. Motherfucker’s crafty. He probably had a salad fork and just ditched it under the table when no one was looking.

He also still has his regular fork. I know they go all out for these dinners, but he wouldn’t actually die if he used the same fork twice.

Regardless, Mia comes back and gives him his unnecessary fork, then takes her seat to his left. Vince vibrates with resentment. Unless it’s because Mateo doesn’t want to piss off Mia, I’m no closer to understanding why he’s alive. My money’s on that right now. I would be amused to consider the merciless Mateo Morelli wound that tightly around some girl’s finger, but Francesca has a pretty good hold on me, so I don’t have much room to talk.

Meg is watching me, so I finally look at her. “Can I help you?”

She shakes her head, smiling cheerfully. “Just taking it all in. It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, it seems like we have a lot to catch up on.”

I nod, glancing down at her abdomen since that’s where I heard she was shot. “Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t have anything to do with it, but, you know.”