Last Words (Morelli Family 7)

“He gave you a fucking dress?” I demand, walking over and unzipping the bag, looking inside. This brings back shitty memories. Asshole knew it would.

“I won’t wear it if you’re bothered by it,” Carly assures me.

“He shouldn’t have sent it in the first place. He knows this pisses me off. He did this shit with Mia.”

She nods, like that makes sense. “He’s trying to get under your skin.”

Yeah, and it’s fucking working. I hate when he does shit like this.

“I’m not going to wear it,” Carly says, grabbing the bag and zipping it back up. “I have my own clothes. I don’t need to wear this. No biggie.” Before I can get worked up, she hangs the dress up on the closet door. Then she comes over to take my hand, drags me over to the bed, and tugs me on top of her. “I missed you today,” she tells me, raking her fingers through my hair.

My ire drops a level. “Oh yeah?”

“Mm hmm,” she says, looping her arms around my neck and tugging me down for a kiss. “How did everything go with your… the burial thing?”

“Okay, I guess. I made arrangements.” This is intensely unsexy, so I roll off her and just lie back on the bed. Carly curls up beside me, resting her head on my arm and running her hand absently across my chest.

“How are you feeling about all this? We’ve been so caught up in your cousin, we haven’t had a chance to talk about it.”

“I don’t know. I’m not really feeling anything. I know that sounds heartless, but… I don’t have emotional attachments to that man. I just hate how much I remind myself of him sometimes, if I’m being honest. Both of them, Mateo’s dad, my dad. They were both garbage, and I have not always been a better man than either one of them.”

“Give me an example.”

“Dom is an example,” I state. I don’t immediately go on, but Carly doesn’t press. “My dad… You haven’t met my sister Cherie yet, but she’s my half-sister. She was conceived the same way Dom was.”

“Oh. Shit. That’s a hell of a family tradition to carry on.”

“Yeah,” I agree, dimly. “Not one I expected myself to carry on, I’ll tell you that.”

“Well, I still think you’re a great man,” she tells me. “You’ve made some mistakes, but I think you’ve made a ton of progress since then. Look at how you were with Mia yesterday. You took responsibility for your actions. You were sorry for the pain you caused her. Would your father have expressed any of that?”

I roll my eyes at the thought of Ben Morelli being sorry for anything. “No. My dad was a dick. I guess he crashed Mia’s wedding and acted like an asshole. Called her a whore.”

“He sounds fantastic,” she says, dryly. “Too bad he won’t be at Easter dinner.”

I hesitate to bring this up, though I’m not entirely sure why. Things got a little rocky yesterday and I don’t want it to come off like I’m trying to buy off her feelings, but since she’s so much fonder of me today, I decide to bring it up. “You know, for all that my dad was an asshole, I’m his only heir.”

“That sounds important. Do you come with a castle?”

She’s joking, but I’m not. “Sort of. He has a house in Vegas, not quite as big as this one, but… big. I guess that’ll be mine now.”

“Is moving to Vegas something you want?”

“Technically, I could do more than just move there. I don’t know how well it would be received, but the way things are run in my family… eldest sons take over when the head of a family dies.”

Carly does not look remotely excited by the direction of this conversation. “Oh. Is that something you want?”

I shake my head. “Not really. I think I’d just get myself killed if I tried. I don’t have a team of my own to back me. I know a couple people in Vegas from when I went there with Mia last year, but no one who would want me in charge. My cousin Rafe would probably fucking kill me. I don’t even know if he wants to take over, but he’s the one that—”

Carly nods. “Possibly date-raped Mia, yeah, I remember you mentioning him.”

“Yeah, so he doesn’t especially like me. Plus, you know, if I wanted to take over any kind of leadership role there, I really should have been out there learning the ropes, not in Chicago. I did not follow any kind of path to leadership.”

“To be honest, I would hate that. I like our life the way it is. I mean, I wouldn’t object to maybe moving from the apartment to a house, but I hate these mob guys. I don’t want you to be one again. If that’s not something you want, I say let it go.”