Raffaele: Taming His Tempestuous Virgin

Orsini Brothers was born.

Their corporate baby flourished. So did the neighborhood around O’Hearn’s. Tired old tenements, including the one where Rafe had lived, were gutted and reborn as pricey town houses. A factory building became a high-priced club. Bodegas became boutiques.

The Orsinis could tell that O’Hearn’s days were numbered.

“We’ve got to do something,” Falco had grumbled, so they did. They bought the place, and it became the smallest and least noticed part of the Orsini Brothers’ holdings.

They cleaned it up, but only a little. Had the planked oak floor refinished. Tore out the worn leather stools and banquettes and replaced them with new ones. Everything else—the scarred wood tables, the pressed-tin ceiling, the long zinc counter, the beers on draught, the overstuffed sandwiches and killer grilled-with-onions burgers—stayed the same.

To the brothers’ shock, O’Hearn’s Bar—by now, simply known as The Bar—became what people referred to as a “destination.” Still, only the bartenders knew who owned it, and that was exactly how the Orsinis wanted it.

That way they could avoid the reporters from the Times and the Wall Street Journal as well as the ones from the tabloids. It wasn’t easy to keep your privacy when you’d created a company worth billions—and your old man was still numero uno whenever some damned investigative reporter dredged up the M word.

So, The Bar was the logical place to get together every couple of Friday nights, or maybe after closing on Saturday night if a date had proved especially memorable. It was also where you went if you just wanted to talk.

Like today.

Falco and Nick, back from their business meetings overseas, were already there when Rafe arrived. Only Dante was missing. He was off somewhere in South America. Nobody knew where or why. Rafe figured it had something to do with that Sunday morning meeting with Cesare but decided it was Dante’s business to talk about it, not his.

He sure as hell wasn’t going to say anything about what had happened at his Sunday morning meeting with his father…and if he wasn’t, what was he doing here? he thought, as he stepped from the sunlight into The Bar’s artificial gloom.

He’d phoned Nick and Falco on the spur of the moment. They’d both been at work, as he should have been, when he called. “Got time for a beer?” he’d said, and they’d said sure.

Now, seeing them, his gut knotted.

Why he’d suggested getting together was beyond him. He had a problem on his hands but he wasn’t about to lay it out for discussion. There was still time to turn around and walk away—but Nick looked up, spotted him and it was too late.

Nothing to do now but fake some casual conversation. Rafe fixed what he hoped was a smile on his face, sauntered over to their usual booth and slid in beside Falco.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

So much for casual conversation.

The bartender, who’d spotted Rafe the second he walked in, came over with an icy mug of ale.

Rafe nodded his thanks. His brothers watched as he took a long swallow.

“Well,” he said brightly, “it’s good to see you guys.”

Nick looked at Falco. “At least he doesn’t look as bad as he sounded.”

And so much for getting through this unscathed. Rafe concentrated on his mug of beer.

Falco shrugged. “He looks worse.”

Okay. Enough. Rafe looked up.

“I am,” he said, “right here. No reason to talk as if I weren’t.”

“Sure.” Nick nodded agreeably. “No reason not to tell you, to your face, that Falco’s right. You look like cacca.”

“Thank you.”

“You want compliments, you’re in the wrong place,” Falco said, but his usually hard expression softened. A bad sign, Rafe thought glumly. “So, you want to tell us what’s going on?”

Rafe thought of making another clever response, but what was the point? His brothers knew him too well to be fooled. Besides, he was the idiot who’d called this meeting and brought this on his own head.

“Nothing. It’s just been a long couple of days.”

Nick raised his eyebrows. “That’s it?”

Another shrug. Another swallow of beer. Then Rafe pressed the icy bottle against his temple, where a Chinese orchestra playing traditional Mandarin melodies had moved in to replace the departed trolls.

“I, ah, I have some things to sort out.”

“Such as?” Nick asked.

“Just…things.”

Nick looked at Falco. “Your turn.”

Falco scowled. Nobody could scowl quite like Falco.

“You want to tell us what’s happening? You don’t show up at the office—”