“Crey! What the hell is going on?” My sister bursts into the penthouse, leaving Holly standing with her hand on the door.
“Greer, meet Holly. Holly, Greer.”
Greer spins, holding out a hand. “I’m so sorry. I’m not usually so rude. But normally my aunt doesn’t call me to tell me you’re my half brother and your dad is a mobster.”
Holly takes Greer’s hand and shakes it. “Don’t worry, we’re still absorbing the news.”
My sister rushes toward me, her suit jacket buttoned wrong and her eyes wild. “Seriously? What the hell is going on?”
“It’s okay, Gree. You probably know just as much as we do at this point.” I’m surprised my aunt called her, though. “You said Aunt Katherine told you? That’s shocking.”
Greer shakes her head. “She was damn near incoherent, and I’m assuming near the bottom of a bottle of something. She rambled about never approving of how he treated you, and that you had no control over what your mother did. Sins of the father; blah, blah, blah. I just needed to make sure you weren’t freaking out and getting ready to kill Uncle Damon or something.”
“I’m still working out a solution,” I say, but the power flashes twice and the entire penthouse goes dark. The overcast sky barely illuminates beyond the windows.
“Well, shit. Now I’m going to have to take the stairs when I leave. Do you have to live on the top floor, Crey?”
“It’ll come back on in a second. The building has a backup generator.” As Holly comes toward me and tucks herself against my side, my tone is wry as I say, “I’m sorry you two had to meet like this. I’d anticipated something a little less . . . dramatic.”
Holly’s soft laugh reaches my ears and calms me further. Even in the midst of craziness, she’s a calm place to land, it seems. “I have a feeling our lives are going to be dramatic for a while.”
“Not mine,” Greer says. “Mine is boring and is going to stay boring. No freaking missed connections gone viral for this girl.”
I raise an eyebrow, although in the dark, Greer can’t see it. Her words make me hope that the boyfriend who I absolutely don’t think is good enough for her won’t last long. If I do have those Mafia ties, maybe we could—
The power flashes back on, and Holly and Greer scream.
“That’s it,” Holly says. “I’m done with New York. People walk through walls here? Hell. No.”
I stiffen and pull Holly closer as my gaze lands on three men standing inside the doorway. They’re all imposing, but the one in the center draws my eye.
The likeness is eerie, but not identical, and yet I feel as if I’m staring into the eyes of a much older version of me. About thirty years older, if I have to guess. He has gray eyes, where mine are dark, and I have my mother’s fairer skin, instead of his deep olive tone. But the facial features are all there. He’s flanked by two men in suits. Bodyguards.
His inspection of me is just as close.
“Creighton.” His voice is deep and gravelly, also very much like mine, but with a hint of an accent.
“You sure know how to make one hell of an entrance,” I say. “I believe I’m at a disadvantage. I know who you are, but not what your name is.”
The man steps forward, and the suits move with him.
“Domenico Casso. Dom. And yes, I’m your father.”
Just like they did in Damon’s study, all my unconscious reactions become conscious. Every pint of blood pumping through my veins. Every cubic inch of oxygen flowing through my lungs. Every contraction of every muscle.
He holds out his hand and I shake it, noting the surreal quality of it all.
I’m shaking my father’s hand.
“How did you—?” I don’t even finish the question.
Apparently he knows not only where I live, but how to cut the power, get up to a penthouse apartment without permission, and that I just learned of his existence. And that’s really fucking creepy. If I learn he can read the thoughts going through my brain at this moment, I’m not sure I’ll be all that surprised.
“Elisabetta.”
“What?”
“She’s kept tabs on you for years. The whole of your life that you’ve lived with your aunt and uncle. She’s one of my people.”
The glimpse I got of her wringing her hands filters back through my brain, along with her quiet kindness to me during my childhood. “Elisabetta is on your payroll?”
He nods. “May we come in?”
I have a feeling there’s not much of a real question there. They may have helped themselves to entering, but it’s interesting that he’s maintaining a pretense of manners. This man makes his own rules.
Maybe the apple doesn’t fall so far from the tree, after all.
I step back. “Please do.”
They file in, and I lead the way to the seating area. When the two men remain standing behind the couch he chooses to sit on, my question comes of its own accord.
“Damon said you were a capo.”