Bloody Heart (Brutal Birthright #4) - Sophie Lark Page 0,26

eyes either. I should marry a girl from a mafia family—someone who understands our world. It would form an alliance. Help keep our children safe.

Plus there’s the issue of the scrutiny it would bring, to marry someone like Simone. The Gallos stay out of the spotlight. We always have. It’s called the “underworld” for a reason—because we don’t get our picture in the society section of the Tribune.

That’s what happened at the masquerade ball. Someone took our picture, and the next day the Times published a center spread photo of Simone and me, waltzing around the museum ballroom. Luckily, I was wearing a mask, but Papa was far from impressed to see the caption: “Simone Solomon, daughter of Yafeu Solomon, dances with an unknown guest.”

Papa gets all the newspapers. He slapped it down in front of me, right across my breakfast plate.

“I didn’t know you were a patron of the arts,” he said.

He had already met Simone. But I’d promised him that she and I were keeping a low profile.

“You can’t see my face,” I told him.

“This infatuation is going too far. Her father isn’t stupid—he cultivates his daughter like one of his hotel properties. She’s an asset. One that you’re devaluing, publicly.”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” I snarled, looking up into my father’s face.

I could see his anger rising to meet mine.

“You’re young, Dante. There are many beautiful women in the world.”

“Not for you there wasn’t,” I told him.

Papa flinched. He’s not a sentimental man, not a man who shows weakness. When my mother was ripped away from him, his attachment to her created a hole. Because he can’t talk about her without emotion, he doesn’t talk about her at all.

“Your mother wasn’t from our world. That was hard on her. A woman shouldn’t marry a man like me, or you, unless she’s raised to accept certain realities.”

“Mama accepted them.”

“Not wholly. It was the only point of conflict in our marriage.”

I stood up from the breakfast table, so abruptly that my movement shoved the heavy table, slopping fresh-squeezed orange juice over the rim of the carafe.

“I’m not going to stop seeing her,” I told my father.

Now I’m telling Simone that she needs to make her choice as well. She’s delayed school by a few months, but eventually she’ll have to decide.

Parsons or Cambridge?

Me, or the man her father would pick out for her?

I have to take Simone back earlier than I’d like.

I drop her off at the library, her excuse for where she said she was going today.

I see her chauffeur Wilson already parked down the street, waiting to pick her up.

I don’t like the subterfuge. I hate feeling like her dirty secret.

Since I’ve got time to kill, I swing over to Seb’s school and pick him up.

He comes out the front doors as soon as the bell rings, his basketball tucked under his arm. It’s as much a part of him these days as his shaggy haircut, or the silver chain with the medallion of St. Eustachius that he always wears. Our uncle Francesco used to wear it, until he was killed by Bratva.

Seb smiles when he sees me. “I didn’t know you were coming,” he says.

“Thought you might want to go to the park,” I reply, knocking his ball out of his hand and stealing it from him.

“Yeah,” Seb says. “Let’s see if you can do that on the court.”

I take him over to Oz Park, where there’s plenty of open basketball courts. I’ve got a pair of shorts in my trunk, sneakers too. No shirt though, so I don’t bother with that at all. Seb shucks his off, too. He’s skinny but starting to get ropey with muscle. He’s almost as tall as Nero now, even though he’s only thirteen.

We play “make it, take it,” half-court. I let Seb take possession first. He tries to get around me, and he’s fast as fuck, but I’m still faster, at least with my hands. I strip the ball off him, take it back to the line, then shoot a three right over his head.

It swishes through the hoop, not even glancing the rim.

“Yeah, yeah,” Seb says, as I tsk at him.

I’m the one who taught Seb to play. I’m the one who took him to the courts every day after our mother died, when he was so low that I didn’t see him smile for a year. It was hardest on him and Aida—or at least, that’s what I thought at the time. They were only six