name their firstborn after Luca just to spite me. And Phoenix was so in love with her, he’d let her.
That shit wasn’t going down on my watch.
I let myself in their apartment and, at first, I thought I made the biggest mistake of my life when I heard my sister call out Phoenix’s name, but I quickly thanked my lucky stars when I heard Phoenix’s firm, but calm, voice answer her.
“Francesca, what would you have me do?”
“Whatever you can, Phoenix!” she yelled.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I teased, walking into their living room. “Honeymoon over already?”
Frankie’s head turned my way, and fire flashed in her eyes. “You!” she screeched.
“Thank fuck,” Nix mumbled, throwing his head back and praying to the gods.
“What’s going on?”
“None of your business,” Frankie growled, properly putting me in my place.
Except she was wrong.
Anything to do with my family was my business.
I looked over at my brother-in-law. “What’s going on?”
Before Nix could tell me, Frankie turned her rage my way. “What are you doing here, Ciro? Shouldn’t be off somewhere tending to your delicate emotions?”
Well, damn.
Ouch.
“Retract your claws, Frankie,” I chuckled. “I’m here to make amends.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Nix grumbled and shook his head at me.
Confused as fuck, I drawled out, “I’m nooooot here to make amends?”
“You want to make amends?” Frankie spat.
“Francesca-”
My eyes danced back and forth between the insane couple and I knew I was missing something. Frankie was upset about something and, this time, I was pretty sure it wasn’t me. I’d say Nix was the culprit.
“What’s going on?” I asked again.
Phoenix let out string of curses before finally cluing me in. “Earlier when Frankie was in the shower, Robbie called.” My back immediately straightened because I knew something was wrong if they were fighting over Robbie. “She…asked me some questions about Randy and Frankie wants to run off to Cedar Creek on her white horse and save the day.”
“Oh, my God,” Frankie shrieked. “Quit being a dick, Phoenix.”
My eyes still ping-ponging between the two lovebirds, I asked, “What questions?”
Before Phoenix could answer, Frankie’s wrath was, once again, directed my way. “Why do you care?” she barked. “Christmas would probably come early for you if something happened to her.”
“Okay, stop,” I commanded of my sister. “That’s enough.”
The angry girl snarled at me, and I didn’t envy Nix not one bit. “That’s far from enough, Ciro,” she shot back. “You’ve done nothing but treat one of my dearest friends like shit since day one. Don’t act like you give a shit now.”
“Frankie, if it concerns you, it concerns all of us,” Nix said, coming to my rescue. “Don’t treat your brother as if he doesn’t have rights.”
Frankie whirled around towards her husband. “But it doesn’t concern me, right?” she challenged. “I’m supposed to be kept in the dark again, while she’s out there alone facing God knows what!”
“Goddamn it!” Phoenix exploded. “That’s not how it happened, and you know it!”
“What the fuck is going on?!” I roared, needing to get to the heart of the matter.
Frankie mean-mugged me, but she answered anyway. “I was in the shower and Robbie called. After back-to-back calls, Phoenix answered thinking it might be an emergency or something.”
“Okaaay….”
“It turned out to be a little bit of a something more than an emergency,” Nix added sardonically.
“Just fucking tell me already,” I growled.
Nix picked up where Frankie left off. “She wanted to know if Randy mentioned a box when we were torturing him.”
I froze.
Out of all the things I expected him to say, that wasn’t even close.
“What?”
Phoenix let out an exhausted sigh. “She was talking in the most ridiculous code, but I got the gist of it. Randy had a box and whoever it belonged to wants it back.”
“Code?”
“Yeah. She was talking about heirlooms and how the grandparents wanted it back since the…heir wasn’t going to need it anymore, or some such nonsense,” he explained.
“And?”
“I told her the truth,” he bit out. “I left out the part about him missing his tongue by the time I got to him, but seeing as how she was already terrified that her phone could be tapped and was talking in code, I figured the fewer details she knew, the better.”
“Did you ask Luca-”
He was already shaking his head. “When I told her many conversations had taken place during our party, and I offered to ask around, she said no. She suddenly got cagey and asked that I forget about the entire conversation.”