The Woman in the Trunk - Jessica Gadziala Page 0,87

and a nice dress and heels to wear. Luckily for her, she was incredibly charming, and Christopher and Anthony had agreed without even thinking twice.

I knew she was trying to make up for lost time, but I felt so lazy compared to her. I'd ducked into the bakery once, flanked by guards, telling the workers about my father's disappearance, hiring one of the part-time workers as full-time now that the business was no longer indebted to the Costa family. I'd filed the missing person's report with Lorenzo at my side. And I had managed to go to the grocery store, stocking the house for all the hungry men in and out.

I thought it was a lot.

Until I heard what Celeste had been up to.

She'd also, apparently, been to the home improvement store.

"The house is being renovated, darling," she told me, dropping down into the chair across from me, giving me a smile. Her new long layers did wonders to frame her face, made her eyes look brighter, her features sharper.

"I, ah, yeah. Are you decorating?"

"Me?" she asked, brows scrunching. "Why would I ever redecorate the brownstone?"

"Because, technically, it is your house," I reminded her.

"Oh, that," she said, waving a hand in the air. "That is a formality. This house belongs to the family, Gigi. I won't stand in the way of that. Besides, I don't have great memories here. I am happier in Lorenzo's penthouse. It is nice to be up above the world after being below it for so long. Lorenzo and I decided to swap. But the brownstone will stay in my name. At least until he marries you. Then it will go in your name. The houses are better off in the woman's name," she clarified. "That way, if something happens and the war gets bad and the men don't make it, they still have some stability for themselves. For their kids."

"You know a lot about the families," I said, shaking my head. "Arturo didn't seem like the kind of man who shared that information."

"He wasn't. But his father was. And his mother. And my uncle. That was how we met. Through my uncle's connection to the Costa family. I was a Lombardi," she said, lowering her voice like the name was a sin, and I was starting to understand the power dynamic of the families after a couple long talks in bed late at night with Lorenzo.

The Costas were the upper echelon. Their closest allies were the Morellis and the D'Onofrios. The other two families, the Lombardis and the Espositios outwardly played by the rules, but did a lot of things behind the backs of the other families, were always hungry for more money and more power, maybe even the seat at the top.

"That has never been an issue? Loyalty-wise?"

"I had a very loose relation to the family back then. I was fascinated by the whole thing, don't get me wrong, but my parents were never directly involved, so it wasn't like anyone was worried about the alliance. If you can call it that. All Arturo and I did was wage war in private. But, thankfully, that is all over now. Because of you. So, you and Lorenzo, you are keeping the house. Which means you need to decorate it."

"I think that is more Lorenzo's place."

"Darling," she said, leaning forward, placing a fine-boned hand on my forearm. "These powerful men, they really don't care about the drapes and the backsplash in the kitchen. But since you will be the one in the kitchen, you do care. I hear you bake for the men all the time," she added, eyes warm. Dare I think it—approving.

"I am a much better baker than I am a cook," I admitted, shrugging.

"No worries, Gigi, we will work on that together. I know. I don't look like someone who knows a spatula from a frying pan, but I practically lived in the kitchen when the boys were young. They had hollow legs, I swear, always needing more and more food to fill up. But I loved that. Do you want children?"

"I do," I told her, smiling a little at the idea of a bunch of little green-eyed children running up and down the halls.

"You don't worry about bringing them into this?"

"Did you?"

"Of course. But that being said, the world as a whole is an ugly place to bring children. War and homelessness and people dying of preventable diseases, climate change, kids being shot in school—sorry, I have been binging the highlights of