“Get Zara in here, Dre and Stella are on their way over too.”
“What the hell, Tristan? Why are you in my house screaming at me on a Saturday morning before I get rid of my morning wood?”
There’s a knock instead of a call for these visitors, since the guards know he’s already awake. Creed stomps over, and I hear the door open a moment later.
“What’s this about?” Andre asks Creed.
“No idea. But it better be life and death, or I’m going to murder our dear cousin.”
“That makes two of us,” Dre says before he appears in the living room with his wife right behind him. Stella looks a little green and even more annoyed than usual.
And not that I planned to look, but her boobs are gigantic even in the oversized sweatshirt she thinks will hide them.
Aw, shit. Big tits and looking like she’s gonna vomit can only mean one thing. I’ve seen enough pregnant chicks to know she’s knocked up. Not that any of them were pregnant by me. That’s the one good thing about being celibate for the past few weeks, not having to worry about an accidental pregnancy.
“Are you going to stop staring at my wife’s tits and tell us what this is about or what?” Dre asks, snapping me out of my assessment.
“Just as soon as Zara joins us.”
“She’s obscenely pregnant,” Creed huffs. “I’m not waking her up.”
“Then I guess we’ll all have to wait —”
“Did you just call me obscenely fat?” her voice asks before she appears in the living room wearing a robe that matches Creed’s pajama pants. How disgustingly cute.
“No,micetta mia. I meant you’re very, very pregnant and need your rest.”
“Oh, stuff it up your ass.” Zara takes a seat on the sofa and tucks her feet underneath her. “Hi, Stella, Dre. I’d offer you breakfast, but we give our cook the weekends off,” she remarks with a glare at me.
“Fine, I’ll make this quick. Which one of you sent the shitty, unprofessional assassin after the DA last night?” The four of them all look at each other, but none look surprised by the news. “Goddammit! I told you to give me until Monday!”
“It wasn’t me.” Creed takes a seat next to Zara and wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Is my wife getting impatient?”
Zara shakes her head. “I’m pregnant. Killing someone innocent would probably curse our child. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take with karma.”
“Dre?” Creed asks. Our cousin, who is determined to get out of the charges to keep his law license, shakes his head.
“I’d prefer to take matters into my own hands if I were that desperate. Which I’m not.” He shrugs and looks at Stella with a tilt of his head, no doubt finally noticing her greenish hue or big boobs. “Anything you want to tell us,mia dolce vipera?”
Ugh, these cheesy Italian nicknames my cousins came up with for their significant others makes me want to barf. I give a fake gag, and Stella’s palm covers her mouth. “I need to use your restroom,” she mumbles before she runs off.
“Sorry.” Dre cringes. “I think she’s got some sort of stomach virus.”
“Poor thing,” Zara remarks but doesn’t look concerned about catching this so-called nasty virus. “I’ll go check on her and ask if she hired the hitman.”
“A shitty hitman who missed by a mile!” I call out as she follows the newly pregnant woman. “It was Stella,” I assert, and Dre’s face turns an awful reddish-purple shade.
“Do you want me to kick your ass? Because my wife isn’t a —” He stops short of saying she’s not a killer because we all know that’d be a lie.
Stella has killed — Creed’s father in fact.
Not that the asshole didn’t deserve her wrath after assaulting her when she was intoxicated, but it still required careful planning and carrying out his death in a way that wouldn’t fall back on her.
Running his fingers through his dark hair, Dre says, “Unless Saint gave her the money, it wasn’t Stella. We share a checking account, so I would’ve noticed if she withdrew a ton of cash.”
I want to blurt out that’s she’s obviously pregnant and would do anything to keep her baby daddy out of prison, but that’d be an asshole move since she hasn’t told him the news. I’m guessing Stella knows if she did, it’d send Dre off the deep end and into taking out Kirsten on his own. Stella probably thought she was doing him a favor when she hired the piece of shit. Or either Saint hired him for her…
I pace in front of the view of the wintery, sleepy city until the women join us again. Stella’s color has returned to normal, so I ask her, “Did you or your brother send the assassin?”
