Emotion clogged her throat and Alessa balled her free hand into a tight fist. She bit her tongue for a moment to hold in her knee-jerk response and released a slow, measured breath. “Mom. I’m twenty-nine, I can travel on my own. And I’mworking, so this isn’t exactly a luxury vacation, you know.”
“Yes, yes, but—”
Alessa shoved to her feet. “And whywouldI be ‘right’ right now? Why are you trying to pretend we aren’t all shattered? Because I sure as fuck am. Al’s—”
“Yes, exactly! That brings me to why I was calling,” her mother said, hurrying to interrupt as she always did when the subject of Al’s death threatened to interject itself.
Alessa moved to lean against the window wall and choked on the exasperated sigh that built in her chest. “Which is?”
“You need a man.”
For the life of her, Alessa had not expected that. She couldn’t say why. It wasn’t like her mother had never tried playing matchmaker. Just the opposite, even. Her mother would much have preferred Alessa be a ‘normal girl’ and get married after high school, settle down with a man and start popping out babies and content herself with keeping house. The idea that Alessa had gone into field work—wasgoodat it—still kept her mother up at night.
Still…“Mom.” Alessa sighed out loud this time. “You heard about Mikey’s engagement, didn’t you?” When she had been little, Alessa had heard her mother joke so often about what a dream it would be if she and Michele De Salvo—the youngest brother, only a few months older than her—were to marry that she had actually believed they were betrothed. Al had laughed his ass off when he’d realized her confusion, before finally straightening her out.
“Just this morning!” her mother exclaimed. “Do you mean to tell me you knew and didn’t say a word?”
“I know a lot of things,” Alessa replied. “I don’t tell you all of them.” She didn’t share most of them, in fact. “What doesMr. De Salvo’s engagement have to do with me?” She had a guess, but she wanted her mother to spell the thought out in clear words. It was easier to pick apart that way.
Her mother sighed. “It got me thinking,” she said. “You’re almost thirty, Alessa.”
“I’m aware.” It was more like she was barely twenty-nine, but the difference wasn’t worth arguing. She’d been ‘almost thirty’ in her mother’s eyes for at least three years.
“And you’ve never had a stable relationship.”
“I’m busy.”
“You need a man,” her mother repeated. “You need a nice, strong Italian man to support you and take care of you. Maybe then you can finally stop running around like a wild woman, throwing yourself in danger all the time, too.” She paused for only a second. “And I wouldn’t mind some grandbabies.”
Alessa let her head drop against the glass. “Please stop.” She dragged in a breath. If her mother knew that the underboss of the Cavallo family had flirted with her over breakfast—no, that wasn’t a scenario worth stressing over. “I’m not in any rush to find a man, any man, right now. I’m content with my work. I have personal shit to unpack. And I am definitely not ready to be churning out babies. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“You would be surprised how quickly that can change,” her mother countered. “Maybe you’ll meet a nice man while you’re in Nevada.”
Alessa rolled her eyes. “Think about that, Mom. Any man who fits your description that I meet out here is likely to belong to the local family. How’s that gonna work?”
This time her mother paused. “Well … you said that family works for Mr. De Salvo, didn’t you? So you’re probably the authority there right now, anyway. You could just bring him home.”
You have got to be kidding me.“I oversimplified. I can see that was a mistake.” Alessa straightened and started for the stairs, too restless to stand still. “The Cavallos don’t workforthe De Salvos, they’re in alliance together. Essentially, Don Cavallo owes the Dragon a sizeable debt and to repay that debt, he’s promised to be a sort of extended limb for the De Salvo family when necessary. Most of the time they’re completely independent. I am damn sure not the top dog around here.” It wouldn’t serve her argument to admit she’d already had private meetings with the local bosses, though, so she left that out. “Moreover,” she continued, “I am not looking to poach manpower from any family, allied or otherwise. I am not here on a husband hunt, Mom. Stop pressuring me.”
A pout slipped into her mother’s voice. “Alessa, sweetie, I’m just worried about you. Having the comfort of a man in your life is a good thing!”
Alessa pinched the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she dug into the closet for a clean shirt, her words coming out a little sharper than she might have meant. “So is having a mother I could lean on to share my grief.”
Her mother sucked in a breath. A beat passed, and the faux-chipper tone had returned to her voice when she said, “You were right, I shouldn’t have called just to pester you while you’re working. Stay safe, sweetheart.” Then the line clicked. Just like that.
Tears of frustration and guilt built behind Alessa’s eyes and she tossed the phone toward her bed. In her heart she believed her mother meant well, but her tactics needed fixing. How was bringing a man into her life supposed to make everything better when the people already in it were so hard to talk to?
And why had she thought so quickly of Rocco, with his broad shoulders, his strong voice, and those damn dimples?
Rocco allowed Em to do the honors of kicking in the door of the interior office before he strode inside to the satisfying music of an unfamiliar male shriek. A shriek that surely came from the about-to-be-dead man sitting behind the helpfully metal desk directly opposite the door.
Em followed Rocco inside, undoubtedly standing to physically block the open doorway, just as the third man of their crew—Giovani—had been left to secure the front of the store.
Rocco kept his glare on the oily haired man at the desk and bit out the most critical question, despite that he already knew the answer. “You Lambert?”
A cell phone emitting tell-tale noises slipped from Lambert’s suddenly slack hand, cracking off the side of the desk and landing on the vinyl planked floor. “Wh-who the hell— What is this? You can’t just bargein here!”
Rocco took hold of the edge of the old desk, hefting it just far enough aside to drop the nearest metal leg down on the phone.
