“Could you come back to the real world for a second?”
Greta sighed, but set the phone down. “Better?”
“Slightly. Last day of classes before Christmas break, so try to make the best of it, and not get too bored. Also, did you finish that essay last night that you needed to hand in?”
“Yes.”
“Last night at one in the morning,” Giulia grumbled in the back seat.
“At least I did it.”
“I could hear you clicking keys through the wall.”
Ginevra focused her attention on the horrible traffic in front and wondered why she didn’t just send the girls to their school in a fucking cab. She didn’t remember bickering with her sisters as much as the other two did. Oh, she loved them to death, to be sure. Sometimes, they still got on her last nerve.
Especially when she was running late for her extra college class, had gotten halfway through her coffee that morning, and hadn’t seen either of her men in two weeks. Ginevra needed a hell of a lot of things and listening to her sisters fight was not one.
“Can we hold off on the arguing until I drop you off?” she asked, not hiding the sarcasm in the slightest.
Greta rolled her eyes. Giulia stuck out her tongue when Ginevra checked the other girl in the rearview mirror. Nothing unusual for either of them, really.
Truth was, they were good girls. Normal teenagers, all things considered. They had their moments, and sometimes a bad attitude that made Ginevra squint. At the same time, they didn’t get in trouble, took care of their business, and over the last couple of months, somehow realized on their own time that Ginevra had her own life she was trying to start and take care of them.
They were sensitive to that, never trying to take time away from Ginevra with Corrado and Alessio when they were around, even though they didn’t have to worry about doing that at all. The guys never tried to take time from her sisters.
Thankfully, the girls quieted for the rest of the drive. Which was another forty-five fucking minutes for three goddamn blocks—New York traffic was terrible, and it reminded Ginevra daily that allowing Corrado to buy this stupid SUV was pointless. Oh, she loved it, to be sure. People got out of the way when something bigger was coming through, but that meant nothing when traffic was almost at a gridlock.
Every single day.
Ginevra was just pulling into the drop-off line when she noticed a familiar black Porsche parked along the side of the street. Cutting back out onto the street, she turned a hard left, and swung in beside Alessio’s car. Standing beside it looking like absolute sin and love in his usual black jeans, and leather jacket overtop a plain tee, he winked at her when she cut the engine.
When had he gotten back?
Where was Corrado?
“Siena is picking you two up today, I’ll drop off your overnight bags for the weekend later,” she told the girls as they all unbuckled. “Don’t forget, okay?”
“Got it,” Greta said, pushing out of the front of the vehicle.
“Yep,” Giulia echoed.
Their similar greetings to Alessio sounded as Ginevra got out of her side of the SUV, and rounded the front, tightening her tweed jacket to keep out the late December cold from seeping into her bones. The beanie on her head with the pompom on top helped too, at least, keep her ears warm, but she’d forgotten mittens in her rush to leave. Her fingers felt like icicles, so she hid them by tucking her hands inside the pockets of her jacket.
Greta and Giulia, despite being almost late for school, seemed to forget all about classes at the sight of Alessio. They chatted away as Ginevra stood a few feet back, giving him the inquisition about where he had been, and what new thing they had planned to do with him this time.
Because ... that’s what they did.
Ginevra didn’t understand how it happened, but she loved it. She couldn’t be more grateful that Corrado and Alessio spent time with her sisters when they were with her. Alessio took them out—movies, a day out, whatever they wanted. Corrado was the one who always brought something back for them, be it a small item from wherever he had been, or a story to tell.
They loved it.
Ginevra realized, after a month, that the boys were kind of like big brothers the girls never had because they were certainly nothing like their dead half-brothers. But less annoying, and a hell of a lot more fun.
“The new Marvel one, then?” Alessio asked.
“Can Siena come?” Greta asked.
Alessio chuckled. “Of course.”
“Deal.”
“And Corrado will come for it, too,” Alessio added.
“Is he back, too?” Ginevra asked, the first time she had spoken at all, actually. Alessio’s gaze turned on her, and she swore that her heart stopped for a split second when he grinned, and all of his attention was only on her. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he murmured, “and if he isn’t already, he will be. A surprise for us, I guess. All I was told is that I’m supposed to take you to a certain address he texted me this morning at a specific time.”
“A surprise for what?”
That wasn’t like Corrado at all. He planned everything. And everybody needed to be made aware of those plans. That way, everything would go off without a hitch. Alessio was the spontaneous one, doing things just because he wanted to, and he figured it would be fun.
Alessio shrugged. “I can only say what I was told, babe. And don’t these two have classes?”
Greta opened her mouth to reply with something smartass, likely, but the ringing bell across the street at the high school stopped her from saying anything at all. He gave the two a look, they sighed, and said a quick goodbye before darting across the street.
That’s all it took.
Just the girls to be gone.
Alessio closed the distance between him and Ginevra in a flash. She forgot all about the cold December wind, and her frozen fingertips when he locked her in his embrace and dotted her mouth with kisses.
Ginevra hummed against his mouth. “Missed you.”
“Shit, me, too. Congo was good, though ... quick.”
That’s about all he or Corrado ever gave about a job for The League, and she tried not to ask for more details. It was simpler that way, and she worried less. Not that she didn’t worry at all because she still did.
Still, the Congo assignment he had just come back from would be his last for a few months. He chose to take time off, a spread of months to spend with Corrado, and her. Corrado had already started his time off, but he’d needed to head back to Vegas for a couple of weeks to do things there.
Her tiny apartment would be full.
This thing of theirs wasn’t easy.
No doubt about it.
They did their best, though.
And she couldn’t ask for more.
“So, when is this surprise?” she asked.
Alessio smirked sinfully, using the tip of his finger to slide along her bottom lip as he murmured, “After your classes at the college today.”
“Damn, I hoped for an excuse to get out of them.”
“I can think of a few,” he replied, “but then Corrado will bitch because you chose education, and you should have it.”
“He’s not wrong, though.”
“But we don’t tell him that, Ginny. It makes his ego grow.”
Where was the lie?
• • •