Giovani chokes on the water he has just taken a drink from, and Luca sputters a laugh.
“That little trick was fucking amazing. Like talk about using the assets to the fullness of their ability.” Tony looks at me like I’d lost my head at saying this.
Giovani glares daggers at me, and I can’t help but crack a smile.
“You can glare all you want, we all know that your glad that you didn’t send Luca in to meet her, the whole night would have ended up with him trying to fuck her,” I say, my brow arched in defiance.
Luca has no shame, and starts laughing, “Hell, you’d be calling me for direction I’d have her fall in love with me in no time at all.”
Tony cuffs him in the back of the head, “She’d have YOU in love with her, not the other way around. Good thing Bones is there to keep her out of your clutches.”
Luca scoffs, and Giovani looks at them both, “I thought they weren’t fucking,” Luca said.
“We’ll looking at her Dossier,” Giovani starts.
“Hold it, her dossier. You fucking have a dossier on her now?” I ask.
Giovani looks at me like I’m stupid.
He picks up a file, “Priest, Twenty three years old, closest associates: Bones Harney, Angel Demarco, Cobra Coretti; Relationships: two year relationship with Warwick O’Shaughnessy,” he starts but that name casues him to pause.
“What is is?” I ask, because nothing usually trips of Giovani.
“That name just seems…familiar.” He says, then continues on to list all of Priest most frequented places. But something about that pause makes me feel unsettled.
I turn back and watch the building until he finally stops listing all of the things about Priest that he could get his hands on.
“You do realize that she’s not going to appreciate being kidnapped,” I start, and I hear Tony hum his agreement before Giovani cuts me off.
“Then she shouldn’t be acting like a child,” he says, his voice holding heat that normally never exists.
“Why do you keep saying that? She’s been living an adult life since she was sixteen, and has a right to be pissed. Alonzo might be the boss but that doesn’t mean that he’s right in how he’s trying to handle her.”
“She’s his daughter, Alessandro,” He says.
“Excuse me, don’t you try to full name me into shutting it. I usually follow where you lead, but this is bull. He wants her to take over, then he needs to treat her like the adult she is. She has a fucking life here, Gio. What do you not understand about that?”
Giovani clenches his teeth, and there is this feeling that blooms in my chest. It might be protectiveness, but I am not really familiar with that emotion. Sure I protect Alonzo, but I don’t really protect him from emotional shit, it’s just making sure he’s still breathing every night, and that he’s capable of leading all of crazies.
When I think about Priest, I want to protect her emotionally too, and while I don’t know everything about her, its clear to see that she spends more of her time taking care of everyone else than she does when it comes to taking care of herself.
Which is amiable, I guess.
But that altruistic mentality could end up getting her killed.
Which goes back to taking care of that physical protection, see it’s a never ending cycle.
“She shouldn’t have a fucking life outside of the family, Alessandro, don’t you get that. Lene shouldn’t have done what she,” Giovani starts but Tony beats me before I can say anything.
“Lene did exactly what she should have for the betterment of the family. Priest isn’t a delicate flower to be handed over to another family who will then let them run us into the ground or try to absorb us into their family. She will set the terms of any relationship with another family, and she’s capable of protecting her own, with or without us.”
Luca looks at Giovani as he starts to turn red, something about what Tony has said has set him off in one of the worst ways. I mean that because Giovani doesn’t yell and fight like a normal person, no he will internally compust on us for altering the way his world is supposed ot work for him. He’s a control freak, and he can’t control this.
Honestly, we all knew that if we never found Priest, Alonzo would have left the family to Giovani, even though it went against everything he believes in, mostly because he would have taken the best care of the family as he could. His micromanaging skills are legendary.
“Why would it matter to you if she is strong willed or not? Unless you have some sort of plan to undermine her, which is kinda hard to believe when you think about how much you do for the family. Like you always put the family first, so why would her being headstrong, and willful, and openly defiant,” Luca starts rambling, shuffling though so papers like he’s not paying attention, but that’s the thing with Luca, you can never really tell what’s going on in that brain of his.
He’s a suave ladies’ man, really he’s just great at getting anyone to do as he wants because he’s learned how to read everyone’s buttons, what motivates them, and how to use it against them.
Like now. He’s baiting Gio, and Giovani is too wound up to notice.
“Alonzo wants me to date her, wants me to marry her.”
Everyone stops breathing.
Giovani doesn’t date. I’ve never seen him look at a woman with anything other than strategical calculation in his eyes, never shown interesting scratching any sort of itch with anyone.
He’s been dedicated to the family since he was born, trained by his father to take over the overseeing position to work with Alonzo.
“I fucking knew it,” Luca mutters.
“He gave you his blessing?” Tony wonders aloud.
There goes my shot, I think, but don’t say. I didn’t think that Alonzo would ever give me his blessing. He respected me, and the necessity of my position, but he would always look at Tony and I as the brutes of the bunch.
Which he’s not wrong about that, but I highly doubt he would hand his precious daughter over to either one of us brutes.
“Hold up, your saying that Alonzo wants you to be the next head of the family. Wants you to usurp the position from your would-be wife?” I ask, because this is something I can see coming from Alonzo’s father, but never Alonzo.
“No, he wants us to be partners in our dealings, he’s just trying to do what’s best for the family,” Giovani starts to try to defend, “God I fucking wish she’d have been born a boy,” he mutters, but Luca looks at me with the same amount of skepticism about both statements.
“And when did this plan get discussed. The three of us,” I gesture at Luca, Tony, and I, “are often left out of discussions, so how long has this been in the works, since we just found her.” I say.
At this Giovani looks apprehensive, and I don’t like that twitchy look he’s giving us all, because it’s his tell. He knows whatever he’s about to say is going to piss us off.
“since he asked me to locate her…three years ago, when I took over for my old man,” he says.
There is a silence the falls into the back of the car, everything is still, like we can’t decide how to proceed.
Before I can ever really process any thoughts, my natural instinct shoots out and my fist connects with the side of his face. I want to do more damage, it’s my nature to pound someone within a few inches of ending their life, but I restrain the urge that takes over. I can’t and won’t give into that urge here, in this fucking car.