Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
“You know,” Antony murmured, “the bed is way better to sleep on.”
“It’s very big,” Lucian replied simply.
Ah.
“Did you have a good day?”
Lucian nodded. “Did you know there’s a cubby under the right wing’s third staircase?”
Goddammit.
“It would be so much easier if you just told me all the hiding spots,” Antony said, chuckling.
“Sometimes, I don’t want to be found.”
“Yeah, I know, kiddo.”
Lucian sighed, and pulled his comforter tighter around his neck before he whispered, “I miss Ma.”
That took Antony a second.
Mostly, because he wondered how to respond. Of course, the boy would think about his parents. They’d not properly sat him down and explained everything that happened with Lina and Johnathan, but they did explain that Lucian’s parents were in heaven. He seemed to understand that well enough.
This, though ...
Well.
“So,” Lucian said in a sigh, “when is she coming home?”
Oh.
Cecelia.
He meant Cecelia.
Antony grinned, deciding he wouldn’t make a big deal out of this. Didn’t seem like the right way to go about it, honestly. “Ah, yeah, she promised you cupcakes, didn’t she?”
“Chocolate cupcakes.”
The kid’s favorite.
“Tomorrow,” Antony said. “She’s coming home tomorrow, Lucian.”
“Good. I’m gonna go to sleep now.”
“Okay. Night, love you.”
The Boys
Life was good.
But life at the top?
That was even better.
Antony supposed that was one of the many pros when it came to being a Cosa Nostra boss. Nobody said the life wasn’t stressful, but at least sitting where he did allowed him the ability to redirect things he didn’t want to deal with, or delegate a task to someone else.
Yeah, life at the top was—
“Gonna beat your motherfucking ass, Dante!”
“You can try, Gio.”
Antony blinked as he stepped inside his home, and glanced upward to the upper wings of the mansion where his sons were currently in the midst of yet another one of their rows. One of their many rows, if he were being honest. He was lucky if he could get those three teenagers to go a week without them falling into some kind of battle with one another.
And people say girls are hard.
Fuck that noise.
Boys were rough.
And that was putting it mildly.
Boys were messy and loud and difficult. Boys talked with fists and sneers and fuck yous right on the tips of their tongues. Boys had no concept of personal space, and they shared too goddamn much, and sometimes they didn’t share nearly enough when they needed to, or when it counted.
Too tall, filling out, hormone-riddled little monsters. And then you add onto that the fact his boys had access to all sorts of things given their life, and where they came from—not to mention money to burn—and it was just ...
A little too much.
Sometimes.
“Did you just throw a fucking book at me?” Dante snarled.
Antony let out a sigh.
“And what are you going to do about it?” Giovanni taunted.
“I’m gonna kick your—”
“Hey, Papa.”
Antony raised a brow at Lucian coming around the corner with a half-eaten apple in his hand. He looked like he didn’t have a fucking care in the world, and right then, he probably didn’t. After all, it wasn’t him upstairs in the midst of a shouting match that was two seconds away from turning into violence with one of his brothers.
Give it three minutes.
Lucian would join in, too.
It just was what it was.
“What are they fighting about?” Antony asked.
Lucian shrugged, and headed for the grand staircase. The oldest at sixteen, he was all too often aloof, or he tried damn hard to act like it when something was going down. Antony figured that was Lucian’s way of trying to keep himself out of trouble.
It rarely worked.
Once one started, the other two soon followed. Like a fucking trainwreck of testosterone, teenaged angst, and too much trouble for their own good.
“Gio acting like a puke, probably.”
“Lucian, be nice.”
“Where’s the lie, though?”
Antony frowned. “How about, where’s your mother?”
“Kitchen.”
Really?
That made Antony’s brow lift a bit. It was not like Cecelia to hide away in the kitchen while her sons acted like fucking hyenas fighting for the last scraps on a carcass. She was usually the first one to step in, and calm them the hell down. Cecelia wasn’t the least bit frightened by her boys—she could wear a dress, heels, and have her face done up with her hair in curls, and still step in between flying fists when the time called for it.
“Stay out of that mess, huh?” Antony said, nodding upward.
Lucian glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah, sure.”
Mmhmm.
He sure sounded like he fucking meant it, too.
Antony sighed.
All that lightness he’d been feeling strolling up to his home was practically nonexistent now—his stress levels were up sky-high all over again. He could delegate a lot of responsibilities to someone else, but not his family.
This was all him.
And Cecelia.
Soon enough, he found his wife in the kitchen. He expected her to be cooking something—she did that more often than not when she didn’t want to deal with something, or she needed to whisk away the stress she felt.