Deathless & Divided (The Chicago War #1) (8 page)

“Who said I wouldn’t have picked you, Lily?”

CHAPTER FOUR

“T
heo, tell him!” Lily waved helplessly at Dino. “Tell him this isn’t fair!”

Theo sighed. “Dino—”

“Not your choice to make, Theo,” Dino cut in firmly.

“Yeah, I got that,” the younger of the two brothers replied. “You could have told me ahead of time, though.”

“Wasn’t important.”

“Is this for the sentencing thing?” Theo asked vaguely.

“Essentially,” Dino replied.

“Ben doesn’t like it—he hid it well today, but he said so.”

“Terrance approved.”

Theo chuckled. “Wonder why.”

“You know why,” Dino said.

“I know D, too.”

Dino smiled faintly. “We all do. He’ll do what I need because he needs something, too. Helping hands don’t exist in this world. They’re all trying to grab something back for them. I figure he’s starting to learn that.”

“What about Lily?”

Dino dropped his fork and napkin to the table, rested his arms along the sides of his plate and stared his brother head-on. “Do you think Damian is a bad choice?”

“No, I think he’s a fine choice,” Theo replied. “For a man in the Outfit, anyway.”

“For a man in general, you mean.”

“Whatever, Dino.”

“If I had discussed it with you, who would you have picked to get the job done?”

Was that all Lily was, a
job
?

Disgust rolled thick and strong in her gut, threatening to spill her casserole and salad all over the dinner table.

“Joel Trentini, maybe?” Dino continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm as a smirk twisted his mouth upward.

“Hey,” Theo barked. “I’m a fucking DeLuca, too.”

Dino nodded. “Then you know why I picked a Rossi.”

“Well, I know why you picked Damian.”

“Same thing.”

Theo cocked a brow. “Could have picked Tommas—he’s good for the job.”

Again with that fucking title.

“I am not a job!” Lily snapped, finally meeting her wit’s end.

Dino and Theo acted like she hadn’t said a thing. Neither man looked away from one another.

“Tommas is good for the final job. Make sure you know the right side to be on when the time comes,” Dino said. “Besides, I did think of Lily here, regardless of what she believes. A man like Tommas, already sniffing around a tree he shouldn’t be, isn’t going to do right by her in the end. Tommas will do right by his, to be sure, but Lily isn’t his.”

What?

Lily was so confused it wasn’t even funny. Her brothers might as well have been talking in riddles for all she understood.

“She’s not Ghost’s, either,” Theo said quietly. “Did you think of that, or are you only thinking of the past, Dino?”

Dino’s expression barely flickered with emotion as he said, “We both know D, Theo. Give him time to catch the fuck up before you start running off at the mouth, huh?”

Theo blew out a steady stream of air, nodding. “Fine.”

“I appreciate it.”

Theo shot Lily a look that was anything but apologetic. “Sorry, little one. You’re in this one for life.”

Lily’s jaw dropped.

How could he?

Not only had her brothers’ entire conversation been spoken as if she wasn’t even in the room, but they still managed to talk her in circles without including her. Lily glanced between her brothers who had both resumed eating without barely an acknowledgment to one another.

She still wasn’t sure where she went wrong here.

Theo showed up earlier without a reason, said less than a few words to Dino when their older brother invited him in for supper, and now they were acting like strangers again. What in the hell had become of their lives?

“Theo!” Lily said, desperation pitching her voice high.

“Dino’s doing right, Lily.”

That was it. That was all her brother said.

Lily dropped her fork to the table with a clatter, gaining both her brothers’ attention as she stood from the table and pushed her chair roughly away.

Dino eyed her plate of food. “We’re not finished eating, Lily.”

“I’m finished, or do you plan on telling me how many calories I have to consume in a day, too? Maybe you would like to give me a list of things I should and shouldn’t be doing, like the miles I jog in the morning or the color of my lipstick. What should I wear, how should I speak and walk? Come on, Dino, what more can you do to me? Let me have it.”

“Lily—”

“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked. “Why, Dino?”

“Because I have to.”

Damian’s words a few days before clanged around in the back of Lily’s mind like a warning bell.

“I am not your way to the top!” she shouted.

Dino didn’t blink. “I’m not aiming to get there.”

Lily couldn’t begin to understand her brother. And God knew she tried. “Dino,
please
.”

“Stop begging, Lily,” Dino said, his words sharp like the edge of a blade. “You’re a DeLuca whether you want to be or not. DeLucas don’t beg, we never have, and you’re sure as shit not going to start now. As far as what you can and can’t do, you already know the answer to that, so don’t start looking for direction from me. You know what is expected from you; what more do you want from me?”

“To let me live my life,” Lily said.

“I’m trying.”

Abriella Trentini dropped the stack of magazines on the coffee shop’s small circular table and took a seat with a huff. The white lace, pearl buttons, and flowing silks on the covers of the magazines made Lily sick just by looking at them.

“Do you have a style you like?” Abriella asked. “That’d help to narrow it down a bit.”

“She’s going to make this extra difficult,” Evelina informed before taking a drink of her chai latte.

Lily gave her best friend a dirty look. “Classic, A-line, lace.”

“Someone was wrong,” Abriella said in a sing-song manner, grinning.

Evelina shrugged. “Give it time.”

“All white?” Abriella asked.

“Off-white,” Evelina said.

Lily laughed under her breath. “She knows. Definitely off-white. The less whispering I have to listen to, the better. No need to give the mob bitches anymore reason to act like barking spiders than they already have.”

“Hey,” Evelina said, mocking offense with her hand pressed to her chest. “Is that how you think of us—mob bitches?”

“No, just bitches.”

All three girls’ laughter rang out in the quiet coffee shop, drawing the attention of several annoyed gazes. Lily didn’t even care about them. Their life wasn’t being upturned and decided on without their input or approval. They weren’t being forced to plan a wedding they didn’t want or being made to marry a man they didn’t know.

“Seriously though,” Abriella said, sobering. “How are you doing with all of this?”

Lily sighed and eyed the magazines. “I’ve spent the last week arguing and yelling at Dino.”

“And?”

“And here I am looking at bridal magazines.”

Lily thought that statement was self-explanatory without her needing to go into further detail.

“How in the hell did Dino get the church to agree to overlook the mandatory six-month couple’s counselling?” Evelina asked.

Lily scoffed. “Paid the church off, probably.”

“Ah, the smell of old money, bribery, and religion first thing in the morning,” Abriella said in a long sigh. “Smells like home, girls.”

Evelina laughed under her breath. “Just like home.”

“And the mob,” Lily added bitterly.

“Is that all it is for you?” her best friend asked.

Lily didn’t know how to properly answer Evelina’s question. “Partly, but it’s about me, too. Why let me just begin my life away from all this and then drag me back into it?”

Evelina shrugged. “Maybe Dino and Theo never really let you go; you just thought they did.”

“Dino picked the date,” Lily added. “I couldn’t even pick my own wedding date, he had to.”

“Why?” Abriella asked.

“I don’t know. It’s a little less than a month before the start of his trial.”

Evelina’s gaze widened. “That’s like … That puts the wedding almost two months from today.”

“Yep,” Lily mumbled.

“Shit.”

“Yep.”

“They’re not wasting time, then,” Abriella said softly.

“Nope,” Lily replied, sadness twisting at her insides.

“Damian didn’t want a little more time or something?” Evelina asked.

Lily shrugged. “How the hell should I know?”

“Pardon?”

“I haven’t seen him since the dinner at the boss’s. He’s not been around, he’s not asked for me, and we’ve not spoken otherwise. I have no idea what Damian wants but I can bet it isn’t me.”

“What if he did?” Abriella asked.

Lily snorted indelicately. “He doesn’t.”

“I didn’t ask that. I asked about if he might, what would you do if that were the case?”

“Nothing,” Lily said honestly. “I would do nothing.”

Evelina watched Lily like she was a deer ready to bolt over the rim of her cup. “You’re already doing nothing, babe.”

“Talk to me when this is you, Eve. Let me know how you feel then.”

“I will. It’s bound to happen. And I expect you to let me bitch, moan, and cry my goddamn eyes out because I’m not marrying the man I want. Simple as that.”

Lily felt thunderstruck at her friend’s blatant statement. “I will.”

“Good. Carry on with your bitching and moaning.”

“I’m not crying,” Lily pointed out.

“Yet,” Abriella muttered.

“DeLucas don’t cry,” Evelina said before Lily could.

“We don’t.”

“Not to other people, anyway,” Evelina added.

Grumbling, Lily flipped open one of the many magazines Abriella brought along for their lunch date. Abriella Trentini was a lot like Lily and Evelina in the way she had been brought up in and around the thick of Outfit business. She was a mafia child through and through, so she, like Lily and Evelina, likely knew there wasn’t any way around the arrangement made.

“They’re planning a huge party,” Lily said. “Dino was working on the guest list this morning. It was ridiculous.”

“How big?” Evelina asked.

“At least three-hundred guests. Probably more.” Lily made a face. “I didn’t even know most of the names on the list. How do you plan a wedding that big in less than two months?”

“Money,” Evelina said like that explained it all.

Lily supposed it did.

“Big thing for two families to merge,” Abriella said. “I’m not surprised Dino went for a Rossi.”

Lily wasn’t even sure she wanted to know but because she had been so out of the loop with the Outfit and the families involved for the last several years, she didn’t have a choice but to ask. “Why is that?”

Abriella raised a single brow high. “Really?”

“Yeah, I asked, didn’t I?”

“Terrance made the call, Lily,” Abriella said quietly. “If Dino wanted to align you with another family, it makes sense for him to do it with one he trusts. The Rossi family had very little to do with what happened. Terrance and your uncle made all the calls on that mess, you know.”

Lily still didn’t understand. “No, I don’t.”

Evelina cleared her throat, shooting Abriella a look Lily couldn’t decipher. “She’s never been around a lot, Ella. Dino’s kept her out of a lot of it, especially the Outfit. She doesn’t even talk to me about that stuff, all right?”

“Can’t blame him,” Abriella muttered.

“I’m right here, okay,” Lily said. “Talk like I am.”

Abriella sighed. “Your parents. Terrance and Ben did all of that.”

Lily’s spine straightened in the chair. “I know.”

“Then you know why Dino would choose a Rossi and not someone closer to your family or a Trentini to align you in marriage.”

“So, what? Dino doesn’t think someone in the Trentini family would marry me because our father was a rat? That’s—”

“No, because Dino doesn’t trust them,” Evelina interrupted gently. “It’s been a long time, sure, but wounds like those don’t ever heal as well as people think they do.”

Lily swallowed hard, trying to force the lump in her throat down. It didn’t help. Her wounds certainly weren’t healed. They had barely faded at all.