She beams at me. “Of course he does. You’re delish. Now crack open the wine, because we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“Great minds think alike. I’ve already got the bottle open.”
We go inside. When we get to the kitchen, I grab another glass and the bottle from the counter, and we sit at the table. Mojo wanders in from the living room and throws himself at Sloane’s feet. Within seconds, he’s snoring.
Smiling down at him, she gently nudges him with her boot. “Still a ball of fire, I see.”
Pouring her wine, I chuckle. “I’ve been screaming to wake the dead for over a week straight, and it hasn’t budged him. You’d think he was brought up in a haunted house. No matter how much groaning and wall shaking goes on, this dog sleeps like a baby.”
Sloane lifts her glass to me. “Here’s to getting stuffed with premium sausage.”
“You’re such a hopeless romantic.”
We smile at each other and drink.
When we set our glasses down, Sloane says, “So. You’re in love.”
“Don’t make it sound like I’ve got cancer. And how do you know, anyway?”
“It’s written all over your face, Juliet. Mafia Romeo has sexed you on every horizontal surface in the house, and now you’re glowing with happiness.”
My face flushes with pleasure, remembering exactly how well I’ve been “sexed.” And not only on the horizontal surfaces.
“What about you? Are you in love with Stavros?”
She almost spits her mouthful of wine out through her nostrils. “Girl, seriously? Who do you think you’re talking to here? I was bored out of my mind after three days at sea with him. I’ve never met a man who worries so much. It was like living with my grandmother. Pacing and hand-wringing are his two favorite things. Thank god they had to go back to New York for the meeting, or I’d have jumped overboard.”
My heart skips a beat. “New York? Meeting?”
She’s surprised. “Kage didn’t tell you?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I didn’t, either.”
“How do you know, then?”
“One of my ninja skills is eavesdropping. Plus, after a few days, Stavros’s crew forgot I was around. Or they assumed I was okay because I was with him. Either way, I got to overhear a lot of stuff I probably shouldn’t have.”
My heart starts to pound. I lean closer to her, gripping my wineglass so hard, I’m sure it will shatter. “Like what?”
“Like…there’s a war brewing.”
My stomach drops. “Oh god. War’s not good.”
“No, it’s definitely not. Apparently, there was a big meeting of the heads of all the families in Boston recently, and it didn’t end well. The Irish were pissed about what happened to their guys at La Cantina—”
“Back up. The Irish were there? This meeting wasn’t only with different families in the Russian mafia?”
“Apparently, all the families were there. The Armenians, the Italians, the Mexicans, the Chinese, the Irish.” She shrugs. “Everybody.”
I can see it in my head, like a scene from a movie. A long table surrounded by dangerous-looking men wearing black overcoats and smoking cigars, everyone staring with suspicion at each other with narrowed eyes, weapons cocked under the table.
“Anyway, things got hairy, and the Irish pulled out their guns. From what I could overhear, it sounded pretty bloody.”
I slump into my chair, feeling sick. “Was this meeting Christmas Eve?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Because Kage showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night with a bullet wound.”
Sloane’s eyes widen. “Oh shit. Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. I stitched him up.”
She blinks. “You did what, now?”
I wave a hand in the air dismissively. “It’s easier than it sounds. Back to the meeting. What else happened?”
“So apparently, the Russians have been top dogs on the East Coast for decades now. Even with their leader Maxim in prison for the past few years, they’ve got the most powerful operation. All the other families have made agreements with them to get their goods through the ports—”
“Goods?”
“Contraband. Drugs.” She pauses for a moment. “Cargo.”
With a sick feeling in my stomach, I understand what she means. “The Russians are trafficking people?”
She shakes her head. “That’s the Armenians and the Chinese. The Russians are mostly into weapons and drugs distribution.”
My voice comes out weak. “Oh. Great.”
“Anyway, the Irish blamed the Russians for the massacre at La Cantina. I guess no one has shot each other for years. It violated some kind of truce agreement. Plus, one of the Irish guys who was killed was a nephew of somebody important. So they wanted some kind of compensation. And their demands didn’t go over well. By the time that meeting ended, bodies littered the place.”
She takes another sip of her wine. “So now it’s war.”
“And this upcoming meeting in New York? Who organized that?”
“Your man.” Her smile is soft. “It was supposed to be sooner, but he said it had to wait.”
I close my eyes and press a hand over my throbbing heart.
Kage held off a war-planning meeting so he could spend the holidays with me.
Sloane huffs out a disgusted breath. “I know. It’s sickeningly romantic. Anyway, that’s all I know. Let’s get drunk.”
I jolt from my chair and start to pace in front of the table.
Pouring herself another glass of wine, Sloane eyes me. “You look exactly like Stavros right now.”
“How can you be so calm? They’re going to war!”
“I feel for you, babe, because of Kage and all, but it’s over between me and Stavros.”
I pull up short and stare at her. “What happened?”
She peers at me over the rim of her wineglass. “Did you miss the part where I said he bored me to tears? I broke it off. Being with a man twenty-four hours a day is exhausting.”
She shrugs again, takes another sip. “Tell me more about what happened when the police showed up here. Get me all caught up to date.”
I take a moment to admire her poise.
In less than two weeks, she’s been involved in a public shooting, seen four men die, flown to Rome, sailed the Mediterranean, eavesdropped on a bunch of murderous gangsters to get information, and broken up with her billionaire boyfriend, all without a chip in her manicure or the smallest scratch in her aplomb.
She’s so cool, James Dean would be jealous.
I sit back down and start at the beginning, since we last saw each other. When I’m done, she shakes her head.
“So Chris is still holding a torch for you. That’s a problem.”
“I don’t think he’s holding a torch.”
“Pfft. His torch is so big, he could light the whole town on fire with it.”
“Whatever the case, Kage said he’d take care of it, so…”
“So we should expect to see Chris’s obituary in the newspaper soon.”
“No! I told Kage not to hurt him!”