Page 41 of Knot To Be
It’s just how we work.
“Then let’s watch.”
Nico and I hold each other as we watch the rest of the feed. We flinch at every stitch, and note the way the doctor struggles to remain calm and professional throughout it. I make it a point to move to the outside video camera to catch the way Dr. Walsh kicks at the gravel and screams once he’s alone, and I decide I like him better for it.
He helped Rosalia where he could, and now we’ll take it from here.
She deserves to be free from the evil of her family.
Chapter Nine
CIRO
Darioand I both are taking Pablo’s demand that Rosalia and Verona not be left alone to heart. It’s been three hours since he and Nico holed up in their room, and the women before me haven’t woken up yet.
“The realtor office was very helpful,” Dario muses, getting up to remove the drained IV bags to hook up new ones.
It’s amazing what you can order off the internet. We have medical supplies now in the house, as well as enough groceries until we can move Rosalia and Verona.
“That’s good,” I say absently. I’ve been thinking so hard my brain cells hurt. “Where’s the new house, and how will they ensure the Don doesn’t find us?”
“I got the impression that Miranda Orson works with celebrities as often as she does criminals. She said on our call that she wouldn’t put our names on any of the paperwork, regardless of whether it's public or not. She just sent several properties to my phone to look at. I doubt Pablo or Nico care where we stay, but I’m suddenly concerned about whether or notthe house should have two spaces for nests or not,” Dario says. “Omegas don’t share well right? How the fuck is this even going to work?”
My lips twitch because everyone thinks I’m the hot blooded Italian who will argue about if the sky really is blue or not. While that’s true, Dario is the one who will agonize about things until he can make what he believes is the correct decision.
He only seems calm and collected to the outside world. With me, he allows himself to fall apart, because Nico needs him to keep us from killing each other.
“How many rooms do these houses have, and what makes a nest appropriate for an omega? Also, remember we won’t be in Savannah for longer than necessary,” I remind him.
“Some have as many as eight, but I’m not sure we need that many bedrooms. What the fuck does ‘necessary’ even mean now that we’re talking about wiping a family off the face of the earth?” he asks, moving on to change Verona’s IV bag and tubing. Hopefully she’ll stay asleep for this. “Blade and fire are the first things that came into my mind when I mentioned it too. I just want to fucking scorch the earth.”
He felt the same way when he heard our father was pedaling children to his clients. Not only that, these clients are people we grew up around. It affected people I saw often.
Little Nova Taylor’s face fills my mind without an apology, and I shut my eyes against it. Last I heard, she was packed up, but that still doesn’t change the fact that my father fucking kidnapped her.
Sometimes infertility issues are solved in the mafia by stealing other people’s children. None of us like to color inside of the lines, and patience is not a virtue many of us have.
Not unless it falls in line with some type of murder plot. Then we are willing to play the long game.
“It means we all need to be healthy enough to travel and our loose ends are tied up,” I finally say. “Well, our loose ends here in Savannah.”
I have to amend my words because I’m fairly certain that I’m scent matched to two omegas, and I have no idea what to do with that information. Pablo has always belonged to Nico. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown’ is very accurate for my brother.
Sometimes, I hear him pacing late at night, mumbling to himself once Pablo is asleep. When I can’t take it anymore, I get up and offer Nico a drink to either talk it out or sit and stew. Pablo doesn’t like the scent of stale alcohol on Nico’s breath, but I’m not sure why.
While Pablo is my stepbrother, we’re not as close as we could be, and it’s entirely my fault. We exist in the same spaces, we make small talk, but that’s it.
When Pablo was first introduced to us by my father, I thought he was attractive. I’ve never been attracted to men before, and my father had just given Dario and I a long, drawn out speech about how we should make our new brother-to-be comfortable but not too much so.
Nico, Dario, and I are all half brothers. We’re all legitimate for the most part because my father would marry and then murder our mothers. Pablo’s mother got off easy with her deportation. My stepbrother still calls her, but Dad somehow made it so she could never return to the United States.
Not even on a Visa.
The power Dad had with different government agencies was scary. I have a feeling some of these agencies are now hiding my cousin Emilia, because we can’t find her anywhere.
“Are we going to talk about your, ah, loose end as you called it?” Dario asks carefully, returning to his seat once he’s done to scroll through the rental listings Miranda sent to him.
“We can’t call scent matches ‘loose ends,’” I groan. “That’s so fucking wrong.”
