Page 53 of Deathless & Divided

It wasn’t like Damian wanted to be there, either. Terrance hadn’t given him much of a choice when he called earlier about the dinner. It wasn’t uncommon for the boss to gather his closest men and their families for a meal that didn’t involve business, simply because Terrance liked to be in the loop on everything, but Damian had rarely been invited before.

As the guests ate, topics flowed from the studies Evelina, Alessa, and Abriella were focusing on in school to what Lily planned on doing regarding the same thing after the wedding. Tommas and Laurent vaguely discussed business the best they could with the Outfit’s front boss, Riley, and with Ben while attempting to keep their words veiled for the women’s benefit.

Damian stayed quiet in his seat beside Lily, carefully gaging his companion’s mood throughout the meal. After all, breaking bread with these three families could be a hell of a taxing event. Someone always had to bring in drama. Damian avoided that shit like the plague. Others found it like flies and shit.

“We’re going with peach and a powder blue, right?” Abriella asked.

Lily nodded and swiped her fork through Damian’s fluffy pastry when she thought he wasn’t looking. “Yes,” she said before sticking the bite in her mouth.

Damian leaned over and whispered in Lily’s ear, “I can order you one of those, you know.”

“Yours is fine. I just wanted a bite.”

Sure.

That was why she’d eaten half of it already.

Damian let her have the pastry.

“Is Damian going to be wearing the peach?” Serena asked.

Her words slurred together at the end of the sentence, reminding Damian his aunt had already tossed back a half of a bottle of wine since he and Lily arrived an hour before. He didn’t know how much alcohol Serena had consumed before they got there.

Knowing her, probably a lot.

“No, the blue,” Lily replied, keeping her attention on her pastry.

“Good, good,” Serena muttered. “God knows we don’t want him looking like a fool on his wedding day.”

“Serena,” Laurent snapped harshly.

Serena, like the drunk she was, didn’t act like she heard a thing her husband said. Everyone else at the table had stilled and quieted, watching the scene unfold between the two women at the middle of the table.

“He’s already done enough of that for himself with this whole thing as it is,” Serena added. “He’ll be lucky if even half of the Rossi family is able to show up without wearing something to hide their faces. The shame, my God.”

“Serena!” Laurent said again, much louder the second time.

“That’s quite enough,” Damian said, refusing to feed into his drunken aunt’s nonsense. “You’ve said what you wanted long before this, so I don’t want to go through it again.”

“Oh,” Serena drawled, wagging a finger in the air. “But she hasn’t, Damian. She should know we don’t—”

“Laurent, control your wife and her liquor or neither of you will be invited back to dine with my family,” Terrance said from the head of the table.

Serena scoffed loudly.

Damian’s brow rose at that. Clearly his aunt had guzzled a lot more alcohol than he previously thought if she was even showing her nastiness to Terrance. Serena knew better than to pull that kind of crap with the boss.

Serena had her issues, to be sure. Especially where the marriage was concerned. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t get to make any calls when it came to Damian and Lily. He also didn’t give a flying fuck what his aunt thought. She hadn’t cared much about him when she was supposed to, so what was the damned difference now?

Guessing by his aunt’s behavior, Serena was about to have one of her meltdowns that usually came along when she drank too much. Damian wasn’t interested in sitting through it, so he figured it was time to leave. Pulling out his cellphone, he texted a quick message off to let Dino know he would be bringing Lily home soon as the man asked him to do when he picked her up earlier.

“Serena—”

Laurent didn’t even get the chance to say another thing.

“Oh, shut up, Laurent,” Serena hissed, swiping her hand in her husband’s direction without a care. “We all know, don’t we? I mean, come on. Even she has to know.”

Lily stared at Serena through her dark lashes. Damian swore he saw her eyes narrow. “Know what?”