Page 2 of Rescued By the Mafia

Iris rocked from the jolt but kept her feet in place, twisting her hands into the apron front tied at her waist. Slow, deep breaths and the penetrating aroma of surely delicious foods helped to resettle her triggered nerves. She didn’t know her colleague well enough to know why he was agitated. Maybe he’d hoped to get that table. Maybe the guests were influential and he wanted to use it as a chance to make an impression or something. She knew she had been told no less than twice during the interview process not to do things like that, but people did have a tendency to be blinded by perceived opportunity.

It also doesn’t matter.

Regardless of anyone else’s attitude, she had a job to do. She was brand-new and still striving to make a good impression, so Iris pulled herself together and adjusted course for table sixteen. She could swing by her other table to check on their meal after she’d done her initial greeting.

There were no other occupied tables immediately surrounding table sixteen, which provided an air of privacy so rarely available in such highly sought-after establishments. Then her focus was drawn to the three men seated around the table itself and all thoughts of the ambiance fled from her mind. All three of them were handsome, with enough visible similarities that she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear they were related.

But it was the man in position one, the one whose sharp blue eyes snapped over to her as soon as she stepped up to the table, who immediately captured her attention. The restaurant was fairly well lit, to counter its darker color scheme, so it was easy to see that this man was devastatingly good-looking. He filled out his suit coat with broad shoulders, had a head full of thick, chocolate brown hair that was just threatening to spill over his forehead, and a whisper of a goatee on his chin. He wore a maroon red button-up beneath his black suit coat, with the top button undone—a choice which revealed a tattoo Iris couldn’t quite discern the design of. Whatever it was, it stretched across the base and front of his throat and seemed to disappear beneath his shirt.

Iris had to force herself to glance properly around the table, surprised at the way merely making eye-contact with this man had flustered her. “Good evening,” she said, glad that her voice seemed steady. “My name’s Iris, I’ll be taking care of you tonight. Have you had a moment to look over the menu?”

The man seated directly across from where she stood, with his back to the wall, grinned out at her. “You must be new,” he said. “I’m sure I’d recognize you if I’d seen you here before.”

Regulars? Considering how long the wait-list was to get in, she doubted they really had too many of those. That dedication was either impressive or insane. “I am,” she said honestly. “But I promise I won’t disappoint you.”

His grin grew wider.

The man at her other side, who looked visibly younger, let out a sigh. “Could you please not, Romeo? I’ll take my dinner to go if you’re going to spend the night trying to pick up the waitress.”

The one whose name may or may not have been Romeo leaned back in his chair, never taking his eyes from Iris. “Oh, come on, Mikey. Live a little.” His eyes were also blue, she noted, but they seemed a shade or two darker. They still complimented his possibly identical brown hair, but she found he didn’t pull it off the same. Or perhaps it was the open flirtation that prevented his appearance from appealing to her.

Mikey aimed an expression Iris couldn’t quite see in Romeo’s direction. “Maybe you’ve lived a little too much,” he said sharply. “Or is this how you’d be behaving if Lucia were here?”

The grin finally fell from Romeo’s face and he turned his attention to Mikey with a frown. Iris felt her fingers tighten around the edges of her notepad as she watched Romeo open his mouth to reprimand who she assumed was his brother.

“Enough.”

Both bickering men straightened in their seats at the simple, clipped word from the one whose name Iris had yet to learn. The one who’d first met her gaze.

She shifted her focus back to him as well, in time to see him slide his menu away. He lifted those crisp blue eyes back to her and that thing inside her stirred again. “I’ll have a negroni and the chicken parmigiana. No appetizer tonight.”

Iris nodded and managed not to fumble her pen as she quickly jotted down the information before moving on to the other two. She wrote down the notes for their orders in turn, biting back a smile when Romeo tried to plead with the other man for an app to no avail, and finally tucked her foldable notepad away. “I’ll get those drinks started right away for you.” She offered one final smile, did her best not to let her gaze betray her terribly, and scurried away to put in the order at the bar.

She didn’t remember she had another table to check on until after she’d come and gone from the rowdier bar section and put in the food order with the kitchen.

****

“Looks like Aurelio’s finally stretching his wings with the new hires,” Romeo said after Iris disappeared behind the nearest partition.

Dante found himself fighting a glare at his brother’s words. “We’re not here to gawk over the rookies.” What had Aurelio been thinking, hiring such a striking woman for a job like this? Dante had seen the way her hands trembled, just for an instant, when his brothers started to bicker in front of her. About her. Something about the sight of that woman standing in front of them, putting on a smile when it was clear she was uncomfortable, had hit him in a way he was unprepared for.

Dante did not like being unprepared.

Romeo chuckled. “I might have done a little teasing,” he said, “but you’re the one who could hardly look away, brother.”

Dante let the glare settle. “You must really have been climbing the walls. You’re acting like this is your first time out without parental supervision.”

Mikey laughed quietly. “It’s fun to pick on Romeo from time to time,” he said, “but can we talk about why we’re here?”

Dante leaned back in his seat, ignoring Romeo’s grumblings, and let his hands rest in his lap. “What have you learned, little brother?”

Mikey was the youngest of them, but in many ways he was more mature than their middle brother. He’d learned a sense of responsibility that Dante had come to value and depend on. At least as much as Dante depended on anything outside of himself.

Mikey leaned forward, pulling his phone from a pocket. “Learned? Nothing new,” he said, his thumb swiping over the screen. “Just more reason to think you should put down roots in Las Vegas.”

A flicker of amusement wove through Dante’s chest and he folded his arms. “Do you know how many?”

“I’m lost,” Romeo said. “How many what?” He looked toward Mikey. “What was he right about this time?”