imes, earning him a glare from Luca, but still causing Luca to release Molly. Molly stood up from the table, went over to the fridge, and a few minutes later, I could hear her messing with the microwave.
“I was gonna get it,” I said to Luca.
“Then you should have,” Luca hissed back.
“Knock it off,” Marco said. “No fighting at the table.”
It was a rich sentiment coming from Marco, who had engaged in more than one fight at the table, many of them with the rule’s creator, our father. One of the last times I’d heard the rule uttered, it was on the cusp of a fight between my dad and Luca. It wasn’t long after that the Binachis pulled a hit on my dad, ending his life.
The Binachis claimed that my dad stole money from them but could never provide anything to substantiate that claim. No matter how much Luca and Marco hated my dad, no matter how much Gabriel and I idolized him for the wrong reasons, we all agreed on one thing—he wasn’t a thief. My dad worked his ass off for everything he had, and he didn’t play by the rules—no one in our business did—but to throw away an alliance with a rival family over money when he had more than one lucrative business just didn’t make sense. We might never know the truth with Donovan and Dante gone, and even if Dario knew the truth, he wouldn’t be able to breathe long enough to tell us once we found him, so the reality was probably already far beyond us.
Marco swatted the back of my head. “Stop it. Don’t dwell on the past. There’s nothing we can do to change it.” Molly set a plate down in front of me with a heavenly smelling calzone sitting on top. “There. Eat your lunch.”
If I wasn’t starving and exhausted from my panic attack, I might have told Marco not to talk to me like a child, but I didn’t want to argue. Instead, I listened and dug into my calzone, even though it was hot to the touch and probably going to burn my tongue. I chased scathing bites with my chilly beer and sat in peaceful silence with my brothers while I ate.
Maybe it was Molly’s food that had always had a penchant for patching wounds, or maybe it was just that all of my brothers were sitting at the kitchen table for the first time in years, but I was happy.
“So…” I broke the silence. “How are you guys doing?”
Gabriel was drinking his beer and choked on it when he laughed. “What?”
“What?” I asked as Marco and Luca joined in. “I can ask how you’re doing. Dicks.”
Even Molly giggled next to me. It was an oddly normal moment for the always chaotic Varasso family.
“You really wanna know?” Marco asked.
I gave a noncommittal shrug. “I wouldn’t have asked, otherwise.”
“Okay, well, I’m pretty good. I mean, considering. Obviously, I wish I were with Kelly, but it’s kind of nice being around here with you guys again.”
“Did you pick out names yet?” Molly asked.
“Oh, yeah!” He leaned forward excitedly. “We’re sticking with the A-theme, obviously, so if it’s a girl, Athena, and if it’s a boy, Apollo.”
“Oh, I love Apollo,” Molly whined. “I hope it’s a boy. Antonio needs another boy around.”
“I don’t know how you do it. Waiting to find out, I mean,” Gabriel chimed in. “I want to know as soon as we can.”
All eyes shot to Gabriel, but it was Luca who asked the question. “Are you and Stace…”
“Oh, no, not yet, but we’ve talked about it, and we’ve decided that we don’t want to wait too long. I mean, obviously, we want to wait until all this is over, but once we’re all settled and comfortable in Maine, I think we’ll start trying.”
“That’s exciting,” I said.
“What about you two?” Gabriel asked. “Luca and Molly have two, Marco and Kelly have two. When are you guys popping out another little Varasso?”
“I’m surprised they haven’t already,” Luca said.
Marco nodded. “Me too, actually.”
I couldn’t tell them the truth, that Willow and I had been having problems since not long after Alexis was born and that we’d probably be divorced before deeds were finalized in Maine. “I don’t know. Willow’s kind of stressed out right now. It wouldn’t be good for the baby.”
“That’s true,” Marco said somewhat sadly.
“But what about when we’re all done?” Gabriel asked. “You two won’t have nearly as much to worry about, and you could focus on expanding.”
I chuckled awkwardly and noticed Luca’s eyes slid over at me.