Indebted to the Mafia King
Sizing Up

Eleni

A few weeks after the hotel date, I look over the table of classes on my laptop one last time and shut it with a smile. My first registration at Tandon, and I got all the classes I wanted! I text Dante about my success and laugh when he responds with a huge thumbs-up. He texts like he protects his data, but I've grown used to the labyrinth of old-timey habits and emoji usages. He's thrilled. And, with any luck, bored out of his mind at Piacere.

He put out the hooks for potential rats to snap up a little while ago, and nothing has caught yet. That means a full day of sitting around waiting for disaster, which makes him feel, in his words, "like a fireman without a fire," so he's been coming home a little grumpy, but watching his mood improve as soon as he sees me makes it really easy not to take personally.

Plus, we're now going on-I check the date-just about two and a half weeks without any deaths in the organization. The quiet made getting ready for school a lot easier. Dante even found time for a drive upstate to visit Christos' grave. I cleaned it sparkling and cried, but that chapter finally feels settled. Now, I just have to make it through the last month before classes actually start.

The door opens downstairs, and I hop up.

"Be right down!" I call.

"Hurry up!" Gianna yells back. "You know all the good tables disappear if we arrive at like, 9:01."

I trade my sweatpants for a pair of loose, blue floral shorts and pull a fitted, silky, navy crop top over my casual sports bra. A sheer, lacy version of the long blazer Gianna suggested completes the look, and I race downstairs, throwing my hair up in a bun as I go.

Gianna looks like she's about to walk some kind of brunch-based runway in a pink dress that clings and drapes like lingerie. "You look cute, I love you, I'm going to kill you if we don't leave. These reservations are impossible to get." I laugh. "Go, go!"

She races out the still-open door, and I snag a pair of cork platforms before following barefoot in case she decides to leave without me.

Finally, we arrive at what Gianna deemed the best upscale brunch spot in Manhattan and are seated with what I've figured out is pretty much minimum eye-rolling from a hostess working the brunch shift in Manhattan. Gianna drops into her neon-yellow metal chair with a sigh.

"Sorry," she says. "You really do look cute."

I shake my head as I sit. "It's fine. I was just finishing up registration and didn't have time to change."

Gianna drops her head onto the table and covers it with her arms. "Oh my god, I'm such a bitch. I completely forgot." She peeks up at me through a gap. "How did it go?"

"Good!" I laugh as I pick up a menu. "I got everything I wanted. A full schedule, which is kind of intimidating."

An eye-rolling waitress appears, and Gianna sits up instantly, then relaxes into what she calls her "cool girl slouch." I hide a smile. In Piacere, on most of Staten Island, she walks around like she runs the place. The city, I've realized, is a different ball game for her. One where I actually have the experience to give me an advantage, not that I ever ate breakfast this expensive before the Saints. I just know nobody in New York City actually gives a shit what anybody else is doing. While Gianna preens, I manage to order bottomless mimosas for both of us and a Greek-inspired omelet for myself. She remembers to get a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich at the last second.

"If anybody can handle school and this life, it's you," she says when the waitress leaves. "I'm pretty sure you're the smartest person I've ever met."

"You're just "

"Gianna? Eleni?" someone says behind me.

I turn to see Camila standing from another table in the restaurant to display a clinging sundress the color of old lace.

"I thought it was you." She walks over with a wide smile. "Is it your first time? I absolutely love this place. I would have brought you if I'd known you were interested."

"It is," Gianna says a little tightly. "And that's so sweet, but I don't know when you would've had time in your busy schedule."

Camila laughs the sort of laugh you usually hear from princesses in movies. "My schedule? I'd be worried about yours. You're still working at Piacere, aren't you?"

I glance at Gianna as her jaw tightens.

"I am," she says. "But that leaves my days pretty free. I have a firm policy about leaving work at work instead of taking it home."

My gaze bounces back to Camila like I'm watching a tennis match.

"To each their own, I suppose. I've found a lot of success in going after what I want rather than waiting for it to come to me." Camila turns to me with a megawatt smile. "Eleni, right? I saw you from across the barbecue but didn't get a chance to introduce myself."

She was at the barbecue for almost three hours, but if Gianna's strained politeness is anything to go by, now isn't the time to bring that up. I stick out a hand to shake. "Eleni Calimeris."

She giggles like shaking hands is the funniest thing in the world, but accepts my offer to shake. "Camila Donato. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Her hand is soft, like she's never done any work, but there's a strength in her grip I can't deny. She's the one who pumps up, then down, and releases. "How did you end up at the barbecue?" I ask. "I hadn't heard of you before then, and I ran the Saints for a couple weeks."

Her pale eyebrows shoot up in what looks like fake surprise. "Ran it? I'm surprised Dante could give up control for that long."

I straighten. "He needed someone. I stepped up."

She hums, dragging her gaze up and down my outfit. "Well, who among us doesn't know what it's like to be needed by Dante Cattaneo?"

Her gaze cuts through me like a knife, searching for weaknesses. My stomach drops to my toes. Does she mean...?

Distantly, I hear Gianna say, "Um, me. Can we help you with something?"

"Just saying hello." Camila flutters a playful wave. "I'll return to my breakfast now."

She waltzes away as the first round of our bottomless mimosas arrive. I grab mine, down it in a few gulps, and put the glass back on the waitress' tray for a refill. Dante slept with her. Or she slept with Dante. There's no other way to interpret that. Gianna takes one sip and raises an eyebrow. "All good?"

"Why do you hate her?" I demand.

She coughs. "I don't hate Camila. I just...." She shakes her head. "I don't know, I don't usually listen to the wives' gossip, but have you noticed how she basically only wears white?"

I nod. It's like she thinks she's in a movie or showing off that she's too perfect to ever spill.

"Well, she wore white to her husband's funeral. Claimed it was a mourning thing in her family." Gianna looks over my shoulder and narrows her eyes. "But years later? After she's scorched her way through the socialite circuit? I've barely had a conversation with the woman, but let's just say I wouldn't have a hard time believing she offed him."

My blood boils. I accept my second mimosa and focus on staying sober enough to confront Dante as soon as we get out of here. He lied to me.