5.

LUCA

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and sent Zach a message. His reply took only a few seconds.

"You're taking her out? How the hell are you gonna do that?"

"I have no fucking idea," I answered honestly before I set my phone down and stepped into the shower.

That was the truth. I couldn't exactly traipse off into the city by myself, and how in the hell would I explain my ‘friends' coming along?

This espionage shit was a lot more difficult than I'd imagined. Of course, when a person was spying, they usually didn't go all out and invite the target to dinner.

Or wait on pins and needles until they could hear her laugh again.

Shit.

Tabby and I had been talking via text for quite a while now, more when she was off work for a couple of days and then sporadically when she had a shift. We'd even FaceTimed during her days off and talked well into the night last night. I'd barely slept at all before my meeting this morning, so I took a nap in my office during lunch and missed the text she sent me around noon that said, "A friend offered to watch Ember for me this evening if you'd like to take me to dinner when I get off."

I had started to believe that she'd never let me take her out and wondered how I was going to get the information I needed over the phone when I couldn't read her body language and see if I was getting too close to something she was hiding.

Overall, I thought we'd developed a solid friendship so far, and even though the circumstances weren't at all conducive to a relationship, I didn't care. I craved Tabby's attention. Her voice soothed me and her laugh filled a place in my soul that I hadn't realized was empty. As wonderful as all of that seemed, and it would be if I had those feelings for anyone else, I dreaded what would happen when she found out that I had not exactly lied to her, but hadn't told her the whole truth either.

Since our conversation last week when she asked me a personal question and I countered with, "I'll tell you if you'll answer the same question about yourself," Tabby had been very careful to keep our conversations limited to present subjects and nothing too personal. That was why I still had no idea if she was working with the Bovinos or the Russians or even working one group against the other somehow. I was starting to believe that I really didn't care. There was something about her that made me think that if she did happen to be working with one or both, she was doing it for a good reason. I knew that may be far-fetched, but I was doing my best to find a way to rationalize it because I simply didn't want to lose contact with her - or worse. Worse was what would happen if the families found out that she was trying to screw them over.

Now that we had plans for this evening, I had to scramble to find something we could do that didn't include me being out in public alone or ending up in a crowd of people where someone might recognize me. So far, I'd been lucky in that no one had spotted me at The Cork, but every time I showed up there, I risked that exposure. At some point, my luck was going to run out, and my presence would be blasted all over the internet, bringing attention that we didn't need.

It wasn't that I cared if someone saw me at a bar like The Cork. I didn't have any doubts about my sexuality and didn't give a shit about other people's opinions of it. However, if the Bovinos found out or somehow already knew that I was frequenting a bar they owned, it would put me at risk, and, therefore, put Tabby in danger.

Unless she was working for them.

I had to keep that thought in mind no matter how much I didn't want to consider it. Brett, Zach's girlfriend, insisted that Tabby didn't have a mean bone in her body and would never put the twins she was carrying in danger. However, in the course of my conversations with Tabby, I'd learned she wasn't nearly as sweet and innocent as her friend seemed to think.

She hadn't said anything outwardly concerning, but she'd implied that the world wasn't as rosy as Brett thought Tabby saw it.

"How are you going to pull this off?" Matteo asked from the doorway. It didn't shock me that he'd just appeared in my house or that he was in my private space. We were twins and had rarely been apart for more than a few days at a time. Even when we'd had the opportunity to live apart, we'd chosen to have our apartments connected to make it easy to get from one house to the other, giving us our own space, but not too far from each other. "You're not going out alone, Lou."

I burst out laughing and said, "Did I tell you that's the name she goes by?"

Matteo ignored my question and said, "If she is connected to Frank or Geno and one of them sees you . . ."

"We don't have any reports that either of them are even in the country," I interrupted.

"Are you sure this is the woman Zach is looking for?"

"It has to be her, man. The girl's middle name is Lou. Brett mentioned that she had a friend named Simon, and I've met the man. When I went in to visit her yesterday . . ."

"That's the thing I don't get. You were supposed to get in, see if she's working for the Bovinos, and get out. Not get to know her. Not hang out with her at her job during every shift she works. Not take the broad out on a date."

As I sat down on the bench in my closet, I said, "I thought you'd be happy I had plans. It was my turn to work the game, but now you are. Why do you have such a problem with this?"

"You're going to ditch your men to go out with a woman, and I'm going to be halfway across the fucking country."

"I'm not going to completely ditch them, I'm just going to be at more of a distance than they're comfortable with. And since when do you mind going to Vegas?" I asked as I tied my shoes.

I stood and looked at my brother, and it struck me how different we were. In the general sense, we were so identical that people had nicknamed us Mattuca - a mixture of both of our names that they could use if they were confused about who they were talking to. Even Mamma and Papà used the nickname on occasion.

Our difference in appearance didn't have anything to do with the physical characteristics we shared but our demeanor and expressions. Right now, Matteo had that hard look that he'd developed soon after we started making plans to wrest our family legacy from our great-uncle. His entire body was tense, and his gaze was piercing, whereas I was usually laid back until the second I didn't need to be.

We'd been that way our entire lives, but it had become much more noticeable over the last few years.

"I think you should go to Vegas and let me talk to this woman. I can get her to spill about Frank and Geno, and then we can . . ."

"What? You gonna off her as soon as she has Zach's brothers?"

"That's still so fucking weird," Matteo mumbled as I walked past him into my bedroom.

I crossed to the other closet, this one used mostly for storage since I lived alone. When we had gutted the penthouse suite that took up the entire floor and turned it into two separate apartments, our mom had worked with a designer and then a decorator to get everything finished. She had installed two closets in each master, insisting that we'd thank her someday when we married and the woman wanted her own closet space. Right now, I just saw it as a complete waste of space where shit ended up when I didn't have a place to put it.

"What's weird? The thought that she's having Zach's brothers, which he's gonna have to raise as his own children, or that I know the thought of getting rid of her as soon as she's no longer useful has crossed your mind?"

"I never seriously considered . . ."

"Cazzate!"

"That's not bullshit! I only mentioned it because having her gone would . . ."

"She's Brett's best friend, Matteo."

"I know. That's why I haven't suggested it again."

"Brett and Zach are a thing now, brother."

"Poor guy," Matteo mumbled.

I found what I was looking for in the spare closet and walked past my brother toward the kitchen as I said, "Poor guy? Hell, I'm jealous. She's fucking cool, and he's happier than I've ever seen him. That means that we need to embrace the changes that come with Zach having a wife."

"They're not married yet."

"But they will be. Look at ‘em, Matteo. I can see them growing old together, can't you?"

"I don't think about shit like that," Matteo admitted.

"You and I have always been different that way."

"True." Matteo followed me into the kitchen and eyed the basket I set on the counter. "What's that?"

"It's a basket."

"Why in the hell do you even have one of those?"

"Someone sent some fruit and stuff for Christmas, and I kept it."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"You're weird. What are you going to do with it?"

"I'm going to make a picnic to share with Tabby so I can make her comfortable and find out what she knows about Frank and Geno."

"So, you're officially dating your mark? James Bond, you are not, brother."

"I never pretended to be James fucking Bond, brother. I agreed to find out what she knows, and I'm doing that."

Matteo thought about it for a second and then added, "Maybe you are like him. He always seems to get sidetracked on the mission, and there's inevitably a woman involved."

"I'm not sidetracked."

"You're packing a picnic basket, Luca. That's the very definition of sidetracked."

"I'm keeping things separate," I assured my brother. When he snorted, I shot a glare at him and then turned to open the refrigerator door as I explained, "Okay, I'm trying to keep things separate, but once you get to know her, you'll understand why I'm having this problem."

"Why would I get to know her?" Matteo asked.

"You said yourself that this is a date. Obviously, if I have a woman in my life . . ."

"She's not gonna be in your fucking life, Luca. She's working for men who wouldn't hesitate to kill either one of us!"

"I don't think she is, though."

"But you don't know that for sure."

"Maybe I do."

"And maybe I'm gonna cure cancer."

"Which kind?"

"What?"

"If you could cure cancer, which kind would you cure first? You can't just make it a general thing because there are . . ."

"Focus, Lou."

"Well, which kind would it be?"

Mattteo took a deep breath and then blew it out before he said, "Childhood cancer."

"Which one?"

"Any that affect people under the age of twenty-one."

"Technically . . ."

"Luca." Matteo's voice was almost a growl, and I grinned. "What is wrong with you?"

"It was just a question."

"No. I mean, what is wrong in your life that you are so intent on making this woman out to be something she's not?"

"I could say the same about you."

"Are you unhappy somehow? Are you burned out? Do you need a vacation?"

"I'm happy."

"If you want to date a woman, why does it have to be this one? You're a good-looking guy. You could . . ."

"That wasn't vain at all," I grumbled.

Matteo was staring at me intently when I looked over at him, and I looked away because I didn't think I could handle the concern on his face. Matteo knew me as well as I knew myself, and that wasn't just because we were twins but because we were best friends. We'd shared everything as children and into early adulthood and as we'd worked together to wrest control over the family holdings from our great-uncle which gave us the freedom to be who we wanted to be. However, we still wanted to be there for each other, and that showed in the concern he had for me right now. I knew I couldn't be anything but honest with him in my response.

"All of our lives, we've been an us, Matteo. We've shared everything. Well, almost everything. Birthday, holidays, our home . . ." I said as I waved toward the foyer. "We've always been the Russo boys. Not just Luca and not just Matteo but them. They. Those boys. Before we even met them, most people had heard of us and lumped us together without even thinking about it. And everyone knew what we were part of even when we were just on the fringes. Everyone knew our family history before we ever told them about it."

"She doesn't know any of that."

"Exactly. She's mine. Not ours. And she doesn't know what I should be or how I should act. She doesn't know what's expected of us, what our plans are, or what we've done to get where we are today."

Matteo sat on the barstool and looked down at the counter, deep in thought for a few seconds while I put the last few items in the basket. Finally, he asked, "Would you think I was crazy if I admitted that I'm a little jealous of that?"

"No, but it would make me wonder if it makes you understand what I'm doing a little more than you did before."

"I think I do. Maybe not totally, but I have a better understanding than I did a few minutes ago."

"Good."

"What I'm going to say plays into that, Luca. Don't let her hurt you. Don't let her get you hurt. Don't let anything about this woman make us turn into just me by myself, okay?"

"I won't, and I'm not just talking about my safety, Matteo. Even if this does work out the way I kind of think I want it to, she"ll be part of us."

"This is the sappiest conversation I've ever been a part of," Matteo grumbled. When he looked up at me, there was still concern on his face, but I saw something else that looked a lot like hope. "If you can do this - find this and keep it - then maybe someday I can too."

"Not just maybe."

"We'll see."