#Chapter 31 – Cake and Coffee

“Ut-oh,” Frankie mutters, his mouth full of bread roll. “What’s going on?” Nico sits up straight to, his focus singularly on Christian now. I find myself doing the same. Christian takes a deep breath and looks around at us before focusing on me. “You’re coming to the house tomorrow,” he says, his words more clipped and controlled then they’ve been all evening. “Dad wants to meet you.” “Whoaaaa,” Frankie says, looking between me and Christian, his eyes wide. Nico just tenses at the other end of the table. My hands twist in my napkin in my lap. “Why?” I ask quietly, terrified to meet Don Romano, whose reputation is…well, it’s far more brutal even than the Mafia King. “Did I do something wrong?” Christian briskly shakes his head. “No, Iris, it…well, frankly, it has nothing to do with you, as a person. So don’t worry about that.” Thankfully, that does help. I feel my hands loosen, just a little bit. “Then what’s it about?” “It’s about me taking a woman from a rival family and hiding