Maverick flipped him the bird. “I think Nyx is right,” he grumbled. “We need to get shit back on track.”
The rest of the meeting didn’t take long, but when I headed back out into the clubhouse, I’d admit to wanting to break something when I heard the arguing in the kitchen.
Fuck’s sake.
While I was pretty sure the woman could argue with a corpse, I didn’t get why the whores kept on returning to the kitchen. Why were they being possessive of a task they’d always fucking moaned about? Bitches made no goddamn sense.
But, the weirdest thing of all? More than the annoying sweetbutts and the brother’s daughter who put the sass in sassy?
The strange buzz that filtered through my veins as I thought about heading into the kitchen to spar with her. Sure, it sucked having to referee a caterwauling bitch and a babe with an attitude problem, but it was almost worth it coming face to face with Giulia, and wondering what the hell she was going to say next.
One thing was for sure.
The place wasn’t goddamn boring with her around.
❖
GIULIA
The next day
“WHO’S CARLY?”
“Huh?”
When Steel eyed me like I’d lost my marbles, I just repeated,
“Who’s Carly?”
“We don’t have a Carly around here.”
Beside him, Link moaned as he took a bite of my pasta. “Fuck, this is good shit, Giulia. I mean, I think this might be better even than the damn steak.”
Steel’s brows rose. “You’re kidding me. Better than the steak?”
“Yeah.” As Link slurped up some more food, he moaned like he was having an orgasm, and even though I was used to hearing my brothers mid-sex, which was a level of TMI that I hoped few ever had to understand, my cheeks burned a little hotly at his reaction.
For the first time in my life, people were appreciating my food instead of just grunting at it or taking it for granted.
It was weird.
I liked it, liked that more than I liked cooking at any rate. At least it made it more bearable.
“Where’s mine?” Steel demanded, eying the pots in front of me with a hungry look that had inspiration hitting me.
“You don’t get any until you answer my question.” I tossed the pasta that I’d boiled for sixty seconds into the frying pan. As I let it get coated in the puttanesca sauce, I smiled at him. “Answers for food.”
“You do know that’s not how shit works around here, don’t you?” Steel growled, eying the bright red sauce as I flashed it in the pan, letting the homemade sghetti get drenched in it.
“Isn’t it? Far as I can see, I have a lot of hungry mouths to feed. First.”
He frowned. “I’m on the council!”
Link snorted. “She’s got you by the balls, dude. Just answer her.”
“A-Are you bribing me for my dinner?” Steel sputtered.
“Finally, he gets it.” Link grinned at me. “Can I have some more sauce?”
“Sure.” I reached over and ladled some into his dish. “There you go.”
He moaned again when he took another bite. “This stuff… it’s fishy. Why?”
“Anchovies,” I explained, but my attention was on Steel. Mostly because he’d messed with me yesterday in the council meeting. I got the feeling Link would tell me who Carly was, but messing with Steel did no harm. As far as I could tell, he and Link were the most easygoing of the council.
At least, I was hoping that was true. Or my ass was about to be tossed out, all because I wanted to know who the fuck Carly was.
I mean, it already stung my pride that I’d been on the watch out for an Old Lady called Carly just so I could eye up Nyx’s woman, but when that had revealed nothing, I knew I was left in the lurch.
I shouldn’t give a shit about whether he’d claimed a bitch or not, and yet, I really fucking did. Why, when the brother was a grumpy pain in the ass, I didn’t know, but tell that to the butterflies that took up residence in my stomach whenever he made an appearance.
Steel bit his bottom lip. “I love anchovies.”
“I know,” I told him sweetly. “I heard your pizza order the other night.” That wasn’t why I’d made the dish today, but it helped.
He folded his arms under his chest, and I knew he was thinking he could outwait me, so I called out, “Jingle—” God, I hated her. “I have the tray ready for Maverick.”
When I thought about the brother who, from what I’d heard, hadn’t left the clubhouse in years, I determined to bake him a cake all his own. From my perusal, a perusal that had gone awry, he still needed fattening up, and if I had to cook, I might as well get it right.
I figured it was my service to the nation. Helping one military vet at a time.
Steel grunted as Jingle headed over and snatched the tray off the table the second I dished up the plate for the councilor. He didn’t even take the opportunity to study her ass, instead, he studied me as I poured more pasta into the boiling water in front of me.
“Did you really hand make that?”
“Yeah. I did.” Because I was one part insane, and second part eager to impress.
He whistled under his breath as he watched me flash some more sauce into the pan. I was doing this individually because the councilors were served first, which meant I had ample time to torment Steel into answering me, as Nyx was usually the last one in to eat.
“There is no Carly around here,” Steel explained, his gaze on the sauce.
“Nyx has an Old Lady brand on his throat—”
Link wagged a finger at me. “Nyx is off limits to little girls like you.”
That had me gritting my teeth. “I’m curious.”
“Been asking questions about all of us, have you?” Steel retorted, brows high in disbelief.
If my cheeks burned, then fuck it. “I’m curious,” I repeated.
They both snorted as they shot each other a look, then Steel’s smirk disappeared. “Carly’s his sister. She died a long time ago.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t expected that answer, and it made my relief all the more awful. It was weird to eye up a taken man, made me no better than a clubwhore. Still, I mourned for Nyx, even as I wondered why I didn’t remember Carly’s name.
Having been raised around here, I mostly recalled the kids of my generation and the Old Ladies. Nyx was a good fourteen years older than me, which put him in a different sphere, but even though I remembered his name, and knew most of the council from memory, the details were vague.
And it irked me to no end that I didn’t want the details to be vague about him.
When Steel’s dinner was ready, I put on extra sauce and muttered, “Will that buy your silence?”
Link snorted. “Yeah. From Nyx. But if you think we’re not telling the rest of the council, you’re dumb.”
When they wandered off, equally sniggering and moaning, my lips twitched.
“What are you smiling at?”
The bark had me jerking in place, and I glowered at Nyx. Mostly because he was a dick, mostly because even though he was glaring right back at me, my stomach was in knots. “Not a crime to smile, is it?” I sniped at him.
He studied Steel and Link’s backs. “What did they want?”