“Yeah, well, I didn’t know they were mafia until you told me. Jamie left that part out. He said they ripped him off, and if they didn’t accept the terms of some new arrangement he was trying to make with them, he needed me to steal something off the main dude.”

“That main dude would have cut off each of your fingers and used them as darts just for sport.” I let that ugly but realistic truth sink in before asking, “What’d Jamie want you to steal?”

“Just some guy’s wallet. He didn’t explain why, and I knew better than to ask. He just said if I did this favor for him, I wouldn’t have to do any more after that. He’d leave me alone. Let me date Lennon in peace.”

Wallet my ass. Like hell that was all it was about for Jamie. “Yeah, you could say it would’ve been your last time stealing for him because the Sicilians would’ve killed you. If not for that stunt you pulled with the fight, then for stealing from them.”

“Then use my fingers for darts, huh?” He rolled his eyes, and the fact my son wasn’t understanding the reality of the mess he’d stepped into was going to send me over the edge. “You’re being dramatic.”

I invaded his personal space, needing to make myself crystal clear. “You do not screw with the mafia. Do you hear me?” I pointed at his chest without touching him, my jaw locked tight as I stared him down.

He stumbled and would’ve gone into the glass coffee table if I hadn’t been fast enough to catch his arm and haul him upright. I overcorrected, and he lost his balance, falling against me. He shoved at my chest as if worried I might chance that hug I’d die to have from him.

“Yet, those mafia dudes are afraid of you. Make it make sense.”

I couldn’t, not without explaining my family’s history, and why his aunt was murdered, and the messy truth of my life after that. It’d be too much for anyone to hear, not just him or Juliette. Hell, it was my life. I had to live it. Most days, it was too much for me.

“Even if what you’re saying is true,” he began when it was clear I wouldn’t answer him, “wouldn’t Jamie and Daniel get burned if those mafia guys found out I stole from them? They’d assume they asked me to do it.”

“By the time the Sicilians picked you up for questioning,” I said with the least abrasive tone I could summon, “Jamie and Daniel would be long gone from the States. No more selling drugs on street corners for whoever calls the shots. They saw an opportunity to get out on their own, and they took it.”