A Love Most Fatal (Morelli Family #1)

31. Vanessa

31

VANESSA

After dinner, when it’s time to review the week’s candidates, Nate is more tense than he usually is. He’s been shifting on his feet, and I’ve caught him staring off at things like they might’ve betrayed him or confounded him. He’s deep in his head.

“You’re being weird,” I said as he helped load the dishwasher.

“You’re weird,” he said back, like we are in the third grade.

Now, all of us splayed across different couches in the living room, Nate clicks on the TV to a photo of the only man he interviewed in the last few days.

“Maxim Orlov?” Willa asks. “I thought he was engaged.”

“They broke up,” Mary says. “How did I hear that gossip before you?”

The picture is one of the many tabloid shots of him, wearing a long winter coat looking more like a clothing model than a boss. At my side, Mary looks bored down at her fingernails, chipping off little pieces of black paint onto the carpet.

I had the idea to add his name to the list, but I never got around to actually doing it. Someone else must’ve.

“When you danced with him at the gala, did you tell him about this?” I ask.

“He’d already heard,” Mary says.

Mom puts a hand on her chest. “He is?—”

“Big,” Willa finishes. “Handsome.”

Sean nods in agreement.

“Maxim Orlov. Thirty-seven and the head of the Orlov family and, in turn, all Russian mobsters in this city,” Nate says by way of introduction.

“The whole state, really,” Leo says. “Everyone knows the Orlovs.”

The Orlov family is not one we’ve had much trouble with, especially since Maxim took his father’s place. My dad always looked at that man with distaste, though his son, he said, wasn’t half so awful. He was engaged until very recently to another Russian woman whose name I cannot remember.

Nate is quiet, practically holding up the wall the way he is leaning on it.

“Well?” Mary prompts.

“Give us the bad news,” Mom says on a sigh, and we all wait. After another moment, Nate stands up straight.

“He passed. He did great.”

There’s a pregnant pause in the room as we all wait for the imminent but .

Nate just shrugs.

I’m still coming to terms with the fact that Maxim sat for an interview in the first place, now to hear he’s. . . passed?

“You’re kidding,” I say. I look to Leo for back up, but his face is drawn solemn.

“He was good,” Nate says. “Reasonable responses to my questions, no immediate signs of anger. Plus, he’s got three sisters.”

“Is he strong?” Willa asks. We’ve all seen the man, he’s enormous. I can’t imagine him not being completely cut beneath his suits.

“I’ve seen him fight,” Leo chimes in. “He’s a beast.”

“Me too,” Mary says, and that’s as glowing a review as she could give.

“How many people has he killed?” Mom asks.

“Eight by his own hand,” Nate says, referring to his notes. “Notably, three who messed up his littlest sister.”

I’m leaning forward now, we all are.

“How did he talk about his ex?” Willa asks.

“Said she was a wonderful woman and hoped she was happy with the man she left him for. Said he would kill him if he laid a hand on her.”

“Holy shit,” Willa breathes, and I have to agree.

“Is he still in love with her?” I ask. A pining husband wouldn’t be the worst thing until he decides to leave me for his old fling. Mortifying.

“I don’t think so,” Nate says. “Said he wouldn’t dare cheat, not after what it did to his own mother.”

“No fucking way,” Mary says while Willa says, “Is he lying?”

“He seemed legit,” Leo says, and Nate agrees, though it looks like it pains him to do so.

I stare at Nate’s face, the five o’clock shadow and swatches of gray under his eyes showing his own tiredness, maybe just from today, maybe from all of this—the interviews, the crime, the weeks of just tonight . When I catch my mom’s eye, she is looking intently at me, communicating in her wordless way so much love and patience, but hard truths too. I need to stop doing this to him before he breaks. Before I do.

I stand from the couch.

“Invite him to dinner,” I say. “Tomorrow.”

Everyone is tense while we wait for the Russian. Or at least, I think everyone is tense, but it’s more likely that they all can sense how tense I am and it’s making them antsy. I’ve snipped at Willa three times in the last hour, twice while she was just trying to make my hair look nice (nothing I did would make it lay right, nothing, and I was admittedly getting intensely angry about it) and then once just now when she told everyone to pretend to be normal.

I don’t want her kids to have to pretend not to be their fun selves, I don’t want any of us to have to be dressed in our nice dinner outfits getting to know a mob boss who wants to enter into the economic agreement that is marriage. I want to take off these fucking heels and have spaghetti and watch that asinine Mario movie that Angel and Artie want to watch for the ninetieth time and be as weird as we all want.

It’s not Willa’s fault, and she knows that. I shoot her a look that I hope tells how sorry I feel about all of it, and she squeezes my hand. We’re eating outside again tonight, the patio warm and wonderful looking over at the pool and the lush garden. Nate is running around in the grass with the kids and Ranger, who is barking and bouncing around with the weight of our combined frantic energy. There’s a growing ache in my chest at the sound of the kids’ laughs mingling with Nate’s.

Leo hears something from his earpiece and nods at me across the table before retreating into the house to lead our visitor out to meet us. Everyone gets quiet, the kids even milling towards their seats in preparation for Maxim Orlov. Objectively, it looks like we are waiting for a funeral.

I smooth my palms down my dress, adjust the clasp of my necklace, then fix my posture. Nate’s wearing a pea green button up that makes his eyes look like bright emeralds, especially in the sun. I try to look anywhere else.

“Everyone laugh,” Willa says and after a moment of confusion, we all fall into an unnatural round of laughter, Angel laughing the loudest, until we are all laughing for real at the absurdity of it. It’s just a moment of levity, but it does the trick as Leo exits the house, a tall man behind him carrying a bouquet of tiny roses and greenery.

“Morelli family,” Leo begins, “Maxim Orlov.”

Maxim makes his way around the circle, shaking hands with first my mother, then Sean, Willa, and the kids before finally stopping at me. He takes a longer moment to shake my hand, his warm and engulfing my own palm.

We’ve all met before, but now the circumstances are different.

He hands me the roses, which I accept with a smile before handing them off to Willa like they’re my bridal bouquet and I’m at the end of the aisle.

“Welcome to our home,” I say.

Mary clears her throat to my left, waiting for her own handshake of respect. Maxim startles, his eyes falling on Mary with an intensity that was absent for me. It’s so brief; there, then gone in an instant. He shakes her hand and then moves on to Nate, who he greets like an old friend.

He’s got two guards, big guys who dress sharp. Maxim introduces them by name, but they stay back, just observing.

“Let’s eat,” I say and gesture at the spread on the table. Sean grilled steaks and chicken; Leo made two salads. I did nothing to prepare the meal because, again, my hair was all wrong.

The small talk that ensues puts me on edge. Mom is every bit the social butterfly, a skill honed from being by my dad’s side for so many years. Willa, too, is a pro at this, but I’ve never been so good at pleasantries in these settings. If I’m too pleasant, I may be seen as weak, and if I’m not pleasant enough, I’m a shrew bitch. A bulldog.

I suppose I’d rather be a bitch than a floor mat.

I tune in as Maxim tells what must be a charming story based on the mooning expressions of half of the table. He’s got Willa and Sean wrapped around his finger, and my mother too looks well pleased. The table chuckles at the end of his story and I clear my throat instead of joining in.

“The man had many enemies,” Maxim says, I guess about his father. “It’s been a trial mending those relationships.”

“How many years has it been?” I ask. “Since he died.”

Since you came into power would be too intense for a family dinner.

“Seven years,” he says. “I was thirty.”

I remember this happening. I was in my undergrad; I came home for the weekend and we all celebrated the senior Orlov’s demise. He had been a brutal force in the city, a constant source of terror for any gangster. He’d been killed. I never found out who did it.

“Good riddance,” Mary murmurs and I kick her beneath the table as quietly as I can. She doesn’t wince, just gives a tight-lipped smile.

Mom is quick to step in. “She means?—”

“No, that’s alright,” Maxim says. “He was a difficult man.”

Difficult is a mild assessment, but with my heel pressing against the tender part of her shin, Mary does not say so.

“Cleaning up his messes has been my greatest challenge. Trust is something earned over generations in our business.”

I am surprised to find that I agree with what he is saying.

I was lucky my father was as upstanding as he was (well, as upstanding as he could be, he was a criminal like the rest of us). He was fair, at least, and never needed extreme violence to be respected. The senior Orlov was the opposite, notorious for his retaliation and torture methods.

“And aligning yourself with us would help or hinder this effort?” I ask.

Maxim thinks before answering, an admirable trait. Many do not, usually men, but also Mary, who never thinks before saying anything. It’s her chaotic alignment, Willa says.

“I believe that there is a place for tradition, but when the tradition no longer serves you, it ought to be excised. Aligning with the Morelli family would be another step in this direction, one that I would like to make one way or another, circumstances not limited to these.”

These circumstances being a potential business arrangement with a fancy cake and white gown.

“We would like that, too,” I agree, and Maxim gives me a warm smile before I nod to his plate and we all get to eating in earnest.

Maxim tells more stories and is genuine and benevolent in answering everyone’s questions. We’re going around the table discussing our favorite desserts when I again see something in Maxim’s eyes that speaks of some spark just beneath the surface.

“And you, Marianna?”

Mary’s head snaps towards him, her eyes no longer absently tracing the evening clouds.

“It’s just Mary,” she says. Nobody’s called her Marianna since Dad died, not even Mom.

“Mary,” he corrects. “Your favorite dessert then?” She’s the only one who hasn’t shared, her mind wandering elsewhere as it so often does during a long family dinner.

“Half-frozen cream puffs,” she says. “Or chocolate croissants, but the chocolate inside can’t be melted.”

Mary resumes her staring at only God knows what in the distance, and we move on to the next topics until dinner is finished and Maxim asks if he can show the children a lawn game that requires only three people, a bucket, and a ball.

“He’s perfect,” Willa says when he, Sean, and the kids have moved to the lawn.

“He’s Russian,” Mary points out, and Mom snickers.

“What did you think of him, Princess?” Mom asks.

I am making a strong effort not to look at Nate, who I feel looking directly at the side of my face, his eyes boring holes into my skin.

I drop my shoulders. “Seems genuine at least. But you can never really know someone’s intentions.”

“You can’t,” Mom agrees. “Trust is difficult to build, even harder to maintain. Especially in our world.”

“For what it’s worth, he might be perfect,” Leo adds. The worst thing is that for as wary as I am, I can’t bring myself to disagree.

I watch Maxim in his suit, coat shed and discarded on the back of his chair, coaching the kids on how they might school their dad at this game. The sky bleeds from the purple of sunset to the pale blue of the evening over their heads and I desperately try not to imagine someone else in his place.