Page 63 of Filthy Little Lies

“Sav, you want one?” Roman asks, hovering the bottle over an empty glass.

“No. Thanks, though.” I move back from the table, leaning against a counter while they all make a toast to Joey and down their drinks.

Gabriel joins them for three shots, then rejects the next and moves to stand beside me. He casually rubs my back.

“I shouldn’t have let you come. Damien will come take you home.”

“No.” I lean into him. “I mean, I’d like to stay until we know he’s all right.”

He studies me for a long beat, then nods. “Okay.”

“Is Joey one of your cousins?” I ask as the men at the table start up their own conversation.

He brushes my hair behind my shoulder then traces my jaw with his thumb. “No. I don’t know him that well, to be honest. He works with Roman mostly.”

“By the way we flew out of the house to get here, I thought maybe he was family.”

“He is,” he says fiercely. “All of these guys are family. You don’t need to be blood for that to be true.”

He watches his men sitting around a tiny kitchen table in a cramped apartment, drinking, smoking, talking about the man on the floor below us having wartime surgery with pride. He even laughs when one of them retells a story about Joey from years ago. Something about getting his pants caught on a fence he was climbing over.

“Isn’t that how it is with you, Cassie, and that Tony?” He side-eyes me.

I groan. “I don’t want to talk about him right now. We can argue about it later, when we’re home and there isn’t a doctor around to piece you back together.”

A grin flashes across his face. “Are you threatening me, Savannah?”

“I would never do that.” I feign insult.

“Because it’s disrespectful?” A little crease forms on the side of his mouth with his half grin.

“No.” I nudge him with my elbow. “Because everyone in this room has a gun, and I don’t.”

He leans into me. “Yes, but I have something even more dangerous with me than that.”

“Your belt?” I blurt before I can stop myself, and he bursts into a laugh. Not a huff or a snort, a full laugh with a big smile.

“You stole my line.” He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me into his side, kissing my temple.

“Gabriel, you want in?” Roman offers him another drink.

“I’m good.” Gabriel shakes his head. “And watch yourselves, no one needs to get piss drunk tonight.”

Roman nods, then pours another round.

“You can drink with your men if you want. I’m sure there’s a TV or something in the other room.”

“No.”

“If I wasn’t here, would you be going shot for shot with them?”

He nods. “Probably. But you are here.”

“I don’t care if you drink.”

“Sometimes you say more when you don’t say anything at all.”

“What does that mean?”