THIN ICE |BOOK I |BWWM|

•ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 27•

•SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA•

Andres' POV

I was running hot again.

I couldn't fully blame Julia for making me take two of my pink pills so I could sleep tonight, but she's definitely involved.

I grabbed the towel hanging over a chair near my bed and dried my exposed chest.

Soaked.

I slipped my feet from under the sheets and they met with the cool fabric of my fluffy area rug as I tried unsticking my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

Realizing my stash of water bottles was missing, I flung my towel over my shoulder and jogged downstairs to the kitchen.

I cracked open a crisp new bottle and guzzled half of it as the days and past month's events played in my mind.

Turning Gianni in had put me in Adrian's good graces and he was starting to give me more responsibility. That worked in my favor, the more I could control, the less risk to Julia.

Truthfully though, something had been off between us since UK, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

We always communicated—it was the only way to stay alive; but recently she'd been ignoring almost every ground rule we set.

I sighed and ran my hands through my still sweaty hair as the kitchen intercom came on.

"Andres, I need to see you in my office." Adrian asked, his voice groggy.

Wow, a whole sentence. That's new.

I'm surprised he was still awake after the day we had. Taking over San Francisco was nothing to sneeze at, and quite frankly I'm beginning to wonder how the Russo's did it for so long.

I made my way upstairs—bottle of water in hand—and freely stepped into my brother's office. As I entered, I noticed Adrian sitting straight up behind his desk with his hands semi-interlocked under his chin while his phone dangled from his forefingers. If I had been anymore asleep, I would have thought my father was sitting in front of me.

"What is it?"

Adrian laid his phone down face up and slid it close the the edge of the desk.

"Ciao, Andres." A voice I hadn't heard in years greeted.

"Don Giuseppe?"

"Andres. You sound good, how are you?"

I pointed to the phone as my eyebrows knitted together and I narrowed my eyes at Adrian.

"What's this about?"

"Don Giuseppe told me something interesting. I think you should hear."

I sat down in the leather chair in front of Adrian's desk, the fabric chilling my bare skin.

"Well?" I asked impatiently.

"It may interest you to know that about sixteen years ago Don Russo, Jesse Russo, myself, and your father arranged a sit-down to discuss finances and boundary lines. This was back when peace between families was fleeting and attacks were commonplace. You boys couldn't have been more than twelve."

He paused to take a breath as I sat with my nail between my teeth.

"We seemed to come to some arrangement, but Vincent was dissatisfied, especially with the financial agreement. My money man was there, but it was your man, Terrance Ricks, that laid everything out. Neither families held a candle to the power of your father—"