I hadn’t done much exploring the night before due to my excitement to try out the pool. So, after eating breakfast/lunch and going for another swim, followed by a shower, I spent the rest of the afternoon traipsing through the house.

Not Nico’s bedroom, though.

I didn’t need to see where he rested his head every night. Where he slept mostly unclothed, possibly even naked. And where he took showers where he was most definitely naked.

The second level was mostly guest bedrooms, obviously untouched. The living room, dining room, kitchen, another sitting room, sunroom, and Nico’s office were all on the main level. One of my favorite pieces of furniture in the entire house was his dining table. It looked like it had been assembled from whiskey barrels. Rustic and worn, there was metal pipelining along the edges that looked exactly like the metal fittings that were bolted into whiskey barrels.

It had character. I loved it.

Moving on from there, I ventured downstairs where I found the gym. But after seeing the imprints of Nico’s butt cheeks on the bench press and inhaling the not unpleasant manly musk in the air, I made a mad dash out of there and sprinted to the room at the opposite end of the hallway.

“Holy shit.”

There were bottles of alcohol everywhere.

Racks and racks of it—wine, beer, whiskey, bourbon, scotch, vodka. Everything you could name, it appeared to be here. I recalled seeing a random article about Nico having one of the largest privately owned collections of liquor and spirts in the world during my Google search, but I’d skirted right past it.

In the center of the cellar-type room was a sitting area with blood red leather furniture placed around a huge fireplace. A pool table sat along one wall, with a small bar in the corner. It was essentially the most expensive man cave I’d ever seen. The epitome of all men’s fantasy lands.

It was a booze bunker.

I noted that the few wine and whiskey bottles I examined were highly sought-after labels and expensively priced. So, he wasn’t just a collector for the sake of being a collector. He actually did his research and only bought the best of the best. Impressive.

I didn’t get a chance to inspect the rest of his inventory because I heard the front door open and close above my head, followed my multiple sets of footsteps.

Great. The hubby was back and with company.

Quiet as a mouse, I tiptoed up the stairs, hoping I’d be able to sneak past them and up to my room without being noticed. But I froze like a statue when I realized the new arrivals weren’t Nico and his buddies.

They were women.

Three of them. All small and petite, with dark hair and dark skin. Maybe slightly younger than me. Of course, each one of them was gorgeous.

It seemed that Nico definitely had a type, and it wasn’t me. In fact, it was the polar opposite of my long legs, blond hair, blue eyes, and microscopic boobs.

That’s good!

I didn’t want to be his type.

But that didn’t stop the green-eyed monster from stepping onto the scene and snagging the reins of my emotions. Nico knew I would be here, yet he’d still invited his regulars over. It was irrational to feel hurt by that. The man was an egotistical, self-involved arse. What did I care if he wanted to continue his whorish ways while in matrimony with me? It was probably good that he did. Because then I would have absolutely zero temptation to touch him.

It wasn’t like the hollow vows we’d recited to each other actually meant anything. I hadn’t anticipated that he’d maintain a steady string of one-night-stands while I was here, but what was to stop him? We had no claim on each other. Not really.

But I didn’t have to bear witness to it.

I was going to have to speak with him about taking his gang bangs elsewhere. I wouldn’t make a fuss or ask questions as long as I didn’t have to see it with my own eyes or—God forbid—hear it with my own ears.

Three pairs of eyes went wide when the women noticed me.

Ah, Prince Charming didn’t mention he tied the knot, did he?

Must have been quite a shock for them. So help me, if they actually asked me to join them…

“I was wondering when the harem would arrive,” I muttered dryly. “Look, I’m not his boss, so I can’t tell him where he can or can’t stick his wick. How about we just say, you stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours. Sound fair?”

Their mouths were all agape.

Then the one wearing a black leather jacket and liquid leggings said, “Did she just accuse me of sleeping with my own brother?”

All the blood drained from my face.

Brother? Oh, God.

How did I not know that Nico had siblings?

“Wait, you’re his…sisters? Not his…?” I trailed off, cringing. I just needed to shut up.

When they all burst into laughter, some of the pressure in my chest eased.

“I’m the sister,” Leather Jacket said between wheezes. “Nico’s only sister. Gia.”

I warily shook the hand she offered. “Um…Lexi.”

“I’m the soon-to-be sister-in-law,” the one with dazzling almond eyes said. “I’m Jasmine, Cris’s fiancé.”

After shaking her hand, the third one with lustrous, curly brown hair introduced herself. “Roxy. Ace’s girlfriend.”

I bit my lip, feeling pretty stupid. “Who are Cris and Ace?”

They shot each other confused looks. “Nico hasn’t told you anything, has he?” Gia asked speculatively.

“About…?”

She groaned. “That jerk-hole.”

Roxy blew out a breath, stepping forward to wind her arm through mine. “Oh, honey. Let’s sit down. This is going to take a few minutes.”

An hour later, my head was a swirling vortex of facts about Nico, the Rossettis, and their most recent involvements with the New York Firm. Batya mentioned Nico had connections with the five families, but I didn’t realize they were to this extent.

“Wow,” I murmured when they finished laying out the events of the last several months. “I can’t believe all of that has happened.”

I took a sip of the wine we’d popped for this little pow-wow. Gia insisted that Nico wouldn’t mind us raiding his stash, saying “he has enough booze to keep him hammered through five zombie apocalypses.”

And when she put it that way…

Jasmine scrunched up her nose. “Try planning a wedding in the middle of this hurricane. It’s been a nightmare. I actually considered getting all the guys fitted for Kevlar vests to wear under their tuxes.”

My hand went to my throat. “Is it really that bad?”

Jasmine’s eyes widened, her hand squeezing my arm. “Oh, my God, no. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. Raphael Esposito and the Gabbianos are in jail, so most of the danger has passed. It’s just…we have to be on our guards for a while, you know?”

“But you’re used to that, though, right?” Gia asked. “As Sergei Kozlov’s daughter, you’re not exactly new to this game.”

They definitely weren’t treating the new girl with kid gloves. I appreciated that. “No, I’m certainly not.”

“How are you doing with all this?” Roxy asked gently. “It’s got to be a huge adjustment.”

That was like saying Chernobyl had been a small campfire.

“As well as I can, I suppose. I haven’t had loads of time to really stop and think about it.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Jasmine interjected, running her finger around the rim of her wine glass, “Cris said Nico is just as freaked out as you are.”

Did that make me feel better? A little, I guess. That meant we were both wandering through this unprecedented experience blindly. Maybe we were more on the same page than I thought.

“When did Nico talk to Cris?”

“Last night,” Jasmine answered. “He came by our place.” She laughed. “I swear, the man barely notices when he gets shot, yet he acts like he’s dying of a terminal illness after saying ‘I do.’”

My mind glommed onto the first part of her statement. “Nico was shot?”

Roxy winces. “Yeah, a couple of months ago. It was just a graze on his neck. Didn’t even need stitches.”

She said she was in medical school, studying to become a doctor, so I guess she would know.

On his neck, though.

What if it had been just a little higher? Something icky coiled inside me at the thought of Nico in pain, or worse. Again, I had no idea why I cared. Like Gia said, he was a jerk-hole.

“He helped save mine and Cris’s lives before that,” Jasmine added.

My heartbeat picked up its pace. “How?”

“After Cris shot Stefano Esposito and got me out of that warehouse, we had to run down six flights of fire escapes. When the explosion went off, Cris and I were thrown from the second story stairwell. Cris was knocked unconscious, and I was pretty out of it. Nico carried both of us to safety. The fire escapes above our heads collapsed seconds after he got us out of the way.”

Nico had put himself in danger to save them? He hadn’t known whether or not those stairwells would collapse on top of him as he’d carried them away.

Over and over he’d professed that he wasn’t a hero.

But I was starting to think that Nico was a big, fat liar.

“All right,” Gia said, pushing to her feet. “Enough of this maudlin chit-chat. We’re taking you out, Russian.”

When I opened my mouth to protest, her hand sliced through the air, cutting me off.

“No arguments. We’re your sisters now, and this is our sacred duty. Consider this your engagement party, bachelorette party, and wedding reception all rolled into one.”

I grinned. “Well, in that case.”

They all cheered as we clinked glasses.

I hadn’t had any girl time in a pathetically long time. And it felt amazing. Just what I didn’t know I needed.

“Where to?” Roxy asked, bouncing up and down on her cushion.

“Oh! O’Malley’s is doing Battle of the Sexes tonight,” Jasmine suggested excitedly.

Gia whooped. “Let’s hit it.”

Little did I know that my new sisters were about to toss me straight into shark-infested waters.

And a certain man bun-wearing, whiskey-loving smartass smelled my blood in the water the second I walked through the door.