The Mafia Part II: April's Return

Chapter 6

The door to the kitchen slid shut right behind Zander after he pushed April in ahead of him. She was already facing him with her arms crossed defensively in front of her when he rounded on her in a similar stance. They glared at each other until the red began to fade from his head and his colouring returned to somewhat normal.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Zander asked. It was more of a hiss, really.

“Lance had it coming,” April said easily. “He was clearly trying to antagonise me out there. You saw it!”

“He was teasing you, and in return you insulted each and every one of our guests’ intelligence!” he scolded.

“Oh, come on,” April scoffed. “This is hardly the first time they’ve been faced with honesty. What’s the big deal?”

“The ‘big deal’ is that you’re being a bad hostess and it’s reflecting badly upon me,” Zander said from between gritted teeth.

April looked at her perfectly manicured fingers uncaringly. “Much as you might find it difficult to believe, I don’t care about that. At all. They’re your guests, not mine.”

He scrubbed his hand down his face in frustration and took a moment to calm himself down before speaking again.

“Consider this,” Zander said. “You have no idea who these people are or what kind of connections they have. Do you really think it’s within any of our best interests if you antagonise them?”

April took a moment to consider this. “No,” she grudgingly admitted upon further reflection. “Perhaps I should have chosen my words better.”

“That’s right,” Zander returned, unable to believe she was actually admitting to being wrong. “Look, April, I know you like to wear your heart on your sleeve, but this isn’t really the time or the safest place to do it. You were better off being known as a snow b***h than a hothead.”

“I believe the reputation was ‘snow queen’, not ‘ice b***h’,” April bristled unhappily.

“No can do. You’re a princess, remember?” Zander joked lightly as she tried to ignore the twists his teasing smirk caused in her stomach and tamped down on just how much she hated that stupid nickname. “So, I think we both know what you need to do: apologise.”

At his final word, April let out a hearty laugh, so robust in its suddenness that she actually bent over clutching her stomach to try to stop it. When she saw he was actually being serious, her laughing only increased. It was quite a while before she straightened up and wiped away a few tears left behind by her mirth.

“Like that’s ever going to happen,” she said dismissively. The very thought of apologising to a group of spoiled brats was so absurd it bordered on the surreality of an alternate universe.

“I’m serious,” Zander said plainly. Her laughing fit had completely diminished what little understanding their moment earlier had caused and he was doing his best to control the tick that was developing under his left eye. “This is non-optional. For as long as you want to keep the peace in this house, you will apologise.”

April scoffed. “Since when has there been peace in this place? You can’t threaten me, Andolinna. I’m not one of your little stooges.”

“I don’t want to threaten you, but apparently appealing to your reasonable side is just as ineffective,” Zander said with a quirked brow. In an unexpected movement, he reached out between them and took hold of one of her hands. Her arms were still crossed, so it took a little bit of wrestling to get her to relinquish her hand. When she finally did, he turned his eyes to hers. Out of all the times they had spent glaring at one another over the past few months, this was the first time that April actually took note of his eyes. They were a dim green with flecks of brown in them. Having their full attention on her in a manner that was not necessarily antagonistic confused the hell out of her. She did not care to examine why that was too closely.

“Please, April,” Zander said in what she assumed was the first time he had ever actually used the word in this context. “Just swallow your pride and make nice with them. It’ll make my life so much easier.”

April was still struck silent, but she shook her head clear and pulled her hand away meaningfully. She ignored how damp it was within his grasp and carefully wiped it against her light dress.

“Fine,” she relented. “If it will get me away from this agonising conversation, I’ll do it.”

“Thank you,” Zander said with a cavalier smile, seeming much more like his usual self.

“But while we’re on the subject of pretending to be decent beings,” April began, standing with her hands on her hips. “You need to tell your friends, acquaintances, or whatever you choose to call them the truth. They can’t stay here overnight. As a matter of fact, it would be best if this was the last time they showed their faces here. And above all… you cannot tell them where we’re going after this. I know you like hanging out with them, but they have the money and the time to follow us to Cape Town. What I said, although inappropriate, remains true. It'd be best to just rip the band-aid and keep going.”

Zander looked at her with narrowed eyes, but April held her ground. She wasn’t asking for anything outrageous. As a matter of fact, she thought she was being very fair indeed. While Zander’s ego may have taken a hit from taking orders from someone else on this trip, she knew he realised how good of a point she was making.

“Fine,” he relented with a sigh. “Not that you’d believe me, but I was never going to let them stay for the couple of nights they were hoping to.”

“I actually do believe you,” April surprised him by saying.

“Yeah, right,” Zander snorted in disbelief.

“Honest,” April shrugged. “Henry managed to convince me that you knew what you were doing. I just had to make sure because of your poor reasoning skills last night.”

He perked up. Whether it was the idea of her thinking well of him, or Henry vouching for him, she was unsure.

“So is that what you guys do when you’re alone?” asked the cocky bastard as he slid the kitchen door open and led them back outside. “You talk about me? I bet the need to discuss me is practically constant.”

“Of course we do, Hercules,” April scoffed. “Every moment spent without your name on my lips is pure agony.”

The geniality between the two of them was the complete opposite of the frigid air between them when they had left. Seeing them now was a complete shock for the rest of the gathered party. April returned to her seat beside Henry while Zander went to make sure Nate had not immediately gone back to abusing his body with alcohol before nourishing it. Before she could get comfy beside her new friend, however, Zander shot her a meaningful look and refused to look away. April sat up straighter with an audible huff, drawing everyone’s attention to her.

“Sorry about earlier,” she said in a tone they were all familiar with. She did not mean it, but the olive branch had been extended nevertheless. “I can be a real b***h when I haven’t had my morning smoke.”

And with that, all was forgiven. None of them needed to know that she was lying, but they could all appreciate being around people without their preferred mood enhancers. So, for the time being, everything went back to normal. April still did not do anything to try to ingratiate herself with them further. If anything, she thought, as she saw Betty and Lance line up an obscene amount of white powder, she was perfectly happy keeping her distance from them.

Henry made sure to take her drink after drink, but this time he stuck to a sweet rosé, something he knew she liked and would savour. Eventually, however, he left her side to go back into the pool. Thankfully, he was nice enough to leave his shades for her use. It was past noon and the sun was really coming down hard on them. It did not take too long after he had left for her to feel another presence beside her. Henry’s seat was unceremoniously occupied and she was not surprised to see Nate in his place.

“You said you and Zander were family,” Nate said, cradling a beer instead of the tequila shots he had seemed so insistent on earlier. “How exactly are you related?”

“I hardly think that’s any of your business,” April said dryly. The only reason she was even entertaining this conversation was because the man had sobered up considerably. She was fairly certain she disliked a drunk Nate more than she did Lance.

“You guys are really secretive, you know that?” the redhead asked rhetorically.

“You want to talk about secrecy?” April laughed lightly. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that the only reason you came over here is because Zander is otherwise occupied.”

They both watched as Zander flirted with the only other girl who had come in with Nate’s friends. She was seated by the poolside with her feet kicking leisurely in the water while he was leaning against the pool wall beside her. Their proximity was very telling.

“There it is again,” Nate thought out loud. “I’ve seen you dozens of times where Zander acted like this with women and you never raised a brow. Now, all of a sudden, you look like you can’t decide whose throat you want to slit more: his or Chloe’s.”

April winced at that. She would have preferred to go on living her life without putting a name to her face, but it seemed that was not to be. All of a sudden, she was extremely tired of Nate’s veiled words. She pierced him with a haughty glare.

“All I’m trying to do is figure out what your game is here, Nate,” she said tiredly. “What do you want?”

He spent a moment looking at everyone gathered around them, so obliviously having the time of their lives. None of them were aware of his gaze of scrutiny.

“Nothing. Just making some casual conversation,” he said with a swig of his beer. “And, just so you know, I didn’t go to that club opening party last night, either. I just thought you should know I’m not as stupid as you may think I am.”

April’s spine straightened at that. If her life in the past almost two years had taught her anything, it was not to take any words lightly. It might have been the rosé doing the thinking, but she had received threats worded much more friendly than those. She took a new look at Nate, almost seeing him in a completely new light. She never knew who she was dealing with. Zander’s pleading made a little more sense now.

“What do you do, Nate?” April asked and, although he did his best to hide it, she saw surprise flit over his features for a quick second before he squashed it. It was probably because this was her first time in all the weeks she had known him that she had ever shown an interest in him.

A charming smile escaped his lips. She could tell it was practised. “You know what I do. I’m in tech. I have my own start-up,” Nate said.

“Right. It’s just that many people with tech start-ups don’t really spend weeks upon weeks in the Maldives throwing yacht parties. I’d imagine a big part of it involves actually being in Silicon Valley, or wherever it is you’re based,” observed April. Zander’s advice not to wear her heart on her sleeve had promptly been thrown out of the window.

“I can work from anywhere with a working internet connection,” Nate said, his face now closed off, as if she was nearing the discovery of something she should not know. “That’s one of the perks of living in the decade we do.

“I see,” April, said with a smirk, turning to face him head on. “Usually start-up guys won’t shut up about the next big thing they have that will revolutionise the world online. I’ve never even heard you tell anyone what it is your company does. So ‘tech’ isn’t code for anything, is it? If it is… you’re going to have to get a much better cover story.”

April’s triumphant smirk was interrupted by the sound of bare feet approaching, which she knew for a fact belonged to Zander. It was like he could sense whenever she took a single step out of line. It was starting to piss her off, but she was also fully expectant of it. So, when her elbow was firmly gripped this time, she put up little to no resistance.

“April! We need to talk,”Zander said. No one even paid them any attention, desensitised as they were by the exact scene that had just happened hours ago. In their minds, this must have been a regular occurrence. She was led to the sliding doors of the kitchen and this time she could see he was literally clamping his lips shut in order to avoid anything slipping out until they were safely behind closed doors.

If she thought he was pissed before, she was mistaken. This time he sounded absolutely livid.