Forbidden Temptation My Mafia Fiance's Alpha Father (Brooklyn and Aden) novel Chapter 56

Chapter 56
Brooklyn

“Really?” I ask, nodding to the bartender who hands me a glass of wine. “Are we really cousins?”

“Sure,” he says, laughing. “I’m Alexander, this is Carter,” he says, indicating the slightly smaller version of himself next to him. “And our sister Audrey.”

I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “Wow, it’s really nice to meet you all.”

“Not quite cousins,” Audrey corrects him, leaning in familiarly to talk to me.

Her words are just a little bit slurred. Not sloppy, but I can tell she’s had a couple of drinks. “We’re second cousins! Your dad is our mom’s cousin, which means—” she screws up her face in thought, thinking, “—we have great-grandparents in common. Then again, most wolf shifters can trace themselves back to some common family member.”

I take a sip from my glass. “Um, my family—I mean, the family I was adopted into—we didn’t pay a lot of attention to that sort of thing. So to find out I have great-grandparents and second cousins all in one day…”

I raise my eyebrows in emphasis, and they laugh, nodding.

“Yeah,” Alexander says. “It must be a lot, to go from nothing into a big Italian wolf pack like this.”

Something about the way he says that gets under my skin. Sure, we didn’t have an extended family, but where I came from was hardly nothing.

Before I can protest, Audrey speaks.

“We remember you, though!” she says with a big smile. “Because you were our little redheaded Baby Brooklyn—”

I blink, suddenly, at the way she says that. Baby Brooklyn… Only one other person calls me that—

“We used to play with you at family parties,” she continues. “Like, I remember one summer, our other sister, Jayde—”

“Hey,” Alexander says sharply then, nudging her with his elbow.

“Oops,” Audrey says, lifting her fingers to her mouth. She rushes to continue, then, trying to move the conversation on. “Yeah, anyway, I remember you when you were so little on the slip-n-slide—”

“Wait,” I say, putting out a hand to stop her. “Jayde? As in—”

Suddenly, though, Aden is by my side.

“Brooklyn?” he asks, looking sternly at my new cousins. “Did you have some trouble getting your drink?”

Alexander, Carter, and Audrey go silent. They stare at Aden, starstruck.

“Aden,” I say, gesturing towards them. “These are my cousins—”

“Come on,” he says, ignoring them and taking me by the arm.

I look back at them and grimace a little, shrugging as I let him pull me away. They all give me a little wave.