“Marco.” Gina looked up from where she sat in Mamma’s rocking chair. A small fire rippled in the fireplace, and a glass of wine sat on the end table. She held a pen poised over the open notebook in her lap. “What are you doing here?”
“What? I can’t drop in on my little sister?”
“Of course you can.” She placed the pen in the middle of her notebook and closed it. “I was just going over my speech for the gala next weekend.”
“Making sure to sneak in a few political jabs?” My sister was nothing if not opinionated, especially when it came to politics.
“Absolutely.”
I unbuttoned my suit jacket and sank into Papà’s chair. The fire flickered under the mantle. What a fucking day. And it wasn’t over yet.
“Want some wine?”
“No. Grazie. I had some with dinner. I just need to sit.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What’s got you in a mood?”
I snorted. “That obvious, huh?”
“You look like you’re about to strangle someone.”
I waved a hand. “I’m worried about Luca.”
She sat upright, feet flat on the floor, and red streaked into her eyes. “What’s wrong with Luca? What happened?”
“Calm down. Nothing happened.”
“Dannazione. Don’t scare me like that!” She eased back in her chair, and her eyes slowly cleared. “What’s wrong then?”
This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. Gina took her role as Luca’s foster mother seriously. “He’s so angry. I thought we’d gotten him past all that.” I looked into the flames, unable to maintain eye contact, the pain in her expression too much to stomach.
She thought it was her fault, like she should have done more, been a better mother. But Gina wasn’t to blame. Neither was I. That poison had started and needed to end with Luca.
“He thinks the answer is getting involved with Vinnie, seeking vengeance against the Shaughnessys. He won’t listen to me.” I turned back to meet her eyes. “But he’ll listen to you.”
She scoffed. “What makes you think he’ll listen to me? He’s a grown man.” She lifted her wine glass. “He’s going to do what he wants,” she said and took a drink.
I ground my teeth. “You could at least try. Before he does something stupid and gets himself killed.” My tone was more biting than I intended.
My sister arched an eyebrow. “Non usare quel tono con me, Marco Luciano.” God, she sounded like Mamma. “You may get away with talking like that to Vito and Carmine and Angelo, but it won’t fly in this house.”
I sighed and swiped my hand down my face.
She set her glass on the end table and rested her elbows on her knees. Her mouth formed a stern line under eyes that told me I was in for a lecture. A lecture that would most likely piss me off. What was with everyone lately?
“You don’t have to protect him anymore. You know that, right? You don’t have to protect me either.” She said the words slowly, her voice quiet. I opened my mouth to protest, but her withering stare made me think twice. I pressed my lips together and held my tongue. “Or Mamma and Papà. Or this neighborhood. Or every single blood demon in the state of Massachusetts. I know you think it’s your responsibility, that it’s your cross to bear, but it isn’t. And it hasn’t been. Not for a long time.
“You’ve spent your entire life making up for our childhood, but the thing is, we’re fine. You don’t have to keep fighting. You don’t have to keep living like if you don’t control the outcome, we won’t make it. It’s no way to live, and one of these days I hope you’ll see that.”
She retrieved her glass from the end table and held it loosely in her hands. Hands that had begged for food when Mamma and Papà had nothing left to give. Hands that had known hard work at too young an age. Hands that had shaken with grief after losing her baby. Everything I’d tried to protect her from, and failed.
“You can’t save everyone, Marco. No matter how hard you try.”
I thought about Anna, about how she’d upended her career to find the piece of her life that was missing. She’d been so brave to just walk away.
Maybe Gina was right. Maybe this was no way to live. Maybe it was time to allow myself that missing piece.
I thought about Anna again, this time walking down the steps of the Arlington Station T stop alone at night, and apprehension seized my body. Even if I wanted to, I didn’t know how to stop my need to protect, to control. It was a part of me, down to my marrow.
“What else is bothering you?”
I gave my sister side-eye. “What, are you my shrink now?”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Conosco il mio fratellone.”
“Non è niente.” I dismissed her with a wave of my hand, but I knew she’d keep at it till I came clean. “I kinda had a date tonight.”
There was no dramatic exclamation, so I chanced a look at my sister. She searched the living room as if someone else might be there. “Am I on camera?”
I groaned and rolled my eyes.
She laughed. “You. Were on a date. Kinda.”
I shrugged a shoulder.
“You haven’t been on a date since—”
“I’m aware the last time I dated, Gina.”
“She must be pretty special if she was able to break the forty-year drought.”
I glowered at her.
“Hey. Scusa.” The depth of pity in her voice made me uncomfortable. I didn’t want to talk about the past. “Losing Lucia was tough on everyone, but she chose not to drink from Tony. Even knowing the risk it posed to herself and to Luca.”
Tony’d done everything he could to convince Lucia to bond and drink his blood. But the shock of learning blood demons existed and that her unborn child’s father was one of them had been too much for her fragile human mind to accept. It had been a miracle Luca survived.
“She didn’t choose. She couldn’t. Finding out broke her. And losing her broke Tony.”
“There’s always the chance a human might react like that, but what happened to Lucia is not the norm. She’s the only one I know of, and I’ve been alive for eighty-three years.” She leveled me with a knowing stare. “And it’s not like you’ve dated any blood demons either.”
I sighed. Loudly.
“Your problem is you worry too much. You think if you take time for yourself or, Heaven forbid, go on a date, the world will collapse without you to hold it up.”
My irritated glower returned with a vengeance.
“Am I wrong?”
“I don’t need you to tell me what my problems are,” I grumbled.
“I think you do.”
I snorted and shook my head. “Aren’t you supposed to be the little sister?”
“Someone’s gotta tell the big bad Mafia Don how it is. Adesso.” She got up, walked into the kitchen, came back with a wine bottle, and emptied its remains into her glass. “I want to hear about the woman who put a dent in the wall around my big brother’s heart.”
* * *
It was a ten-minute walk to Vesuvio from my family home. I entered my club through the back door shortly after eleven. Vinnie was already there, sitting at the bar with a glass of scotch. His driver leaned against the far wall next to Matteo, two soldiers standing guard. A couple of poker games were underway. One waitress served the two card tables. Another was giving a lap dance to one of the regular track betters in the corner booth. Slow night.
I pulled out a stool next to Vinnie and lifted my chin at Enzo. Before Vinnie or I said a word, he returned with a glass of whiskey, neat, and set it on the bar in front of me.
“You reconsider my offer?” Vinnie asked and continued to stare into this drink.
“I have questions.”
I spun my glass on the bar. I’d smoked my last cigar to calm my nerves after dropping off Anna and needed an outlet for all my pent-up stress. And sexual frustration.
Vinnie eyed my glass. “You’re gonna irritate the shit outta me with that. You need a smoke?”
“Yeah.”
He reached into his suit jacket, pulled out a cigar case, and opened it with a flick of his wrist. “Honduran. I like the kick.”
I took one from the case and ran it under my nose. Dark and earthy. I pulled out my cutter and got to work. “Luca says the Irish are expanding. More than I thought. He’s worried about the cops. I don’t know if he has information I don’t, or if it’s just the chip on his shoulder talking.”
“I thought you didn’t want to get involved.”
“I don’t.”
“Sounds like getting involved to me.”
I glared at him sideways and lit the cigar, puffing till the cherry blazed.
“You’re not wrong questioning Luca’s motives. That kid’s got some vendetta.”
“Gina reminded me a couple hours ago—he’s not a kid anymore.”
“Coulda fooled me.” Vinnie shook his head and sipped his scotch. “Shaughnessy’s been expanding his gambling rackets. That’s true. Encroaching on our territory?” He rocked his head side to side. “You tell me. That’s your game in the city. They don’t come near the North Shore.”
“I’m opening a new club in the financial district. Had a hell of a time securing the property. The Shaughnessys were asking questions.”
He shrugged. “They can’t make any big moves without starting a war, but they’re growing. Doesn’t help they have law enforcement in their pockets.”
“Irish cops in Southie have always been crooked.”
“I’m not talking about Southie, Marco, and I’m not talking about cops.”
I swiveled my barstool and narrowed my eyes through the cloud of smoke.
“The feds. They put a major dent in our operations back in the eighties if you remember. Even started that witch hunt to investigate cult accusations?” He raised an eyebrow.
I remembered. I was living in Italy at the time. The damage they’d done to our earnings by shutting down key rackets was bad enough. The constant badgering and questioning of Sources? I’d run my lawyers ragged and spent a fortune keeping our secret under wraps.
“Rumor has it, Ciarán is following in papa Paddy’s footsteps. Allying with the feds to dismantle what’s left of the Boston Italian Mafia.” He shook his head in disgust.
“How good’s the intel?”
“Good as Mayor Kelson.”
“Cazzo.”
The Italians and the Irish in Boston divided bureaucracy like they divided neighborhoods. The Irish had law enforcement, and we had the law itself. But things got murky when the feds got involved.
He wrinkled his brow. “I thought you knew. That’s why I didn’t mention it at Terme. I thought you knew what was at stake.”
I downed the rest of my whiskey, pissed at myself for not keeping up with the mayor. I tapped two fingers on the bar.
The last thing either of us needed were the feds poking around more than usual. Hiding in plain sight only got you so far. We did a pretty good job of combing the internet and covering our tracks, but all it would take was a little digging before our house of cards came tumbling down.
If the Irish were in league with the feds, that changed everything.
“Listen, Marco, I know you don’t want to get involved, but you’re a made man. You run your own crew, you have this place, and you’re Italian. If Ciarán Shaughnessy decides to make a move, he’s not going to give a single fuck you’re not a part of my organization. As far as he’s concerned, you’re Cosa Nostra, just like me.” He turned his stool to face mine, and it creaked under his weight. He gripped my forearm with his thick paw. “You want to protect our secret? You want to protect our Sources? You want to protect your family?”
Smoke and silence hung in the air between us, the answers to his questions a train wreck I couldn’t avoid. We studied each other, neither of us wanting to give an inch, but both of us knowing we had no choice.
“I have conditions.” The unwanted promise left my lips with a puff of smoke before I could stop it.
Vinnie Valenzano showed me his teeth, his face transformed by the victory held in his wolfish smile.