Dante’s sitting in the dark. The glow of the moon outlines his form sitting in a chair, a bottle of whiskey on the table next to him and a full glass in his hand. I move to switch the light on.
“Don’t,” he says.
I sigh. Jesus, he’s fucking drunk, and he’s a shitty drunk.
“Fine.” I pull up a chair to sit across from him. I start by saying, “You didn’t make your move.”
“She wasn’t ready,” he says, slamming down his glass. “Cara’s in school.”
“She’s turning nineteen. In our circle, she should already be betrothed.” I keep my voice calm and direct.
“Cara’s mine,” Dante shouts. “Mine. She was mine the first time I laid eyes on her.”
“If she was yours, then you would have done something about it. I’ve been after you for months to make a move. You ignored me.”
“You fucking knew this was happening, and you didn’t tell me,” he accuses, stumbling as he comes to his feet.
“Sit. The fuck. Down,” I command. Dante’s not himself, and I’m exerting immense patience, something I don’t normally have. When he falls back into the chair, I continue. “You met Cara, what, two, three years ago? And since then, you’ve done nothing about it. You’ve had two conversations with her, if that. I waited for you to tell me to make the match. Anna has warned you and urged you to do the same. You ignored us all. This tells me one of two things. One, you’re a complete and total idiot to let an opportunity slip through your fingers.” I pause, and Dante jumps in.
“Or…”
“Or, you like the idea of Cara, but you were never in love with her. You can be attracted to someone and still not want to spend your life with them. Cara’s sweet, angelic, innocent. She’s everything good, and we’re not. We live with blood and deceit in our lives daily. You liked the thought of an innocent.” I wait for Dante to take it all in.
“And maybe I do love her,” he insists.
“Dante, you’re my brother, and I would give my life for you. If you love this girl, really love this girl, I’ll help you fight that battle alongside you. But consider this: you are inciting a war. La Famiglia has fought beside us, and we’ve formed strong bonds. Is Cara worth tearing that apart? And remember, war means Anna losing her parents, her brother and his family, and the friends she’s made. It means Olivia loses her best friend in Felicia, and Grazia, and her father. It means Sebastian and I both have to work hard to make sure our wives will adapt to a war where we may find ourselves face-to-face with a member of their family and have to pull the trigger.” I can see that Dante is hurting, and very badly.
“How do I let her go?” he whispers.
“You never had her, Dante. She’s an image of the girl you think you want. That being said, if she is the one you want, the woman you need to make you whole, I’ll find a way to make that happen. That means that I’ll have to have Emiliano killed. Felicia will lose a brother, and if it’s found out, the damage will be irreversible. Think it over tonight.” I stand, getting ready to take my leave.
“Choose a wife for me,” I hear him say.
“What?”
“You picked a woman for Leo, so choose one for me,” he repeats. He rakes a hand through his blond hair, but can’t meet my gaze. Shit, I hate when he gets like this. Pissed off, I can handle. Defeated is torture.
“We’ll talk about it in the morning. Get some sleep.” After leaving, I alert the two men I’ve put outside his house. “He doesn’t leave tonight, and if he does, you follow him and you call me immediately.”
They nod and go back to the main house. Anna’s waiting for me and is quick to ask, “How’s Dante?”
“Drunk.”
“Oh no.” She sighs. “I don’t understand him. I’ve all but made the phone call for him. How can he be upset now?”
“Dante’s a complicated man. Sebastian speaks his mind, says what he’s thinking, and always has. Dante’s relied on logic. Computers, programs, research make sense to him. Emotions are hard for him. You add the fact that our father was an asshole, his mother died, and if it wasn’t for Risk, God knows where he and Sebastian would be. That’s a lot to handle. It was Dante who discovered that my first wife was conniving to kill me and marry my father. I don’t blame him for second-guessing the idea of marriage.”
“Sure. But what about me and you, Olivia and Sebastian, Leo and Lucia?”
“This runs deep, farfalle. It’s late. We’ll talk more in the morning.” We can debate this all night. Dante needs to sleep off the bottle he almost emptied, and I’ll sit down with him again tomorrow.
Dante
Hangovers suck. Sebastian even smiles loudly. I want to punch him in the throat. Even the smell of the linguine in a white wine clam sauce is making me queasy. It’s normally my favorite dish, and I literally want to toss it across the room to the farthest corner away from me.
Dario, the owner of Luna Bella Trattoria, makes it for me when he knows we’re coming. He’s had trouble lately with vandals and threats from a local gang. The punks think they’re going to edge in on our business. Dario’s been one of ours for years, and we protect our own.
In his earlier days, he was a soldier for Nostra Casa, but he never fully recovered from an injury and wanted to open his own business. He was there for us, and now we support him. His wife works with him, and his two sons pitch in when they aren’t in school. Their daughter just finished college. Dario is so proud when he talks about her. I haven’t seen her in years.
Reno is up at the bar, chatting up Dario and laughing. Sebastian is taunting me with the aroma of food under my nose, and laughing at my misfortunate calculation of whiskey intake, when a breathtaking redhead comes running in.
She scans the room, looking wildly around, and sees the man she’s looking for next to Reno. She looks toward the window. I follow her line of sight and see a black Escalade rolling up in front.
“Daddy, duck!” she screams, then launches herself at Reno and pulls him down to the floor just as a hail of bullets hits the bar. Sebastian and I drop to the floor, and our men start to fire back at the car, but it’s already speeding off down the street.
Reno’s slowly getting up, and Dario lifts his head from behind the counter to see his daughter lying amid shattered glass.
“No!” he cries out. He leaps from behind the bar and drops to his daughter’s side. “Elena,” he whispers. Reno touches her throat, looking for a pulse.
“She’s breathing. Call our doctor.” He turns to Dario. “You’ve got to let us take her. Meet us at the warehouse. My men will stay to watch over the place.”
I rush over and sweep the unconscious beauty into my arms and slide into the backseat of Sebastian’s Mercedes SUV, while Reno and Sebastian are up front. Blood drips from a gash in her forehead where she hit the ground. She’s pale and cold. I hold her closer, enveloping her in my arms. She stirs and murmurs something incoherent, then lays her head against my chest.
“How’s she doing?” Sebastian asks, looking into the rearview mirror.
Never taking my eyes from her face, her red hair cascading over my arm, I reply, “I want her.”
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Reno turns in his seat and stares me down. He’s fuming, and rightfully so. Some punk-ass gang member just took a shot at him.
“Maybe. Probably. But I still want her.”
Song and Artist
“The Bones,” Maren Morris
“La Bamba,” Ritchie Valens
“Easy on Me,” Adele
“Stay”, The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber
“Shivers,” Ed Sheeran
“I Feel Good,” Pitbull featuring Anthony Watts and DJWS
“Ghost Town,” Benson Boone
“My Universe,” Coldplay and BTS
“It’ll Be Okay,” Shawn Mendes
“Chasing After You,” Ryan Hurd and Maren Morris
“Good Times Bad Times,” Led Zeppelin
“Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” Stevie Nicks
“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” Aerosmith
“Bitter Sweet Symphony,” The Verve
“Kiss Me,” Sixpence None the Richer
“Bad at Love,” Halsey
“Just Give Me a Reason,” P!nk
“Danger,” AC/DC