“You seem deep in thought, Daddy.”
I reach across my lap to clasp Liesel’s hand then draw them onto my thigh. “Just remembering something from high school about a fight that broke out among members of the Four Families.”
“Four Families?”
“Yes. One of the Mafia wives in New York named us that. It’s the families who lead the mob, the Mafia, the Cartel, and the bratva.TheIrish mob are the O’Rourkes.TheRussian bratva are the Kutsenkos.TheMafia are the Mancinellis.TheCartel is us.”
Her lips turn down, and her head tilts away from me. “Do you really have that much to do with each other?”
She’s already admitted to her family that I’m in a cartel. It’s time for me to explain what that truly means.
“Unfortunately, yes,chiquita, we do. You’ve seen how we sometimes have overlapping clients and deals. It’s hardly our preference. We also own rival businesses and generally try to fuck each other over as frequently as we can.”
“What does that look like?”
I remain silent. Her brow furrows at my piercing stare.
“Jorge—”
“Liesel, this is something that’ll always be part of our relationship. There’s a lot I’ll never tell you. I can’t. It wouldn’t be safe for you to know if I did.”
“As in safe from these rivals?”
“No, not so much from them. I mean not safe if law enforcement detained you or arrested you.”
She swallows as she considers what I’ve just said.
“Chica?”
She looks like there’s more she wants to say, but she’s weighing her words. I hate that there’s anything she’s uncertain about between us or uncertain she can say to me. My thumb glides over the back of her hand, hopefully offering her some reassurance.
“If we marry, could they make me testify against you?”
“Supposedly, no, but there’re certainly ways they can work around that. They can make you testify about my familymembers or even about members of rival syndicates, hoping to back you into a corner where you’ll divulge things about me.”
Her eyes water, and my heart breaks. Is this too much for her? Her free hand rests on my chest as she twists to look at me.
“Jorge, I can’t imagine anyone doing that to me, putting me in that kind of position. It hurts my heart to think somebody would attempt to make me betray you. I would never do that. Even if this doesn’t work out between us, I wouldn’t do that to you. And after all your family’s done to help me, I would never do that to them. But considering what you’ve said two other families have done to me, I’ll sing like a fucking canary to get back at them.”
“I appreciate that sentiment, little one, but the less you know, the less likely you are to be trapped in the middle. Even if you wanted to help my family like that, I never want you in that position. It’s too dangerous. I don’t fear the other syndicates retaliating if you testified against them, but they would target the rest of us. It’s better if you simply have nothing to do with any of it. That also means not only will I lie by omission—keeping things from you, giving you these blank stares—I’ll also tell you outright lies. I’ll look you in the eye and make up some story that doesn’t even remotely resemble the truth. But again, I’ll do it to protect you and my family along with the people who rely on us for their safety and their jobs. It’ll never be about just me. If I could tell you the truth and avoid being deceptive, I would.”
She stares at me for a long moment, and I notice her eyes drift to my shirt collar, then back up to me. I’m not sure at first why she did that, then it dawns on me.
“Liesel, you will never see me come home with lipstick on my shirt or smelling of another woman, and not because I changed first. You will see me in clothes I didn’t leave the house in because Ineededto change for other reasons. There are very fewlimitations to what I’ll do to protect you and the people I love or have a duty toward. But infidelity is a line I willnever,ever,evercross. There will always be another way. I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t live with the shame of that. And my family would castrate, then murder me, my mother being at the front of the line with a rusty knife. Cheating is just something that never happens in my family. It’s simply too dishonorable and too hurtful to consider.”
Now’s the time I need to admit to at least one of our business endeavors.
“One thing I can’t and won’t keep from you is that my family owns several nightclubs, bars, and strip clubs. Because I’m an accountant and Pablo just got married, I’ve been managing them right now. I’ll pass that responsibility on to Joaquin. Alejandro travels too often for it, but there will be times I still need to go during the day because I’m responsible for payroll and maintaining all the accounts from various vendors. None of us go for entertainment, not even before my brother, cousin, andtíobecame involved with their soulmates.”
“Soulmates?” She sounds curious and perhaps hopeful.
“Absolutely. The women who’ve fallen in love with the men in my family couldn’t be better suited to their man. They’re the perfect matching half.”
She watches me intently as I explain. I cup her jaw and lean forward to brush a whisper of a kiss against her lips. I pull back just enough, so I can speak.
“I believe you’re mine,chiquita. I wouldn’t be sitting here with you, divulging all of this if I didn’t believe you were the other half of my heart. We’ve been attracted to one another from the beginning, but the way I feel around you is unlike anything I’ve ever felt toward another person. I dated in high school and even a bit in college and grad school, but I knew it would never be serious because none of those women were onesI wanted to be with forever. I didn’t allow so much access and knowledge of my family. Instead, I kept them all at arm’s length. Most complained I was too emotionally distant for them to want to continue a relationship with me. Some I missed more than others, but I was never brokenhearted about any of them. If we don’t work out, I’ll never force you to stay, but it would devastate me.”
I know it’s too soon to tell Liesel I love her. I’m not positive she’s there yet, even though I’m confident she’s my romantic soulmate. I believe we’ll be compatible, but I’m not positive about that either. She’s not rushing to agree with me about how I see us. So once more, I don’t want to make her feel backed into a corner or face the rejection of her not reciprocating.
