I crossed my arms, frustrated, and started to walk back around to the other side of his desk. “You’re so paranoid about my brothers. They aren’t professionals like you are. You’ve done plenty to keep us safe. They’re just politicians with a gripe.”
“They’re not just politicians, Avion. They’re one of the most dangerous syndicates in New York right now, half the underground fears them. They were a problem long before you got here, and now that you’re here, they’ve only got more reasons to come at me.”
Stopping short and turning to face Giovanni, I furrowed my brow and looked down at him. “Wait … what?”
“What?” He was still looking down at his papers.
“They’re an actual syndicate?” I asked. “That’s not true, is it? You just mean they’relikea syndicate?” Gio’s head shot up to look at me, his eyes wide, and his jaw held slightly open. There was no need for him to respond, because I could see it all over his face. “Are… my brothersactualmafia?” Gio’s eyes were scanning me, and I could see him trying to buy time to come up with an excuse. I leaned over his desk and looked down at him, pouring as much seriousness and desperation into my expression as possible. “Giovanni. Tell me the truth.”
38
GIO
All caught up in the efforts I was making to resist how much I wanted to touch and take Avion, I ended up letting something slip that I shouldn’t have. She was looking at me with real concern in her eyes and I knew that the answer I had for her wasn’t the one she wanted to hear. If there were any reasonable way I could convince her that I’d misspoken, I might have tried to do that, but I didn’t want to outright lie to her. She could already see the truth in my eyes, which was why she was staring straight into them, trapping me and refusing to let me go until she received an explanation. As much as I was hoping to keep Avion’s family at least a single degree separated from being complete monsters, my own foolishness was going to kill that.
“Um…” I let out a sigh and stood up from my desk. “Fuck. This is not how this was supposed to go.”
“How what was supposed to go?” she asked.
Walking around my desk, I reached out my hand and for Avion’s. “Come with me. I’ll explain, but not here.”
It seemed as though Avion was almost nervous to take my hand. It wasn’t like that didn’t make sense given how cold I’d been as of late, but it was her fault for being so… perfect in every way. I couldn’t resist my urges around her, and for that reason, I’d just opted to stay away from her altogether. It had occurred to me more than one time throughout the week why that maybe wasn’t the best strategy, but I didn’t really have another one.
Eventually though, Avion set her hand in mine and I pulled her to her feet. My office was going to be the focus of many uncomfortable conversations. Avion already had a father who essentially sold her to satisfy a debt, and she was about to find out that her brothers were even worse monsters than she already believed them to be. That was a conversation best had with lovelier surroundings.
At least I’d anticipated the need for a nice place to have bad conversations.
I led Avion to the elevator that ran along the spine of the house connecting all four floors. There was a lock next to the floor buttons that, when turned with the key I was loading into it, would go up one more floor. The elevator rocked to life and Avion started looking around in confusion as it lifted up and started moving up the elevator shaft.
“Are we going up?” she asked in confusion.
I squeezed her hand tightly in mine. “We are. There’s a surprise up here. I was hoping to wait to show you under better circumstances, but since we’re about to have a very difficult conversation, I figure there’s no time like the present.”
When Avion didn’t respond right away, I looked over at her, and I could see budding tears in her eyes. We didn’t need to make it to my designated conversation space for her to know the gist of what was going to be discussed. The fact that, when she first asked the question, I didn’t immediately say, ‘No, of course they aren’t actual mafia,’ was enough for her to know that they were.
Still, as easy as it might have been to just let that truth hang between us, I owed Avion as much of an explanation as I could give her. It was my selfish, superficial search that dragged her into my world, and because of it she was seeing the dark backsides of the only people she had left in her life. Her best friend who couldn’t stay at the hospital with her, her father who was willing to offer her up so he could fund his gambling addiction, her brothers who are more criminal than she realizes. All because of me, Avion was losing people, one by one.
For that, she was at least entitled to everything I knew.
The elevator opened up on the top floor and I pulled my key out. It opened up into a place that I’d designed for Avion alone. In my mind, it was going to be the place where I told her she was no longer a prisoner at my estate and if she wanted to leave, she could, but if she wanted to stay, she was welcome. I envisioned her looking back at me and smiling, with the full backdrop of the thousands of colorful wildflowers behind her, as she told me that she wanted to stay.
It was much more romantic than anything I’d consider myself capable of, so it was probably poetic that it was here I’d be telling her that her brothers were demons instead.
“A greenhouse?” she murmured, staring up to the massive, glass dome ceiling. Though the sun was shining through, the protective treatment of the glass diluted it, allowing light in without the harsh rays. I watched as her eyes drifted down the walls and started to crawl around the swirling pattern in which I’d had all the flowers planted. “It’s beautiful.”
“I noticed that you paint flowers a lot, and I figured you could use the inspiration,” I said.
She turned and looked at me with a blended expression of surprise, sympathy, confusion, and graciousness. “It’s not very like you.”
I laughed. “No… It isn’t, but that’s okay. I think I’m changing.”
“For the good?” Avion asked.
“I haven’t decided yet,” I replied, then lifted her hand. “But it feels good.” For a brief moment, the reveal managed to melt away the weight of the impending truth, but then I remembered what I had to tell her and knew if I didn’t do it soon, I’d chicken out. I pulled her over to one of the benches and sat, bringing her down with me. “Um… so… You asked me a question, and I want to answer it. Fully and honestly. You may have questions, but just let me get through the bulk of it first, then we can circle back if we need to.”
Avion took a deep breath as she nodded. “Okay.”
“To put things bluntly, your brothers are in my line of work. It was only a couple of years ago that they started dipping their toes into my world, but with the amount of damage they’ve caused, it feels more like decades. They have access to every powerful politician, elected judiciary, enforcer of the law, and elite member of New York City. With their position, they knew that they could make quite a pretty penny extorting those who had a need that could be bought but not legally obtained. They weren’t discerning about what they were willing to do. Cover up crimes, loan-shark, selling drugs, guns, or even assassinations.”
