“Compliments of Mr. Macchiavello,” Sylvester said, placing our menus down on the table.
I narrowed my eyes. “I’d like to speak to him.”
Sylvester nodded. “I will let him know.” He gestured to the table. “Enjoy your dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Capitani.” Then he left Alcina and me alone.
My men waited outside the door, since this was an outing with my wife. I wouldn’t mix business with pleasure, even though I could feel it starting to spill over in this fucking place.
“You want the door closed, boss?” Baggio asked, sticking his head in the room. He had been in Adriano’s crew before Adriano went to Sicily. He’d been promoted in Adriano’s absence.
I looked to my left a little, where Adriano stood. I made eye contact with him. Adriano told Baggio something, and instead of closing the door the entire way, he left a small crack open and then stood in front of it. Nunzio stood right next to him. I had asked him to come to New York for a while, to keep an eye on Alcina.
I pulled out Alcina’s chair, and she fixed her dress before she took a seat. I took the one next to her at the head of the table.
She looked over her shoulder. “That is interesting.”
“Yeah,” I said, watching as a woman stopped to check her lipstick as she passed. The mirror was on the other side. “You don’t see that often.”
We both checked out the menu, but I wasn’t really there for the food. A few minutes later, Sylvester came back in and took our orders.
I grinned when Alcina ordered three different items. I figured I’d have the steak, since it was my grandfather’s last meal.
“Good choices,” Sylvester said in Italian. “It will not be a long wait.”
As soon as he disappeared, a woman came with our drinks. Alcina took a sip of her water with lemon. She had been quiet ever since we left the burial.
I took her hand. “Tell me.”
“Tell you…?” She tilted her head, studying me.
“What’s on your mind.”
She sighed. “Something feels familiar about this place…the smell.” She inhaled. “Chocolate and lemon. It reminds me of Modica. The chocolate shop there.”
She was intuitive. I hadn’t even realized it, but it did. The day we went to drop off the pistachios and pick up her supplies, the shop had had that same unique smell. It was more condensed in this room, where there were only the two of us and not that many plates.
It brought me back to the guy with the tiger tattoo on his neck—Cash Kelly. I planned on paying him a visit soon. I recognized him. He was the son of one of the most infamous Irish bosses Hell’s Kitchen had ever seen. After Cash got out of prison, he started a war to get his streets back.
“Besides that,” I said.
She took a drink and then started to speak. “You have not cried over your grandfather. I know what kind of man you are, what you are accustomed to, but you have been conditioned to be so…unfeeling about death. Even to those closest to you.”
I had no fucking clue what she was talking about.
“He was my grandfather,” I said. “I’ll miss him. But life moves us all toward death. We accept it and keep moving.”
She was right. It was a fact of this life. We were conditioned to accept our fates. No one wanted it, and most men tried their best to avoid making stupid mistakes that would cost them, but in the end, it was what it was. We were all going to end up in the same place someday anyway.
“I understand that notion,” she said. “Still. The loss hurts. It’s okay to cry, to grieve. Those emotions make us human.”
“Emotions make us weak,” I said.
“I am not weak,” she snapped. “And I feel everything. That’s what makes me strong. I grow after I go through it.” She leaned back in her seat. “Grazie,” she said to the waiters who set her plates down.
Sylvester set mine in front of me, and Alcina licked her lips, her eyes growing big. “That smells good,” she said.
I grinned, cutting her a piece. I put it to her lips and she closed her eyes, opening her mouth. “How is it?”
She put her hand up to her mouth, signaling that she was still chewing, and then said, “So good.”
