“Why this place?” Tito was complaining. “Every time I come here, two women decide to make me into a Titosandwich, nephew!”
Romeo’s laughter was raspy. “That is because you are an old gangster. An original.” He squeezed Tito on the shoulder. “Thedonnesee a man dressed as nice as you. Such style.” He whistled. “They all want a piece of you.”
Tito fixed his collar. “I do have a certain charm,” he said. Then he cleared his throat. “That is beside the point! It is late and I have other obligations.”
“Such as staying at home withziaand watchingI Love Lucyreruns?” Romeo laughed again and took a seat closer to where Rocco would sit. Even though we were tight, he still had a side. I had my family, and he had his.
Tito slapped him behind his head. “I will be watching when you are my age from above, and I will be laughing.” He gave a fake laugh. “I outmatch all of you in energy now, and I was born long before all of youragazziknew how to use a pot!”
He took a seat in the middle of the table—the old gangster would be judge and jury for this sit-down.
He fixed his glasses and then looked at the three of us. “Ragazzi.”Boys.He nodded. “Do you have anything to add to this conversation?”
“Tito.” I nodded back and lifted my hands. “Not at the moment.”
“Bene,” he said. “Let’s get started.”
Rocco looked at this watch, and at the same time, Guido Fausti came in the room. Once he took his seat, the meeting would begin.
Our formations were the same. Rocco on one side—a man on each side of him. I was at the other—a man on each side of me. Tito sat in the middle.
“Let us be sure the reason for this meeting is clear before we get started,” Tito said, sitting forward some, steepling his fingers. “Corrado, you requested this sit-down tonight because you feel as if Rocco has disrespected you.”
“He has,” I said, keeping my eyes on the accused. “Rocco sent my man here—” I nodded toward Nunzio “—away when my wife was out to eat with friends and family at Macchiavello’s. My men are never alone with my wife. My rules.” I tapped on the table once. “So tell me this. Is Rocco Fausti above the rules I set for my own family? And this is not even business. This is personal. My wife ismywife.” I touched my chest.
I didn’t bring the issue up with her because she hadn’t mentioned it. It ate at me like fucking acid that she hadn’t, but my real problem was with him. I knew that look in his eye because I had seen it before. When Rocco Fausti wanted a woman, he made it his mission to have her.
He had women all over the world and one at home. Though their relationship was open. He didn’t care if his wife fucked other men, as long as he didn’t know names. Bugsy had, and I told him he was fucking nuts. It was one thing if she took schmucks to bed, but another to take a man from this life. Word spreads.
Word was also that Rocco had wanted my wife before I entered the picture. Yeah, it was my right to call her my wife even before she was. The day we got married was not the day her life belonged to me. It had always belonged to me. It was just sealed that day.
I’d seen it that night at the opera with my own eyes. The way Rocco looked at her, like he was a hungry fucking lion on the prowl for a juicy piece of meat. Again when he’d seen her out with me at The Club.
Rocco cleared his throat. “We were at a restaurant,” he said, opening and closing his hands. “It is not an intimate place.”
“The place doesn’t matter,” I said. “Conversation can be inappropriate or intimate anywhere. Especially when no one is around.”
“You believe your wife to be that way,” he said.
I had to keep a lock on the urge to put a bullet in his chest for even insinuating that my wife was that kind of woman. The three fuckers who had treated her that way in this club had paid for it. One with his tongue and the other two with an eye. One spoke while the other two watched, so it was symbolic for a tongue and two eyes to go toward the debt. They lost one head; they were fucking lucky they didn’t lose all three.
“I believe that about you,” I said.
His face changed completely. I had called him out on his bullshit, and essentially said that he was the equivalent of a whore. He wanted to kill me, too.
Good. Let the slaughter fucking begin.
This thing of ours had a long memory; so did I. Even if we were square after this, I’d never forget it.
“Did your wife claim that I spoke to her indecently or touched her in the same manner?”
Point for him. My wife never spoke a word about it to me. He probably knew that. He knew Nunzio had told me. He wanted him to. The object of this meeting was to make a point while being respectable about it. I’d fucking lose if I outright called him the words on my tongue. Fucking bastard.
“If she had,” I said, “permission or not from her, you wouldn’t be sitting there.Capisci?”
He stood and I stood, followed by our men.
“Sit down,” Tito said. His voice came out cool, collected, and we all obeyed him. He didn’t look at any of us after we did. He kept his face forward, staring at the wall for a few minutes. Then he cleared his throat. “If it were your wife, Rocco, would you have called Corrado here to this sit-down?”
