I turned to go but paused when he called my name.
“You know the Fausti MO better than anyone. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that nothing was left behind where his heart should have been?”
I shrugged. “Depends on what you call strange.”
“You,” I could have sworn he muttered, but I was too quick out the door.
THREE
AVA
Vice City Pressbuzzed with people who were eager to take a picture of the famous building. It was one of New York’s most photographed places. It even had an extremely popular video game named after it. It was built in the early 1900s after Salvatore Giannini had founded a bank and decided to invest in real estate and the news business. It was one of the first skyscrapers in New York, and it looked like something out of Gotham City, complete with glowing clock and gargoyles with wings.
Giannini had known he was going to dedicate the newspaper to fighting crime, in his own way.
Coming from Italy, he knew how criminal worlds worked, and he wanted to report on them. His mission was to keep tabs on the underworlds coming together in his new home—America. Some say those dark figures had gotten to him, because the newspaper started to send messages to one family from another by subtle meanings behind the words being printed.
If a calling card was left, the newspaper would report on it, and the family who should heed the warning would read it. Sometimes they would even send a message back through us. We’d been caught in wars before.
Edna Giannini, who had inherited the newspaper, never confirmed nor denied this, but all her staff knew it to be true. It was just unspoken, like so many rules in the underworld.
I stopped on the step, looking up, absorbing it all. As with the Fausti family, a sense of euphoria surged inside of me at the thought of this place existing. It was followed by a sense of thick pride. I was one of the few who worked here—who actually got to enter the doors and had an office of her own.
I just fit here.
Joe was right about me being lucky. I’d come to rely on it. I always had content to share. And I was damn good at it.
I was also lucky that Edna accepted me into her world. Not everyone was allowed access. She hand-picked her staff, and we were a small family. I practically lived at Vice City, which my sister, Lucila, hated. I knew she missed me and worried about me, but I’d found my purpose, and I refused to let go of it for anyone.
I’d never forget climbing these steps for the first time after I’d ditched a field trip I was supposed to be on. I’d rushed up to a man with a briefcase, talking his ear off, while he entered the building. The security guard thought that I was with him. After all these years, I still wasn’t sure what his business was that day, but I split from him as soon as we were inside.
I’d been in fucking awe at the entire place. It bustled with people who seemed to have a purpose. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened in those rooms. I wandered a bit, unnoticed, until I found a long hallway with a bright light spilling out of the end of it.
A black-haired woman with a blunt haircut, including short bangs, sat at a wide desk, phone in one ear, a pencil tucked behind the other, a cigarette dangling from her lips. Her square black glasses were thick, and she was dressed in all black, pulling out the color of her blue eyes and making her seem deathly pale. A line of smoke blew from her mouth when she’d talk to whoever was on the other end.
I’d been so engrossed in her that I jumped when a man put his hand on my shoulder. When I started fighting him, the woman swiveled in her seat, told whoever she was talking to that she’d call them back, then turned to face us.
“Let her go, Barry,” the woman said in an exaggerated New York accent. She sounded like she was straight out of an old black and white movie from the 1920s. Once Barry did, she narrowed her eyes at me. “What are you doing in here, child?”
I’d rolled my shoulder, because I wanted Barry to know he’d never leave a lasting mark on me. I narrowed my eyes back. “I wanted to see what was going on in here.”
She lifted her thick eyebrows. “Figured it out, Peps?”
“You’re reporting on things.”
I looked around at her office. She had an ancient looking typewriter on her desk, and framed pictures of yellowed articles hung on the walls. I walked in, barely catching the lift of her hand when Barry took a step in after me. A picture, poster size, took up most of one wall. A man in a suit and hat from decades ago was staring down at the camera, like he was too good for it or something.
He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
“Who’s that?” I chucked my chin toward him. After a second of no response, I turned to find the woman sitting on the edge of her desk, studying me.
“Marzio Fausti,” she said. “Heard of him, doll?”
“No.” I turned back to him. “Besides beingtoobeautiful, what’s so special about him?”
I could almost sense her grin. “He’s the head of the Fausti family, and he steals hearts.”
“Fausti,” I’d repeated. “Steals hearts.”
