She nodded, getting comfortable in the bed again.
On my way out, a picture of me with my mother on a table stopped me.
My mom was half Greek, half Italian. Her mother and father still lived in Greece when she moved to Las Vegas and married my father. When things would get particularly bad between her and my father, she would take me to Greece with her.
It was the only peace I knew as a kid.
I even remembered Kitty taking me to Big the older when she thought they might kill each other. Big the older liked my mother more than he did his own son. He felt being reliant on anything was a severe weakness for a man.
Occasionally my mother would try to quit drinking, but he never did. Together, they were toxic. She knew it, but she always went back. He’d promise to quit, to get help, but he never did. And she’d hold all her frustration and anger inside until she started to drink again, and they would drive each other to the brink.
The fucking cycle would start again.
Those times when she’d take me to Greece, though, I had a mother, a parent, and Greece came to stand for more than a place.
It was a section of heaven.
It was home.
“Oh!” Leonora slid out of our bedroom when she realized I was still in the penthouse. She’d been rushing out and couldn’t put the brakes on fast enough. “I thought you’d left already.” Her eyes glanced down at the photo. She came to stand beside me. “That’s you and your mom?”
“Yeah.” I set it back.
“She’s such a natural beauty.” She studied the picture more carefully. “Are you in Greece here?”
“We’d go occasionally. Her mom was Greek.”
Her eyes stilled on the photo, but I could tell her mind was churning. She bit her lip for a second before she asked, “How was it? Greece? I’ve never left Nevada.”
“It’s warm. Smells like sea water, night-blooming jasmine, and fresh herbs—basil and rosemary. A place worthy of Aphrodite. It always felt like home to me.”
“Sounds like the description of my body wash. It even says something about Greece.” She smiled at me, and then her eyes froze on mine when she realized what it meant.
Home wasn’t an actual place but a person.
Her.
She was my home.
She carried with her all those things that makes a man like me tether himself to a woman.
I knew it the moment her eyes met mine in Paradiso. It was confirmed when my mom’s favorite song came on in the car. Like she was letting me know she approved of Leonora. She liked her.
Her stunned eyes were still on me as I left.
* * *
Gio calledas Umberto and I were leaving the casino.
“How’s it going, Mr. Big Stuff?” He started to play the song in the background.
The line went quiet when I hung up on him. A second later, he called me back.
“I need a cousin with a better fucking sense of humor.”
“You have one. His name is Corrado Capitani.” Corrado was his cousin on his grandfather’s side. Old Gio and Emilio, who was Corrado’s grandfather, were brothers. Emilio was the head of one of the five families in New York.
“Get the fuck out of here with that ballsy lie. Corrado wouldn’t laugh if someone was falling. But speaking of the devil. Emilio’s giving him shit about being married already. You know how those old-timers are. Makes it look better if he has a wife. It’s like having a good credit score when you’re looking for insurance. Corrado is in town to get away for a while. Anyway. I have more information on that situation we were discussing. That guy we were talking about has been having meetings here.”
