I notice Luca winces at the volume, just like I do. “Quiet,” he says, only he doesn’t really mean it. I can tell it means something good, from the way Frank is grinning and clapping his brother on the back.
Luca, however, doesn’t look particularly pleased about it. He just nods. “The crews are being rearranged, and Tino’s made me Capo of my own. I can handpick my men.” He gives me a glance. “We’ll discuss it later,” he says to Frank, when he sees me hanging on every word.
“Discuss it now,” I say at once. “I wanna hear all about my baby’s promotion.”
Luca’s lip twitch, just for a moment, and then he’s back to his old self. “I told you, Finch. I won’t discuss business in front of you. Ever.”
I roll my eyes. He wouldn’t have spilled anything at all in front of me ifthatwere really true. Frank’s grin is about to split his face in half, but he tries to wipe it off. There’s a pause, as though Luca is waiting for my reaction.
“Of course, husband,” I say, with a placid smile. “The less I know, the better.”
I seem to have said the right thing. Luca flicks a hand at Frank. “Go,” he says. “We’ll discuss things later. And get your wife under control, Frank. I mean it,” he adds, with a dark look.
That knocks the smile from Frank’s face. “Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles. “Hope you feel better soon,principessa,” he says to me, and then he’s gone with a wave.
“I’ll let you sleep,” Luca says, but I catch his hand.
“I want you to know, I wasn’t trying to…What I mean is, thiswasan accident. Please don’t blame Mikey or Celia.”
He raises one eyebrow. “I don’t,” he assures me. And then: “I blame you. You’re the fool who put that shit in your body.”
My fingers clench on his. “It’s not easy, this,” I say sharply, and then I start coughing. He helps me lean up in the bed and rearranges the pillows behind my back. Then he brings me a cup of water and a straw. “Thanks,” I croak, once I can talk again. “Anyway, like I was saying—”
“You think I don’t know?” he sighs. “I understand it’s difficult for you. It’s difficult forme, too.”
“Fuckdifficult for you,” I snap. “I can’t handle that fucking apartment, Luca. It is a prison cell, and Iwouldrather die, even though this definitely wasn’t an attempt at that—”
“It won’t be forever,” he says, frowning. “All I wanted was a few days to get the lie of the land, a few weeks to make my plans. I wanted you somewhere quiet and safe while I figured things out.”
“That’s not what you said,” I break in stubbornly. “You told me this was my fucking life now, and I’d better get used to it.”
He looks me over. “I suppose I did,” he says at last. “Maybe I should have been clearer. Would that have made a difference?”
“Yes, it would have made a fucking difference!” Thisfuckingguy!
He nods. “Well, then, I guess I apologize.”
I get the feeling he doesn’t apologize very often, because after he says the words, he tugs at his cuff. His stupid polyester cuff. He sees me looking at it and must read my mind, because he crosses his arms and looks annoyed.
To annoy him more, I give him a toothy grin. “Apology accepted. Only, you have to tell me exactly when I’m going to be allowed out. On my own, too. No Mikey.”
My husband turns to prowl about the room. “First of all,” he says, in this calm voice that tells me he isfurious, “I don’thaveto tell you anything. You are a marital hostage, angel, which you seem to keep forgetting. Second, you will never be allowed out alone. You will always have a bodyguard with you, because there are people who really, really want to see you dead.” He stops and glares at me, and I can’t help pressing back into the pillows under the force of his gaze. “And lastly, it certainlywon’tbe Mikey. He was only with you today because I couldn’t get anyone else at short notice. Mikey’s a good soldier, because he does what he’s told, but I obviously need someone with more smarts to keep an eye on you.”
“I’m a wily one,” I agree. Luca rubs a hand tiredly over his face. “Why can’tyoube my bodyguard? Isn’t that why Tino made you marry me? To protect me? As well as to control my Pops, obvs.”
“Iwillprotect you,” he says. “Protecting you is my top priority and my number one goal. You have my word on that. But I can’tbewith you constantly, because I have a job to do. And that job is to make your life safer, before you say anything else.” I shut my mouth. Ihadbeen going to say something. “I was hoping to jump a little higher than I have, but being made Capo is better than nothing. It means I can make you safer.”
“What’s a Capo?”
His eyebrows shoot up. “And to think, you’re the great-grandson of the most feared Irish mobster in Boston,” he says. “Although I suppose it’s a term specific to our lot. ACaporegimeleads a crew.”
“I thought you already led the Fuscone crew,” I say.
He shakes his head. “Fuscone was our Capo. In name, anyway. In reality, he left the day to day operations to me, although he hates me.”
“Then why’d he let you run things for him?”
He gives a wolfish smile. “Because I’m very good at it,” he tells me. “And because Fuscone is lazy, stupid, and incompetent, but he knows how to make himself look good by using his underlings.”
