“It wasn’t wise to hold back the money from the men.”
He gives his opinion, alright. “You said it wasn’t wise to give them a bigger cut in the first place,” I say, shrugging my jacket on and pulling it into perfect place. It smells like home. Like Finch.
Suddenly, Ineedhim.
“I said they’d come to expect it,” Angelo counters. “And now they do. Today, when you held out on them, they only saw it as you cutting them out on something theydeserve.”
He’s right, and I see that, but I don’t care.
My mind is on Finch.
“It’s time I quit giving it to them, anyway. I should’ve listened to you in the first place.” I clap him on the arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Oh, you have somewhere to be, Boss?” he asks, but his eyes are twinkling.
“You know it. It’s Date Night.”
Chapter Two
Finch
Ihold up to my chin a flouncy, frothy wedding dress that would’ve been too much even in the decade from whence it came. “Whaddya think?” I ask loudly. “Maybe I should’ve gone for something like this on my big day?”
Celia D’Amato gives a nervous giggle. “Shh,” she says in an undertone. “I think Mrs. Murphy donated that one.”
We both glance across the community room at Mrs. Murphy, who wouldn’t fit in the dress these days, but whose style doesn’t seem to have changed much since her wedding. She’s pursing her lips at both of us.
“Humor unwelcome,” I mutter. “Noted.”
Celia shakes out some high-waisted acid-wash jeans and begins to fold them. “You didn’t have to come.” There’s only the faintest whiff of reproof in her tone, but it still irks me.
I turn away to toss the dress on the Dry Clean pile. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Iamfucking here, and “here” is the goddamn church hall for our local parish, where I’m helping my sister-in-law Celia—I like to call her my outlaw sister—sort through the monthly clothes donations, and getting side-eye from various do-gooders who attend Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church.
Since all the shit that went down, Celia’s become very church-focused. I guess all the death shook her up. I half expected her to escape via pharmaceutical aids, given her history with pills, but she’s given them up entirely and thrown herself into church work.
She doesn’t even like toshopthese days. “Celia, Celia, why hast thou forsaken me?” I asked her last time she turned down my lunch-and-fashion-shopping offer.
She didn’t think it was very funny.
Cee hasn’t even been coming to Our Ladyverylong, which makes it sting all the more. Celia and Frank moved to Manhattan about six months back into another one of Tino Morelli’s properties. It took Cee a long time to admit that going back and forth across the Brooklyn Bridge to Do Good Works was just too time-consuming, so she gave in and started attending her local parish. It’s one of the ones in the good part of town that does a lot of work in the bad part of town, and I wonder if Celia chose it because she doesn’t feel like she fits in with the middle-of-Manhattan types.
Or maybe Cee chose this church because of its beauty. It’s a great big ridiculous neo-Gothic wedding cake of a building and I loved it the moment I saw it, just not the people in it. Besides, when we got shown through to the adjunct community hall behind the church, which is no architectural masterpiece, I figured this whole thing was going to be a bust.
I was right. The women—they’re all women, except the priest and my bodyguard Marco, who’s sipping tea and eating cake over in the corner and pretending like he’s part of the walls—seem to like Celia well enough, but they don’t approve ofme.
But I know Celia’s trying to make a good impression, so I’ve kept myself mostly in check. What I don’t know is why the hell she invited me along today. Maybe she’s worried for my soul, the sweetheart.
“You’rehere, but your head isn’t,” Celia sighs, reaching across me to pull the dress back into the Mend pile. “This thing’s hems are all coming down.”
I love my outlaw sister, but this is some bullshit. Finch D’Amato, bastard son of Tino Morelli and husband to the new Morelli Boss, sorting through second-hand, third-rate fashion donations?
“You know, all the rich bitches who live in Manhattan, they could afford to give better donations,” I mutter, plowing through the mountain of clothes in front of me.
“These donations come from all over the city, not just this parish. Look, if you’re just going to complain all afternoon—”
“Who, me?” I flutter my eyelashes at her, and she can’t help smiling at me.
