“Please,” I added, remembering my manners—andto whom I was speaking. It was not my intention to make demands from the Morelli Don, after all. “I’d like Teo to stay.If,” I added quickly, suddenly aghast at myself, “he wants to. I’m sorry, I didn’t even think—”
“I’d like to stay,” Teo said, and looked to Luca.
“I’d like him to stay, too,” Finch said firmly.
Luca gave a faint shrug. “So be it.” He turned to Teo. “But nothing you hear leaves your lips. Yes?”
“Yes, Boss.”
“I don’t think much of it will come as a surprise,” Finch said. “But I’m just glad Aidan has come around.” Finch had seated me on the couch and was next to me, his hand squeezing mine. “You’ll stay with us, right? For a few weeks.”
Despite my fear and the aching in my ribs from the seat belt jolt, I smiled. “No,” I said, and shook my head as Finch began to protest. “No. Listen to me, Finch. My ordination is only a week away now. I have to go back to Boston and I was planning to go tomorrow in fact, to see my family…although…” I hesitated.
“You don’t want them to be put in danger,” Finch said, with a faint air of triumph. “That’s it. The ordination will have to be bumped. Moved,” he substituted as I glared at him. “Postponed.”
“Ican’tpostpone it. The Archbishop of Boston is involved, and it’s not just me getting ordained, there are several of us—and anyway, I’ve received my Master of Divinity and I’ve servedmorethan the allotted twelve months as a deacon. It’stime.”
Finch’s face turned sour, but before he could continue, Luca said: “I believe these inconveniences you’re suffering are due to my actions.”
An incredulous laugh escaped me. Inconveniences?
Luca ignored my reaction and went on, his eyes as much on Finch as they were on me. “And you are also an important friend to this Family.”
I stiffened in my seat, wondering what Father Raphael would say about such an admission.
“As such,” Luca continued, and now his cool eyes rested on me once more, “I would like to offer you our protection and aid. The Morelli Family and all our allies are at your disposal.”
I felt my eyebrows rising much higher than Teo’s had done mere minutes before. “I don’t think—” I began, but Finch clapped his hands together.
“Yes. Wetotallyowe you. And you know what, weshouldget you out of New York. We could all go to Boston. We were planning to attend your ordination anyway—” The slight frown Luca gave suggested to me that it was the first he’d heard of that idea. “—so why don’t we just go early?” Finch looked at me. “What do you think?”
“I think…I think it would be difficult to fit the entire Morelli Family in my parents’ house,” I hedged, but that was the least of my objections. I’d had no idea Finch was planning to come to Boston to see me ordained. The thought of a line of Italian mobsters filing into the Cathedral in Boston as spectators, while the Archbishop and my family were there watching as well…
Well, it wasn’t how I imagined my ordination might go.
Finch was grinning at me. “Ofcoursewe wouldn’t stay with your fam, Aidan.” That gave me a small measure of relief. “And neither can you, of course,” he added. “That’d just make them a target, too. Wouldn’t it?” He looked to Luca, who gave a slow nod.
“But—” I began, but Finch was already talking again.
“I’ll call Tara,” Finch said confidently. “We can stay with her.”
There was a palpable silence after the suggestion. Then Luca said, “Baby bird, why don’t we talk in private?” He extended a hand for Finch, and those eyes of his that seemed so cold had taken on the glow he only got when looking at his husband.
Finch, whose face had turned stubborn, took his hand after staring at it for a second, and they left together, going upstairs. I could hear Finch’s tone if not his words, insistent, and Luca’s calmer replies.
Teo looked at me from across the room. “How you doin’?”
“I’m…”—frightened, confused, angry—“…tired,” I settled on, and he came over to sit next to me on the couch. He reached out to push my hair away from my forehead, and I stared at him dumbly.
“You hit your head,” he said, pressing gently against what I knew was going to be a lump and a bruise tomorrow. I flinched, and he dropped his hand to cup my face instead. “Sorry. I was just thinking, maybe you got concussion or something.”
“The doctor seemed to think I was okay. Said I was fit for purpose.”
Whatever that purpose was. I’d been so sure of it my whole life up until recently. I’d felt the call at a young age. I hadn’t been like other boys my age; never interested in rough games or riding bikes. I’d been what my father called affectionately a philosopher, and he’d gifted me a collected edition of the works of Augustine of Hippo on my fourteenth birthday.
As I looked into Teo’s face, I felt a pull to reread Saint Augustine’s wise words. He knew better than most what temptation and sinful living felt like. I wondered if Luca might have any works by Augustine in his library. It was very well-stocked with philosophers. Even one of the more Godly pagans might help, I reasoned.
“We’ll get you to bed soon,” Teo assured me, and I swallowed. He took his hand away from my face, leaving my cheek feeling cool where it had been warmed by his touch. “Maybe you should go on up and you all can continue this conversation tomorrow,” he suggested. “Don’t know how long the Boss and Mr. D will be, talking things over.”
