“No, but I do love you very much and I’ll be there soon and everything will befine. Okay? Hang up now and continue rubbing your meat, or whatever.”
“Love you, too,” I sigh, and hang up.
Tonight, for reasons that I’m still not a hundred percent clear on, Luca and Finch D’Amato are coming over for dinner. Carlo swore up and down he’d be here on time, but I should’ve known better. Running a law firm takes up alotof his time. I knew that, logically. And I’m so damn proud of him I could explode—I think I’ve worn out even Jonesy’s ear bragging about Carlo. But some nights I miss him. Some nights his work is an irritation, an inconvenience, or worse. Tonight is one of those nights. Luca and Finch are due in ten minutes. Even allowing for fashionable lateness on their part, there’s no way Carlo will be home by then.
It’s not the first time I’ve come face-to-face with Luca since that night at the warehouse. A few days after he didn’t kill me, I got notification from Vitali about a meeting. An inner-circle meeting. When I told Carlo about it, he didn’t want me to go. We had our first argument about it, a real knock-down, drag-out with slamming doors and shouting—all on his part. Me, I just stood my ground and waited for the storm to pass and then sat him down and held his hand while I told him, again, that I had to go.
“They are going to fucking kill you,” he said through clenched teeth.
“No, they ain’t. If Luca wanted me dead, we wouldn’t be sitting here having this discussion. And I’m not gonna hide away in my apartment just in case someone’s gunning for me.” The fear in his face stayed strong, so I squeezed his fingers. “Please, Harvard. This is part of the job. I gotta trust them, even if they don’t trust me. Anyway, aren’t you confident in your own skills? You persuaded Luca to take me back yourself.”
He didn’t like it, not one bit, but at last he agreed I could go. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have gone if he’d absolutely refused. And that reallycouldhave been a death sentence, refusing the order like that. I never pointed it out, but I think he could see it himself. And so I went, jumpy as hell the whole time, and walking into that warehouse again—the same damn one that had nearly been my grave—and inside, Vitali was there alone, just as he had been last time, or had seemed to be.
“Hey,” he greeted me. The only difference this time was that he wasn’t on his phone.
All my instincts were screaming, telling me to get out of there, or at least get my gun in my hand. “Hey,” I said back.
“It was the Boss’s idea,” Vitali said, his voice a little lower. He nodded at the surrounds. “The warehouse. Sorry. Kind of a dick move on his part.”
I let out a huff of laughter, and he grinned back. “Guess I deserve it,” I said, and felt all my tense muscles relax just a little bit.
“Maybe a little,” Vitali said with a grin. He scuffed his shoe at a mark on the concrete floor. “Anyway, I’m glad the Boss came around,” he said, all in a rush. “Never really believed you’d turned rat. And personally? I thought you did a good job taking out Dellacroce.”
“Thanks,” I said, because I couldn’t think what else to say.
“Heads-up, though—Boss is still pretty pissed about the whole thing.”
“Don’t blame him.”
“Vollero, too. Especially since you been sniffing around his grandkid.” Vitali smirked about that, and it was hard not to laugh. “Snapper’s easy, though. He’s just happy he ended up with some of your territory.”
“Hope he enjoys it,” I said sincerely.
“Carlucci’s being stepped up to Capo soon,” Vitali continued, as though this was all just a cheerful catch up.
“Well,” I said, “I guess it was about time for him. Finch getting a new bodyguard?”
Vitali waggled his hand in mid-air. “Still not sure how that’s gonna shake out. I have a few up-and-comers, but right now, well,” he looked uncomfortable, like he’d realized where the conversation was heading, “the Boss is taking care of Mr. D himself. It shook him up a lot, this whole…situation. The other Families are still kinda touchy about it all. And the IFF have been too quiet for too long.”
I nodded my understanding, looking down at the floor. “Any further word on the IFF since the Donovans’ man got shanked?”
“Nothing since then, except a few more of those stupid letters sent to the Boss. You know the ones—‘we will avenge the murders of the martyrs,’ blah blah. And I gotta say, Fontana, despite everything, you really saved our ass getting Sonny Vegas back in our corner. The Alessis, too. Boss promised to keep it quiet that they were protecting Dellacroce if they came back to the alliance.”
I gave a sardonic smile. “You’re welcome.”
“Boss is still thinking over what to do about Clemenza. But hey, you got anything on the Gees while you’re at it?”
We both laughed. Outside, another car arrived. “Listen, Vitali,” I said quickly, “I wanted to apologize to you, too. This mess I made, I know it has consequences outside just me and the Boss. So I’m sorry if I fucked up things for you, too—you and your priest.”
“He’s not a priest,” Vitali said automatically, “and we’re fine. But thanks. Appreciate it.” He stuck out his hand as the door of the warehouse pushed open, and we shook. “And I get it,” he added quietly, as Snapper Marino and Al Vollero made their way over to us. “Why you did what you did. Boss does too, even if he won’t admit it.”
Vitali’s words made me feel much better. So much so that, when Vollero greeted me with a right hook to the jaw, I was willing to overlook it. I caught his fist on the second swing. “Alright, old man,” I sighed. “You get one free hit, and you just used it up.”
“You son of awhore,” he shouted. “You sneaky, rat-facedbastard—”
“Calm down, Al,” Snapper says jovially. “Fontana’s taken his beatings already,metaphoricallyspeaking, anyway. Lost his crews, his land… That’s enough for now.”
“The hell it is,” Vollero growled. He stabbed a finger into my chest. “Keep your fucking hands off my granddaughter!”
