I slapped his bony finger off my sternum. “Listen, Vollero. If you and me need to have a conversation, we can do that. But in private, understand?”
“More secrets, Fontana?” Luca’s cool voice spilled into the warehouse and we all flinched, not just me. When the Boss is unhappy, everyone knows it. He’s a benevolent tyrant, but he’s a tyrant all the same.
“No, Boss,” I said, snapping to attention. His eyes lingered on me only a moment more.
“Alright. Then you can all stop fucking around,” Luca said, finally taking those eyes off me. “Carlucci won’t be joining us tonight because he’s with my husband. But he’ll be Capo soon and he’ll be here once Vitali has provided a new bodyguard. As for his crew…”
A lot of the names Carlucci had asked for were those of my own best men—mypreviousmen. And Luca was happy to give them to him. I was happy, too, and not just because Vollero complained so much about it. Carlucci needed good, experienced soldiers who would support him until he found his feet.
As the meeting went on, I could see I wasn’t forgiven. Nowhere near. But I wasn’t being ostracized, either, which might have been even worse. I was in a strange limbo, and I wasn’t the only one who felt it.
“What about this asshole?” Vollero asked, thumbing at me after Luca was done giving instructions.
“That asshole is who you go to when you need someone put back in line, if you can’t do it yourself. So I guess you’ll be talking to him a lot, Vollero. And he’ll be working with Vitali on training up new recruits. But Vitali gets first pick at bodyguard potentials, because we’re running low.”
“And we’re letting infemales, now, I hear?” Vollero went on.
The look Luca gave him should have frozen the blood in his veins. “Your granddaughter has been of greater service to this Family over the last few months than you have been in years, Vollero. She’s smart and she’s brave and she’s willing to work hard. You’ve done a lot of years at the top, so maybe you forget what it’s like to have ambition. Maybe you’re getting soft.”
“No, Boss,” Vollero said, dropping his head respectfully. “I just worry about her. I know the kind of things that happen to girls who get mixed up in this life.”
“She’s not a girl,” I said, which earned me a dirty side-glance from Vollero. “She’s a woman. And like the Boss says, she’s smart enough to know the score. Hell, she learned from the best, didn’t she? She learned from you.”
At that, Vollero raised his head a little more. “First thing you’ve said in a long time that I agree with, Fontana.”
“Move on,” Luca said, and so we both did.
Vollero still dislikes me, of course. But he disliked me before all this anyway, so it’s not much of a loss. After the meeting I thought Luca might hang around, talk to me in private, but he left first. Vitali and I were last to go, after some discussions around potential new recruits. He left me with another handshake and a brief, “Luca’ll come round.”
But he hasn’t come round so far. Cold and distant every meeting, and he makes sure he’s never alone with me. I’ve tried to take it in stride, and I’ve tried hard to work with Vitali, to be useful to the other Capos when they call on me, but most of the time it all feels empty to me. I wonder why I’m even still doing it sometimes. Why not get out of the business while I still can? And Carlo’s so busy, which I knew he would be. But it leaves a lot of brooding time, and when I brood, I brood on that bond I used to have with Luca that I don’t have anymore.
It just hurts, is all. Even though I deserve it and even though I’d go through it all again. It still stings that the easy friendship we used to have is just…gone.
So when Carlo came home one night and told me he and Finch got to talking after one of the charity meetings, and worse, that it had ended in Carlo inviting them over for dinner later in the week, I wasn’t sure how to react.
“But Luca won’t come,” I said at last.
“He’ll come,” Carlo assured me.
“You can’t know that.”
“Finch told me they’d both come.”
“Finchmight. Luca sure as shit won’t,” I told him decisively, ignoring the look he gave me. And tonight, five minutes past the time they were supposed to arrive, I’m even less convinced. IknewLuca would never come. He’s made his position—and mine—very fucking clear.
Just as I’m about to cover up the uncooked steak and put it back in the fridge, the phone from the lobby rings. I stare at it a few seconds before I walk over there and pick it up. “Uh, yeah?”
“Mr. Fontana, your guests are here,” Jonesy says, cheerful as ever. “You want me to send them up or you want to come down?”
Guests. He saidguests, plural. So if Finchishere, Luca must be with him.
Or maybe it’s a couple of crew soldiers Luca sent in his place to rough me up for even daring tothinkhe’d come over for dinner.
“Uh, Mr. Fontana? You there?”
“Yeah, Jonesy, I’m here. Send them up. Thanks.”
If I’ve got a beatdown coming, I’ll take it, but I’d rather it happened in the privacy of my own home. I wait there at the elevator, my guts twisting in a feeling I’m not that familiar with, until the softdingsounds and the doors slide open.
