“I regret nothing,” I tell him, but he knows me well enough to know when I’m bullshitting.
“You had to grow some balls without me around to stick up for you, eh?” Frank pulls one of the chairs close to the bed, Finch and I both wincing at the scrape of the legs across the floor. “How you feeling, Georgie?”
“Like cutting your tongue out if you call me that again,” I sigh, but I let it go. “I feel fine.” Finch’s snort is drowned out by Frank’s shout of laughter.
“See,Principessa?” he says, looking at Finch. “Takes more than a few bullets to stop a Damn D’Amato. Ain’t that so?”
“That’s so,” I say, looking at Finch myself. He’s giving Frank a meaning-filled stare, and I know then that Frank was supposed to come in here and convince me into this crazy Italy plan—but he’s gone off message.
“Uh, I mean,” Frank stammers, “I mean, youdidtake an awful lot of them, Geor—little bro. You gotta admit, you’re all shredded up inside.”
“The surgeon did her work well,” I retort, “and I’m recovering quickly. They all say so, all these doctors and nurses tramping through my room. Now, enough about me. How are you, Frank? And Celia? And the baby?”
“Oh, she ain’t a baby no more.” Frank leans back in his chair to brag. “She wanders around after her dad all day, my little shadow. Celia gets real mad sometimes when Marcy wants to hang with me and do cool shit.”
“What cool shit?”
“I started tinkering with some motors,” Frank says, his one good eye lighting up. “And then I got kind of a rep among the locals, that I was good with cars. So now all the locals come to me when they got a problem. I just do it for fun, you know. Not like we need the money or anything. You set us up real good, little bro.” He gives me an affectionate smile.
“Luca,” Finch says firmly, “Frank and I need to talk to you about going to Italy for a while.”
“No, you don’t,” I say.
“Well, Georgie, you gotta admit, Finch has a point,” Frank wheedles. “It’s a real hot scene in New York right now, and it’s not like they’re gonna stop coming for you any time soon.”
I’m tired of being treated like some half-wit just because I got shot a few times. Frank would never presume to talk to me like this if I wasn’t lying here in a hospital bed. “I am not going to run away like a whipped cur and let our allies get slaughtered by a bunch of goddamn Irish terrorists!” I shout, and only succeed in giving myself a coughing fit.
Finch calmly brings the straw to my lips again, and when I cough back up some of the water, he just as calmly wipes up the spit on my chin with a washcloth.
It’s infuriating.
“That isnotwhat we’re suggesting,” he says severely. “You can still give orders from Italy, you know. It’s not like the Morellis will be out of the fight altogether.”
I find the strength to push his hand away, and even hide my wince at the discomfort when I do so. Or I think I have; I see Finch looking at the pain relief button again and make up my mind. “Listen to me, both of you. I am not leaving this city. That is my final word.” I reach out a hand to each of them, and they take them. Frank looks surprised. Finch looks furious, so I address my next words to him. “It doesn’t matter where we go, angel. Our enemies are everywhere. And God knows, we won’t have the protections in Italy that we have here. So,no, we are not going to Italy.”
“But—” Frank begins, and thankfully we’re interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Whoever it is doesn’t wait for a response, the door opening before any one of us can call out.
“Mr. D’Amato. How lovely to see you again.” The woman in the doorway gives a broad smile.
“Detective Garcia,” I say. “I wish I could say the same.”
Chapter Sixteen
LUCA
Detective Gina Garcia has been snapping at my heels for some time, and now she seems to have persuaded her overlords to grant an arrest warrant against me. It was only a matter of time, I suppose. She was part of the Operation Safe Center Task Force during the Central Park killings, which focused on Angelo Messina. When he ran off with one of their own, FBI Special Agent Baxter Flynn, the task force—and Garcia in particular—turned her attention to other senior Family members. Fontana’s been in her crosshairs for months.
Now, it seems, it’smyturn.
She’s followed into the room by two uniformed police officers, one of them already swinging the handcuffs from a finger and giving me an insolent smirk.
“You can’t be in here,” Finch snaps. “Only immediate family.”
Garcia laughs. “Can’t be in here,” she repeats. “You’refunny, Howie.”
“Fuck you,” Finch retorts, but I can tell he’s unsettled. Garcia knows which buttons to push. Only the Donovans ever call Finch by his given name.
Frank stands tall, making himself wide and imposing. “What the hell is going on here? Luca’s just come outta surgery. He needs his rest. Can’t be moved. Doctor’s orders.”
