Lazlo makes a sound in his throat. “How’s your husband?”
There is something careful in the way he asks, as though he is trying to learn the answer without saying what he really means.
Are you in danger?
“We heard something went down in Red Hook a couple of weeks back. We called the house yesterday. Got stonewalled.”
Yeah, on account of Giovanni’s security men screening every single call after Isabella Bellandi gained access to me.
I swallow. “He’s… Giovanni,” I say, which is not an answer and also is.
Uncle Milo comes on the line then, louder, blunter. “We kept the money,” he says, and the shame in his voice makes my stomach twist. “And it’s helping, Lu. It really is. So don’t… uhh, don’t hold it against us, okay?”
“I know. And I won’t. Sorry I judged you.”
“It’s okay, bambina. We didn’t want to,” he continues quickly, relief in his voice too. “We held out. We tried every other option. But things got tight, Lu.”
I grip the phone harder. “I was angry,” I admit. “Maybe I still am a little. But I understand.” Just as I understand that not all Made Men are cut from the same cloth. That my father was unlucky enough to fall into the clutches of a merciless one.
One a world different from the one I married.
I realise there’s silence, startled.
Lazlo speaks softly. “You do?”
“I do,” I say, and the truth of it settles. “I don’t want you drowning because I was too proud to accept reality. I just… needed to hear it from you.”
Milo exhales. “We didn’t betray your father,” he says, voice rough. “We would never.”
“I know.”
And I do. The anger was grief wearing a different face. The anger was the old wound screaming that loans come due. And more often than not, with several pounds of flesh the innocent can’t afford to lose.
Men like Giovanni do not give without expecting something back. But the truth is, he already owns the world they live in.
He always has.
Lazlo clears his throat.“Lucia,” he says carefully, “are you happy?”
The question lands too close to my ribs.
Happy.
I almost laugh. I almost cry. “I don’t know what I am,” I admit. “But I’m… here.”
“And you’re staying?”
I hesitate. Not because I want to leave but because I don’t know what staying means anymore. And something deep in mysoul is a little terrified to find out if I’m fully committed to this path I’m already on.
“Yes,” I say finally. “I’m staying.”
Lazlo murmurs something like a prayer. “Good,” he says. “Call us whenever you need to hear someone who isn’t wearing a gun.”
That pulls a reluctant snort from me. “I will.”
When I hang up, the quiet returns. But it feels less suffocating. It feels like I have anchored myself, even slightly, to something real.
I stand, walk to the mirror, study my own face. God, I look tired. Like a woman living on the edge of something she cannot name.
