“Morning.” Her voice surprises me as I stare over the stove in the kitchen. I make my own breakfast in the morning since I never have the social energy to order something from downstairs.
“Rule number one,” I mutter before I can even think twice about it.
“Seriously?”
I turn around and look at her disappointed face. Her legs covered in bandages makes me feel like a complete dick. She must have assumed that the nature of our relationship changed last night—and my insomnia tells me that it has.
But I need to fight against it. Look how irrationally I’m behaving because of her: letting her go outside to cheer her up. And this morning, I can barely string together a coherent thought, and this is the worst time in my life to be distracted. I’m meeting with some of the other capos in two hours to discuss what would happen if Marco took a bullet to the skull.
This marriage, these feelings I have for Sofia… I can’t let it fuck up the rest of my life.
“Last night was poor judgement on my part. I should never have taken you outside. Now please let me make my breakfast in peace.”
I can tell Sofia is straining herself to keep her mouth shut. Her fists clench at her sides; her face is turning a shade of red; her jaw is set as she looks away from me towards the window.
Then her eyes finally snap over to me. “You deserve yourself, you insufferable, lonely bastard.”
I stalk over to her, grabbing her chin as her chest heaves in and out. “You will not speak another single word today. Yesterday was a courtesy, considering your emotional state. But that was a one-off. Understand?”
She shoves me away and then stands there, looking like she’s about to explode. I’ve seen her angry many times, but nothing like this. It makes me feel guilty.
Her chest slowly heaves in and out, as if she’s forcing herself to take slow breaths. Then she leaves me, heading towards the bedroom.
The door slams shut.
I can smell my breakfast burning behind me as I force myself to calm down and prepare for my conversation about planning a coup.
But all I can hear are three words repeating over and over again:insufferable, lonely, bastard.
“What’s the status of Vincenzo’s condition?” I ask Sal as he stands between Gio and Dante in my office. I’m still grumpy from the confrontation with Sofia, so I don’t bother with small talk beforehand, not that I typically do, anyway.
“Doctor said last night that he has a fifty-fifty shot of waking up and even if he does… there’s a good chance he’ll be mentally disabled, suffering amnesia, unable to walk or take care of himself, emotionally altered…” Sal’s eyes dart towards the floor, not meeting Dante’s.
Dante had a grenade go off unfortunately close to him seven years ago when we were at war with—hell if I know at this point. We’re always at war. Dante was left mildly disfigured and with an unnaturally flat personality. He’s as smart as ever, but there’s nothing there, emotionally speaking. But I think I can still trust him; logically, he should be able to see that Marco is losing it and support my ambitions.
“Hell,” Gio says, “if that were me, please pull the fucking plug.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Sal jokes. I chuckle along with Gio as Dante maintains his dull, lopsided expression. “Anyway, why’d you call us in here so early? I have a hunch about what the topic of conversation is going to be, but I want to hear it from you first, Alessandro.”
“A simple thought experiment.” I shrug. “Let’s say Vincenzo stays comatose indefinitely or dies. And then let’s say something tragic happens to Marco around the same time. What does that mean for our family?”
“We’re fucked,” Gio says.
Sal nods. “Marco isn’t stable enough to name another successor than Vincenzo at the moment. I’ve considered trying to ask in a roundabout and graceful way, but I enjoy my head remaining attached to my body. So there’d be internal conflict; maybe we’d dissolve entirely. Who the fuck knows?”
“This is why I want to be proactive,” I say.
“Marco hasn’t been acting right recently.” Gio’s eyes dart to the door with worry, as if Marco is standing right outside listening. His voice quiets. “He’s not that old yet, but I question if he has the mental faculties to be in this position anymore. He’s more forgetful; he’s more irrational—”
“He’s more fucked up in the head than I am,” Dante adds.
“Your wedding was ridiculous,” Sal says. “No wonder one of us ended up glued to a hospital bed. The Calabreses are weak—we could have squeezed money out of them without all of that drama. And yet, Marco insisted on giving his least favorite son a memorable wedding. His words, not mine, obviously.”
“He called me a son? That’s a first.”
Sal claps his hand on my shoulder. I’ve always liked him, and in a way he feels like family to me. I’d rather die than express that to him—his actual family is massive, so I doubt he feels the same way. But at least I know he respects me on a professional level.
“Back to the original question,” Sal says. “Who do you have in mind to be the successor assuming both Marco and Vincenzo die? You?”
