"Not yet."
He exhales through his nose. "Then he’ll know before lunch. He always does." A beat. "I can smooth it. I’ll tell him it’s convenient. A business consolidation. A legal tie to?—"
"You’ll tell him nothing," I say. The edge in my voice surprises even me. "You stay out of this."
Something old and iron crosses his face. "I kept this family standing when better men fell. You don’t get to tell me to stay out."
"You’re in my house," I remind him. "And you’re not the only one who keeps books."
It lands. I watch it. He tilts his head, curious and cool, the way he looks at a man who just showed a weapon he might not know how to use.
"What do you think you know?" he asks.
I zip the bag, slowly. "That you love yoursons. That you love winning more."
He smiles then; it's sad and honest, which is worse than any threat. "Loving you is how I win."
"Is that what we’re calling it?"
"I call it what it is." He steps in, close enough for the past to press between us like a third man. "Don’t make me choose between you and what keeps this house safe."
"You've already chosen." I'm not sure if I mean the ledger, the years, or the way he taught me to count knives before friends.
A muscle jumps in his cheek. He backs up a step that isn’t a retreat. "Bring your wife to dinner," he says, tone smoothing. "Let me look at her. Let me see the math."
"When she’s out of the hospital."
He blinks. "Hospital."
"Bullet," I fill him in. He waits for more.
When I don't elaborate, he nods slowly. "Then bring me the man who fired it."
"I plan to."
He turns for the door, hand on the jamb, then looks back. "You think you’re done playing games, Figlio. You aren’t. You’re just playing bigger ones." His eyes soften, like he remembers the boy I was before the world got teeth. "Call me before you call anyone else. Even if you think you can’t."
He leaves. The house exhales.
I pick up the bag and feel the weight of cotton, silk, and the lie I told when I saidfastandprivate. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. I walk down the hallways, not paying attention to the two men flanking me. I used to think I knew the shape of my father’s love.
Now I’m not sure who he loves more,hisfamily or La Famiglia.
Outside, three SUVs sit idling. Two are already packed with guards; the one in the middle has its door open for me to step in. I throw the bag in the back and climb in, pulling the partition up. I'm not in the mood for conversation.
The elevator upto the ICU is packed and slow. A woman is silently crying into an already abused tissue, and a man is trying to soothe her. An orderly boards, pushing a man in a wheelchair, only to get off on the next floor, running over someone's toes. The others, visitors and staff, eye me dubiously. After Marcello's lastvisitin this hospital, I don't think they have much patience left for anybody who looks like trouble.
When we hit the ICU floor, I can't get out of the damn thing fast enough and nearly collide with a doctor.
"Sorry," he mumbles.
Ignoring him, I head straight for Ana’s room. I don’t like hospitals. Never have. Never will. My mother spent too many days in them—days filled with shrugs, misdiagnoses, and antidepressants—until they finally stopped pretending they knew what was wrong with her. From one of the rooms, the stink of bad coffee hits me; combined with the odor of disinfectant in the air, it's enough to make me gag.
I move past the stationed guards, rip the sliding door open, and enter her room as if an apocalyptic nightmare was behind me. She’s awake, propped up on the bed, and a tray sits across her lap. In one hand, she holds a fork, in the other a phone, and she looks as if she's about to throw the fork at me like a knife. I raise my hands. "I come in peace."
"Ever heard of knocking?" She complains, lowering the fork.
The swelling over her eye is down; the bruise has gone from riot-purple to a mean yellow that looks almost deliberate on her. Startling jade-green eyes meet mine. I set the canvas bag on the bed. "Morning."
