Feeling stupid for my unexplainable thoughts, I stab a potato.
His uncle’s wife.
In my head, the Contis are this untouchable, sealed-off world of money and control and men who don’t flinch in any situation.
And Bianca is a person who owns a restaurant that sends steaming eggplant parm in foil pans, along with an assortment of thoughtful foods. Probably put together rather quickly since it was here by the time I got out of the shower, but still made with care and love.
“She’s a great chef,” Nico adds. “Never misses.”
I chew another bite and let the silence sit for a second, because it’s safer than saying the wrong thing.
But my brain won’t leave it alone.
I’m familiar with the Contis. Everyone who grew up here is, but the details of the family outside of the… active members in the crime family aren’t very well-known.
“Do you… do you have a lot of family?” I ask finally, keeping my eyes on my plate like it’s an innocent question. “Besides your Uncle Giovanni and his wife.”
Nico’s fork pauses over the pasta.
He looks at me like he’s deciding how much to give me.
“Yes,” he says. Simple.
Then, because he’s being this version of himself tonight, he adds, “Three uncles, that includes Giovanni. Got a brother and two sisters.”
His brother, Vito, is another well-known Conti. He has a reputation, but very different from Nico’s. No patience and none of that dark and commanding presence that Nico wears like one of his expensive suits.
Vito is known to be more… violent. Impulsive. Brute. Just as terrifying but not as subtle.
I know very little about the sisters. One is involved in running the casino. That much I know. The other is a complete blank.
“Then my father and his wife,” he finishes up.
Of course. His father. Luca Conti. Don of the Conti Crime Family. Went to prison for a long stretch and was just released a couple of years ago.
Wait. My father and his wife?
Not “my father and mother”?
That hooks me in painfully.
It could mean anything. Maybe they got divorced.
But Nico still would’ve mentioned her, right?
I keep chewing to buy myself a second. I swallow. I try to keep my voice normal.
“What happened?” I ask softly, and I hate how careful it sounds. Like I’m stepping around broken glass.
I don’t have to elaborate, but he understands.
His gaze holds mine for one beat, then drops to his plate.
“My mother’s name was Carlotta,” he says.
Just like that.
A fact. A name. No softness in the delivery, but there’s something in the way he says it that isn’t cold, either.
