“I won’t be happy until I’m with my family again,” I tell him.
He shrugs.“Get ready.We’re going shopping now.”
I almost tell him I don’t need anything from him.
But the plain and simple truth is that I need everything from him.Because he’s my only link to the outside world, to my family, to a life that’s not the life of a prisoner.
Adapt.Make do.You will learn to accept your lot and your life.
All wise words spoken by generations of women in my family.Spoken as advice passed down woman to woman to make the arranged, loveless marriages easier to enter into.To make our lives of very limited freedom easier to bear.
And if it worked for all of them, it will work for me too.
“I’m ready,” I say.“Take me shopping.”
The look he gives me is like the noonday sun caressing my skin.But if he thinks I’ll ever forgive him, he has another thing coming.
I may be at his mercy.I maybe be unable to kill him.I may need him.But I am not his.And I never will be.
Chapter4
MATTEO
I could hardly drawbreath while I waited for her to hear the news on her sister.Call it good old-fashioned Catholic guilt, call it love for her that has yet to find its breaking point—and Gianna is trying very hard to find that—but I still want all the best for her.And I certainly want her sister to live.I should’ve fought Angelo harder when he decided to bring the women along to confront their father, Victor Codelli.Any idiot could’ve predicted that wouldn’t end well.And it didn’t.But did at the same time.
The younger Codelli daughter was shot and almost died.And Codelli gave up his fight against Angelo and is now coming to LA to fight in my war.Like he should’ve done all those years ago when we needed his help the most.Better late than never, I guess.
The house is still empty, the men won’t start arriving until this afternoon.They’re coming in batches so as not to alert Dante Moretti of their presence before I’m ready to reveal myself to him.Though the guy has eyes everywhere.
I found a dead ferret nailed to the gate at dawn with Moretti’s calling card attached to it.He knows I’m back and he wants me to come see him.Ferrets and calling cards, that was always his signature move for getting his enemies’ attention.It means I will die like the weasel that I am.I never could figure out why he didn’t just send weasels if that was his message.Probably because Dante Moretti is far from the sharpest tool in the shed.He just thinks he is.
When I left, Moretti was neck deep in trouble with some very unsavory characters.Trouble I hopefully made worse when I blew up all their cars in his driveway when I made my escape.A part of me had hoped that would take care of him right then and there.
But a bigger part of me is glad he’s still alive and kicking.Because I want to be the one who watches life leave his eyes.The last face he sees.I dream about that moment.Have done for ten years.
Goldie can’t quite hide that she’s impressed by this house as I lead her through it to the garage.She’s walking behind me and poking her head in all the doors when she thinks I can’t see, making muffled sounds of appreciation.But she’s staring dead ahead whenever I turn to catch her at it.
That’s fine.I want her to be impressed.All of this is hers if she wants it.Or if she doesn’t.Either way, it’s hers.
The lights in the garage flicker like crazy before they finally turn on, a few of the bulbs popping and going out, the strain of working after all these years too much for them.
She makes another appreciative sound.But who wouldn’t?The vast space is filled with over fifty cars.My great-grandfather started collecting them and the rest of us just sort of continued the tradition.There’s Ferraris and Lamborghinis going back to the first ones ever made.Aston Martins, Rolls Royces, and everything in between.My Lambo is still here.It was almost brand new when I left it here to begin my servitude with Moretti.
She’s looking over it all, the overhead lights reflected in her eyes, making them shine brighter.
“You like it, don’t you?”I ask, grinning widely.
“All these cars must be worth a fortune,” she says.
I nod.“Several fortunes.But I don’t plan on selling.My sons can do so that if they wish.”
She turns to me, the bright lights still in her eyes.“You don’t have any sons.”
I give her perhaps the most pointedly lust full look I’ve ever given her, my eyes raking all over her body so hard she shivers.“Not yet.But you’re going to fix that.”
She’s too stunned to fire back with one of her wisecrack remarks.But I see it in her eyes that she doesn’t hate the idea of being the mother of my children.Not at all.
I’m not taking the Lambo, it’s too outdated and I was driving it when I lost both my father and brother.I don’t need the memories.Instead, I lead the way to the 1968 Mustang, which has always been one of my favorites.
