The thought felt laughable now.
She could hate me. The whole damn world could hate me.
I didn’t care anymore.
I just needed Romolo to be alive.
CHAPTER47
ROM
The capos were packed into Cosimo’s living room, waiting for him to issue orders. Everyone was itching for a fight, but we weren’t going out to hunt the people who did this tonight. We weren’t ready for that. Not yet.
The bomb fragments told a story. This was a sophisticated device—well beyond what our aunt or uncle could’ve cobbled together, let alone acquired. Whoever built it knew exactly what they were doing.
The current theory? Someone handed Aunt Lisa the bonsai to deliver, but she had to know it was a bomb, otherwise she wouldn’t have fled.
We suspected it was the Santoros—who else?—but we were still looking for proof, and more importantly, information on the family.
They were ghosts. No one had heard from them in decades.
Messero was helping. He’d called earlier to give his condolences and reaffirm his commitment to the joining of our families. That was a good thing. After a hit like this, we were vulnerable.
I was doing what I could on my end—calling contacts and chasing down leads—but my head wasn’t fully in it. I couldn’t stop thinking about what was going on with Mia.
It had been nearly twenty-four hours since the explosion, and still nothing from her.
I stepped out onto Cos’s back patio and crossed the lawn to the picnic table beneath the old oak tree. The air was still, but the quiet didn’t soothe me.
I took out my phone and dialed Mia again.
No answer.
Fuck.There was no way she would’ve let her phone die and stay off for an entire day.
Something had happened. I could feel it.
And I was done waiting around.
I pulled up Nina’s number and hit dial.
She answered right away. “Rom? Your mom’s still here.”
“I’m not calling about her.” That was another problem I wasn’t going to deal with right now.
After leaving the precinct late last night, our mother had gone straight to her sister’s place—Nina’s mom’s house. Cos called her to get information about the Santoros, taking it for granted that she’d tell us everything she knew.
It was always dangerous to take anything for granted as far as Mother was concerned.
She wouldn’t say a fucking word.
Claimed she was grieving and would talk when she was ready.
We were all grieving. But we still had shit to do. In our world, grief was a constant—you learned to function with it humming in the background. She knew that better than anyone.
Keeping secrets now, after Dad had just died? Fucking absurd.
We were giving her twenty-four hours to pull herself together. After that, she’d have no choice but to tell us what she knew.
