“Like a gangs-of-New-York-type thing? And no, I don’t mean like the movie. Although, I did watch a few episodes of The Sopranos. I want to say I vaguely remember something about mafia families being mentioned. But overall, my knowledge is limited.”
I smothered a smile with my hand at her rambling, which I found adorable. I wished we weren’t talking about reality. My fucking reality. “The families all have much less control now than they did in the old days, but I suppose all you need to know is when my mother’s cousin came to New York, my father threatened him. If he wanted to stay stateside, he’d have to run his crime syndicate differently than the other mafia families. No trafficking of any kind. Drugs, people, animals. No murdering or hurting innocents.”
“And he behaved?” she asked in shock.
“As far as I know. Giovanni claims his organization is more like a company, and their insignia a business logo.” My gaze fell to my arm where good and evil warred there, the same as it did internally. “But I guess you could say all this shit is in my blood. It’s who I was destined to be.”
“No.” She leaned forward and set her hand on my knee, and my gaze lingered there for a quiet moment before returning to her face as she added, “You’re your own person. You can do and be whatever you want.”
I wanted to believe that, but she only knew the beginning act, the start to my story, and I wasn’t sure if she’d still believe that once I gave her all the hideous details from the middle.
The other issue was the end had yet to be written, and I didn’t have a damn clue the direction my story would go.
“I won’t back down from the threat I made to Giovanni.” If she was suggesting that, she needed to know where I stood. “There will be no mercy if he doesn’t give me a name.”
“But Giovanni didn’t know that his guys were sent to attack you.” She pulled her hand back and settled in her seat, clearly unhappy with my words. “And you just said they’re basically businessmen now.”
Was she trying to walk me off the cliff of crazy? Did she forget a man had had a bat to her throat and a hand on her thigh? Did she not know what vile things that man-child had been thinking about while straddling her?
I shrugged. “I don’t care.”
“Enzo, there’s a difference between going after whoever murdered Bianca and taking out some young punk who was looking for a fight at your apartment.” She fidgeted with the sleeves of her top, and it was clear she was growing uncomfortable.
“And those young punks turn into the kind of men who hurt innocent women,” I shot back, hating that ugly truth. But after everything I’d witnessed in my life, I knew I was right. I unbuckled, stood, and set my hand to the ceiling, peering down at her as I remarked in a rough voice, “I guess this means I know how you’ll react when you hear the middle of my story. And maybe you were wrong about what you said last night. Maybe you will run.”
FOURTEEN
Maria
“How are we fitting everything in there?” I asked as Enzo loaded only his weapons-case thing into a Porsche at JFK. The trunk was located under the car’s hood at the front, which I already knew because Enzo had owned one back in Charlotte.
“We’re not.” Enzo closed the hood-trunk and swiveled around with his sunglasses hiding his eyes. “There’s space behind the seats, but I need that for something else.” He tossed a look toward the two security details and pointed to our suitcases by the car. “These will need to ride with you two,” he instructed, and one of them quietly grabbed our suitcases and loaded them in the Suburban parked behind us.
“How’d you manage to get a case of weapons through security anyway? Didn’t it have to go through a scanner or something?” I asked.
“I know a guy who knows a guy.” He shrugged, and was that sarcasm or was he being serious? Right now, I couldn’t tell.
I folded my arms, not ready to get into such a tight space with him, worried his bad mood would suck all the oxygen from it. “Are you mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad at you?” He walked past me and pointed to the passenger door, a silent command to get in.
“Oh, I don’t know, because I’m here. You haven’t talked to me in more than an hour, and you’ve altered between scowling, brooding, and just looking overall moody.”
Turning to face me, he set a hand on the roof of the car. Leaning toward me, his lips twitched, a near smile. Was he laughing at me? “Pretty sure those are all the same thing, bellissima. Now, will you please get in?” He opened the door for me.