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Another few glances were shared around the table. But not a word was spoken in Albanian or any other language.
Which meant that they had already come to a conclusion before I’d even stepped into the room.
Which meant Lis Antoni had already known what I’d say.
“Okay,” he said. “You work for me, and I leave the cars alone. Good deal. Good for me, good for you, yes?”
The dread fell to my stomach like a stone and stayed there.
It was a sentence no different than the one the judge had handed down.
“I…” I shook my head, internally grasping for excuses. Anything to get me out of this. Out of this room. Out of this city. Out of this fuckin’ life.
A pair of green eyes blinked at me, bright and beautiful.
Oh, God, Lea.
I’d miss her. I really would.
“Can I think it over?” I asked.
Lis shrugged, like he knew it wouldn’t matter. “Two days.”
It was the best I could do. There was no real way to say no to someone like this. All I could maybe get was time.
Which really meant figuring out how to say goodbye to Lea and the rest of the Zolas.
Just because I was condemned to either a life with the mob or one on the lam didn’t mean I had to drag her down with me.
I’d never do that to her.
I’d never do that to someone I was pretty sure I loved.
NINETEEN
AND NEVER STAND A WOMAN UP WHEN SHE MAKES YOU DINNER
Lea
Michael was late.
Not ten minutes or so.
The clock in Nonna’s kitchen read nearly nine fifteen. The manicotti I’d made using her recipe and homemade sauce were getting cold. The salad was wilted. And I had been sitting miserably at the kitchen table in my favorite sage-colored mini dress and the gold heels I borrowed from Angie, feeling like an absolute idiot while I watched the minutes tick by.
Not for the first time since meeting the broody new mechanic in my grandfather’s shop, I wished I had a cell phone. More than that, I wished Michael had a number. A pager. A landline. Anything I could call if only to cuss him out.
I wasn’t the queen of England, but I was a Zola. No one stood me up. No one.
The minute hand moved past the five.
I gave up on pretending to study and stood, my chair screeching loudly across the linoleum floor.
“Fuck this,” I announced to the room. “And fuck him.”
I grabbed the manicotti from the table and brought it into the kitchen, where I proceeded to dump as much of it into the trash as I could.
That was when the doorbell rang.
