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Well, I’ll be damned.
Despite the different color hair, he looks even more like Lucia than Primo, his features a little softer in a way that’s still somehow masculine.
“Now that all of that is over,” Maximo says, stepping further into the house and gesturing for Ettore to do so as well. “It’s time to party.”
***
“Why exactly don’t you get along with your brothers? They seem cool as hell?” I peer at Lucia in curiosity before looking at where Ettore and Primo are in the pool goofing off with Maximo.
Their smiles are blinding, the trickles of laughter that keeps floating to us not allowing me to believe these two are anything like the rest of the Costas.
“They’re bigots,” Lucia says dryly as she takes a sip of a martini she had the bartender whip up for her. “When we were younger, they agreed with my father that I needed to stay in a woman’s place.”
“And now?” I ask because it doesn’t seem that Ettore and Primo have any issues with Lucia.
“Now, they don’t care.” She says with a shrug.
Confusion moves through me. “Then why are you still so pissed?”
Annoyance flickers through her gaze as she looks at me. “Because they weren’t there when I needed them.” The hurt in her tone is clear and shit, it makes me want to hate the two brothers as well. I’ve never heard Lucia sound this way, not even when Giovanni hit her in the face.
“My uncle put a hit on me,” she says slowly. “Giovanni and Maximo’s father, he did it after he killed our father. My brothers didn’t do anything to try to help me when he did because they believed I was still out of my place.”
“Why did he put the hit on you?” I ask. I think I’ve heard snippets of the story before but I’m not sure.
“Because he was the worst piece of scum.”
Her words are full of emotion.
I know from speaking with Maximo one night when he’d been irate at Giovanni that his father was abusive to him. He’d take him in the basement and beat him, leaving him in need of a doctor before he’d do it all again. I’ve seen the nasty scars that take over his body. And I know Giovanni still uses the same tactics to punish him. Something that had been Vito’s idea according to Maximo.
So I have no doubt that their old man was a cruel man, but to put a hit on your niece because she doesn’t want to sit down and be alady.
“He’d already killed my father for not getting a handle on me,” Lucia continues.
My lips part open in shock. “His brother.” I know this life is a hard one and that relationships can’t get in the way. I mean look at my own biological father, he killed his sister, my mother. But still, I can’t erase the shock.
Lucia nods her head. “Yep,” she pops the last syllable. “I couldn’t even go to the funeral because the hit was still very much on my head. A part of me thinks Vincezo thought it’d draw me in, but hell I hated my father only a little less than I hated Vincenzo. There was no way I’d risk my life just to see him be dropped into the ground.” She takes another sip of her martini. “Primo and Ettore had a good relationship with him though and they left the family after Veincenzo killed him. Just up and walked out.”
“Can you do that?” From my understanding the only way you leave the family is through death.
Lucia shakes her head. “No, you don’t. Blood in, blood out. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. But Vincenzo was too busy fighting a war from too many fronts to try to go after them. If he would have survived the war, he would have ordered a hit on them, no doubt.”
I press my lips together, mulling over the information in silence as I wait for Lucia to continue to speak.
“They started their own thing in New York, have a whole crew out there. It’s not a family like what we have here, but a damn street gang like Seven Quad,” she snorts, shaking her head. “And even when they were getting that started off, they didn’t think to try to protect me while my head was still for the taking.”
Ah.
That same hurt is back in her voice and I understand it. She was let down by two people who were born to protect her, to love her no matter the conditions.
My own brother who had done just that so much of our lives, taking care of me, had betrayed me, giving me away to Giovanni to save himself. The pain of what he’d done had made me disgusted and despite it all I still love him.
I can see that love in Lucia’s eyes as she gazes at her brothers despite the rawness of her voice. She shakes her head, looking away from them but she doesn’t dare meet my eyes and I know it’s because she doesn’t like the vulnerability.
“Maximo is the only person who kept in touch with me while I was blackballed,” she confesses. “He’s part of the reason I’m still alive. He kept me one step ahead the whole time, letting me know who was coming for me. It made it easier to kill the hitmen when they came and every time, I sent their heads right back to Vincenzo. His head would have been next if Seven Quad hadn’t gotten to him first.”
Well damn.
