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“Call a meeting. Elders. Lieutenants. Everybody, right now.”
“At this hour—”
“I said everybody!”
Marcel doesn’t question it again.
One by one, the members of the family shuffle in to join me in the foyer. I don’t bother taking them into the office, like we’re all going to have a nice little sit down around cookies and coffee. I need the space. I can’t stop pacing. I am filled with pointless desperation, a missile with no target just looking for something to strike. Her picture is seared inside my head; I see it so clearly if my eyes settle on any one spot for too long.
The family members arrive, some of them half-awake and pajama clad. Cecilia is wheeled in by her nurse. She is the only one fully dressed, as if she had been briefed on this meeting thirty minutes before I even knew I was calling it
Everyone is assembled, coming out of various stages of sleep.
“We’re going after Contessa Lovera,” I tell them, my tone not inviting opinions or suggestions. “We have a location, somewhere she might be on Saturday evening. We’re doing this on Gio’s turf and on his terms. We’ll be expected, and we’ll meet resistance. We have until almost a week to decide on a plan and make sure the conflict goes in our favor.”
“Where she might be at,” one of the men echoes slowly. Trepidation stretches the moment thin.
People are digging in their feet, exchanging heavy glances. When we talked about getting revenge for Vinny and Lance, we talked about getting it on our terms. Not Gio’s. Not walking into a slaughter on some half-chance that Contessa might be there.
In a whisper at the back of my thoughts, I hear her despairing voice over and over, the blood running out of her hair. Why did he send them to die? I didn’t want this.
My eyes scrub over the lieutenants gathered, wondering if she would shed those same tears over them and ask those same questions about me. It’s infuriating that her opinion still matters so goddamn much to me. Contessa left, and she’s still pulling my strings from miles and miles away.
“Let me rephrase,” I say. “I am going after Contessa Lovera. But I need a plan. Whether it involves any of you or not, I don’t really give a damn. I need your expertise. I need every angle on this, every insight.”
“Salvatore, it’s suicide,” someone scoffs.
“I said a plan, not an opinion.”
“It’s not opinion, it’s fact. If you want a plan, how about we start with cutting our losses? The girl’s not worth losing you, Sal—”
“The girl is worth what I say she’s worth!”
My voice bounces off the high ceilings overhead. An uneasiness settles in the room.
“And I thought women bickered amongst themselves,” interrupts the suddenly dry, unimpressed tone of Cecilia. She looks around the room at each of the men there, her thumb tapping against her knuckles, jaw set.
“In my day, it would have been shameful for men to question their orders. To wring their hands over how they can’t do this or that, rather than buckle down and figure it out as they’re asked. Some of you lived in those days as well as I did, but maybe you’ve forgotten. From the start, you all agreed that losing his daughter made Gio weaker. Now, her loss makes us weaker.”
She says us, but I wonder if she doesn’t really just mean me.
It’s the truth either way.
“I agree with Salvatore,” she continues, “In the interest of the stability of this family, Miss Lovera is worth fighting for, whatever risks that may involve.”
Of all the people to take my side in this, Cecilia is the last one that I expected.
We exchange a look. I try to read her, but those half-blind eyes give me nothing.
“Maybe it’s true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” one of the elders says, stepping up, “but I sure as hell still remember my old tricks. If you need bodies to throw at this thing, then count me in. Never wanted to die in a hospital bed anyway.”
The sentiment begins to spread among the elders who are still able and capable. Recklessness catches like a flame among them at the thought of one last dangerous hurrah.
Embarrassed silence spreads among the young lieutenants as they watch it all unfold. Someone asks about the location, and Marcel begins to pull up what he can about the building. Slowly, a plan is put into motion.
Over the bowed heads and bickering opinions, I glance to Cecilia again, and I wonder why—why would she choose my side in this?
When she meets my gaze, I see in her face the only priority she has ever claimed to have: the good of the family.
