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“What?”
“Family dinner tonight. You’re attending.”
“But I’m just . . . I’m just your assistant.” I would quite literally do and say anything to get out of this dinner.
“You’ve never been just my assistant, Delilah.” I roll my eyes. “But also, you live in my home. You work for the family. It’s a family dinner.”
A family dinner.
A family dinner.
God.
“Who’s all going?”
The look in his eyes tells me I don’t want the answer.
“Lots of people, the capos, their wives. Paulie’s mother.” That I find to be of interest. I’ve read in the journals about Teresa Carluccio, the woman who is still protected by the family despite her husband being in prison for life. “But you should also know Angela will be there.” My nose wrinkles, and the fire that’s been kept at bay for a day or two flares.
“Oh, your date will be there, and I’ll just be the sweet little assistant you fuck on the nights you’re not with her?”
“Delilah, this dinner is important. It—"
“So I have to go to some big fucking dinner that, let me guess, is all a part of your big plan?”
“This dinner is important, Lilah.”
“Of course it is—to you. But to me, it’s just a misery I’ll have to endure, trying to figure out how to keep the look of horror off my face while she’s on your arm.”
“Don’t act like you don’t know how to play the game, like you won’t put on your siren’s smile and make every single man in that room fall for you.”
“Oh, is that my job tonight? Is that my task? Is that what this is? Tonight, am I the lovely distraction for the men while you put on some dastardly plan? Is that what all this is? I’m just a ploy, something to further your own plans?” He’s mad. I can see that.
Good.
So am I.
“Maybe I’ll go off, play the part perfectly. Take Tino or Roddy into a coat closet, suck his—"
“Don’t play this fuckin’ game with me,” he says, pinning me to the back of the door we walked through.
“What’s the game, Dante? I can’t play if I don’t know the rules. All cloak and fucking dagger, every day. You have some master plan that you keep telling me to wait for, that it will help, that it will all work out, that I’ll get what I want—but all I know is I work in a strip club, I was cornered by your scumbag nephew who wanted to prostitute me, and that you’re fighting tooth and nail to be the next man in power. In power of a family that destroyed mine.” My chest is heaving, panic rising as the words I’ve been fighting down come out. “You don’t even believe me when I say your father is the problem, do you? You think there’s something you’ll find that will prove me wrong, save his soul, save him from what he deserves. We should be enemies, Dante. I’m a Russo. I’ve sent a note out to Johnny already—"
“You what?!” Dante bellows, and I smile.
“You’ve got your plans, baby, and I’ve got mine,” the siren inside of me says, despite his hand on my throat.
“How?” He looks at me, trying to scan my face to detect lies, to decide if I’m telling him the truth. “Are you an idiot? You sent a fucking letter? Just a nice little greeting card saying what? Hey, got your letter and I’d love to set up a time to chat about any other trade secrets you’d like to share?”
“I’m not dumb, Dante. I went through the correct channels and sent a note with zero tracking. There’s a payphone in Newark. I’m going on Thursday at four. If it rings, I answer.”
“And what if someone else is on the line, Delilah! This is not fucking Chutes and Ladders! This is real life. This is not some mob TV show you can turn off at the end of the night!”
“You think I don’t know this is real, Dante?” I ask, ducking under the arm braced on the wall and pacing the room. “My sister. My mother. Shane. Arturo. I know it’s not a game! But it’s my turn to make shit right! There is no other Russo to head the family. If I do it, if I prove myself and take over, I can run that family. I know it. I can run it for my father, for my mother. Arturo . . . He left me a letter. That’s what he wanted. He wanted me to do this. He wanted me to have this, to run it right, center the family and the community. Go back to helping people instead of fucking them over.”
“This isn’t Robin Hood, baby.”
“Why the fuck not? It could be. I know you know that. You see it too! This family—” My arm moves to encapsulate the Carluccio estate. “This family could be more. It could save this town. You want that. I’m going to make it happen.” He stalks my way, moving until his hands are under my armpits and tossing me onto the plush, perfect bed.
