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Teresa grabs a gorgeous dark-leather jacket, slipping it on her arms and smiling my way with a smile I recognize.
A woman with a secret plan.
“She helped me when I was at my absolute lowest point,” she says, grabbing her purse and stepping out of her home. “Come on, Delilah. I think we have a lot to talk about.”
* * *
An hour later, I’m following Teresa around the mall, watching as she elegantly moves from rack to rack, tossing things aside, inspecting others, tossing items into a pile over her arm. Jason, who drove us here, is standing in the corner of the department store, scrolling on his phone and pretending not to watch us.
“You know. The men are going to love you,” she says, clacking hangers. “I mean, most of them already do, but the rest . . . they’ll come around. That was always my biggest worry when Tony was around. If the men would like me, if they’d whisper in his ear I wasn’t good enough.” She laughs, clacking another hanger. “Not that Tony didn’t already think that about me. He had half a dozen goumads, you know.”
My eyes are wide but I don’t say anything, leaving the conversation open for her to keep speaking.
To reveal more.
“Thankfully, I convinced them all to like me well enough,” she says, looking over to Jason, who is leaning against a wall ten or so feet away, a bored look on his face, before looking back at me with a small smile. “And when he was gone, I knew I needed to pull the next rest to my side. Tony’s men might as well have been mine at that point, but Paulie’s men. Carmine’s. The more of them who liked me, the safer I was.”
Her words are so casual, like it’s just a part of life.
Like it’s not an exact mirror of my own plan.
“Safer?” I ask, though I don’t need to. I understand how important having the men of this family on your side can be.
“Oh, no one told you?” she asks as she looks at me with a raised eyebrow. Then she puts her hand around my elbow, pulling me close like we’re old friends or a close mother-in-law/daughter pair, before speaking in my ear in a low voice. “Paulie tried to put a hit out on me.”
My ears go a bit static with her words.
Johnny shared this information on the payphone, but I’ve been unable to find anything that confirms it. Not a receipt or a whisper. Even Dante and Marco hadn’t heard anything. It must have been such a closely held secret.
“I’m sorry. I think I heard wrong—” She shakes her head with a smile, stopping my words before they leave my mouth.
“Nope, you heard correctly. My dipshit of a son tried to put a hit out on me. Lucky for me, knowing his father was a piece of shit and his grandfather is a conniving piece of trash, I saw something like that coming. It’s in his blood, that poison. Too much of Carmine’s, not enough of Liza’s.”
I don’t respond.
I’m not sure how to.
She’s talking so casually about her son—a man she brought into this world—putting a hit out on her life. Of him trying to have her killed.
And then she looks at me, eyes dipping to where my necklace is, the St. Christopher medal hidden beneath the neckline of my shirt, burning my skin, then down at my hand at the engagement ring Dante gave me.
The engagement ring the world thinks is a symbol of my devotion to her son.
Does she know different?
She smiles then moves to another rack.
“See, Tony went away for life. And when he did, I got power of attorney.” There’s a small smile there, like she’s proud of that fact, like a wife getting power of attorney when her husband goes away is an accomplishment instead of an obvious choice. “Of course, the feds probably would have locked him up for longer, put him in federal instead of a cushy state pen if they knew everything. So I told my sweet, devoted husband that if he signed everything over to me, I’d keep my mouth shut.”
I look around the store, scanning for eyes, for ears.
There’s just Jason, staring at his phone, looking bored, too far to hear our conversation.
“No one’s around, trust me. Tracked every last employee when we walked in. You should, too. A good skill to have, knowing where everyone is in any room you walk into. Jason’s distracted, but even if he were listening, none of this is a family secret. Not really.” She flits to a rack of earrings, spinning the display like she actually cares what the options are. “Anyway, I said to Tony, I said, you give me power of attorney instead of our dipshit son or that conniving father of yours, and I’ll keep it to myself.”
She finally turns and smiles at me.
“I’d tell you that’s a lesson to learn, that you should hold your cards close and gather whatever you can, but you’re like your mother. You already have been, haven’t you?” She stares at me, not necessarily waiting for a response but reading my face all the same. When she sees an answer I’m not sure I gave, she smiles and nods. “Good girl. Staying quiet.”
