"It changes what it meant."
"Does it though?" I poured him another. "The soldiers out there are grieving a real man. The protection he gave this compound was real. The people he kept safe, that was real. The framework above him doesn't undo the work below him."
He looked at me for a long time. Then he drank and said, "The basement's always bigger than the building with these people."
"Then we deal with the basement when we get there. Right now, we're on the ground floor and the ground floor needs whiskey."
He left an hour later to talk to Claudio. Something about security protocols and what to do with the information in the folder.I told him to go because the bar needed closing and because the conversation he needed to have with his brother wasn't a conversation that needed a bartender listening in.
So the bar is quiet when Dahlia walks in.
No Bam. First time I've seen her without him since she arrived, and the absence is noticeable because the man is basically a giant beside her. Somehow, without him, the room feels exposed.
She's changed out of the funeral clothes into jeans and a black shirt. Her hair is still down. She looks ten years older than she did a week ago, and I recognize the compression because I watched it happen to my own face in the mirror after Gigi died. Grief ages you fast. It squeezes the time out of your skin and puts it somewhere you can't reach.
She sits on her stool. The one she's claimed since that first night, directly across from me, and puts her elbows on the counter. Doesn't speak.
I pour without asking. Three fingers.
She drinks fast and sets the glass down, then taps the counter. I pour again.
We do this twice more before she talks. I don't rush it.
"My father had another child."
I set the bottle down. Not because the words surprise me. Because the weight behind them deserves a pause.
"A son," she says. "I heard whispers after Westpoint burned down. People who knew things about my bloodline that he never told the family. We have our own little community, Bam and I, and after we destroyed the academy, we did more digging on what the hell it was all about. The people we contacted… they talked about a secondary branch of the Bonaccorso line. A male heir being monitored."
"Monitored by who?"
"By the people who ran Westpoint. The same people Kreiss was connected to. The same people who are rebuilding the whole feeder academy operation." She picks up her glass and holds it without drinking. "I don't know the son's name. I don't know where he is. I don't know if he's aware of who his father was or if he's living some normal life somewhere wondering why his education was funded by a trust that doesn't make sense. From what we’ve pieced together, he has been head hunted by the Silent for something. What? We don’t know."
"How long have you known?"
"A year, give or take a couple months."
"And you didn’t ask your dad?"
“It took me a long time because it was never the right time…” Her mouth forms a thin line. "I finally mentioned it to him on our last call.”
“What did he say?”
"Just that ‘I know’. Two words. He knew his son was out there, and he didn't tell anyone. Didn't act on it. Didn't try to pull the kid out of whatever he’s dealing with or warn him or do anything at all."
"Maybe he couldn't. Maybe the deal he made to protect this family included leaving the son alone."
"Maybe. Or maybe he was afraid of pulling on a thread that might unravel everything he'd spent decades building." She drinks. "Either way, the son exists. And the people rebuilding Westpoint knew about him before any of us did."
I think about this. A whole person out there, walking around with Aurelio's blood, probably positioned on a track by people who see human beings as assets. I think about what it would feel like to find out your father was a mafia Don who knew you existed and chose to leave you in the hands of the people who were grooming you for something you didn't understand.
I think about Gigi, who raised me because my mother left and nobody else showed up. At least Gigi chose me… at least she stayed in my life on purpose.
Aurelio's son doesn't know he was chosen by anyone. He was placed.
"Are you going to tell Leone?" I ask.
"Tomorrow. He needs to hear it from me before Alexandra finds it in the files, and she will find it because that woman finds everything." Dahlia pushes the glass toward me and I refill it. "Tonight I'm just drinking with the only person in this building who isn't going to give me a speech about duty and legacy and what my father would have wanted."
