“Are we getting out or are we diving back in?” I say, cutting him off. “We grew up mired in a world of shit and lies and unspeakable things because of Dad. I don’t want my kid to go through that. Hell, I don’t want the two of you to go through it anymore. I keep seeing those fucking posters around town and it just…”
Missing posters, with Bregman’s face on them. Bregman, whose life Armani snuffed out in order to protect Marco. Bregman might not have been a good man, but even still, he had a girlfriend, a mother…people who cared. We did what we had to do, there’s no question about it, but it wouldn’t have been necessary if our father hadn’t been tangled up in the kind of shit he was. Which is why, after this payoff, we’re done.
“Okay.” Marco nods slowly. “We’re getting out, then.”
“Out,” Armani agrees. “We’ll give them the cash. That’s it.”
We take some time to eat, to process what we all just agreed to do and the implications it will have for the winery, our finances, the business decisions we’ll have to make going forward.
Looking at my youngest brother, my pulse picks up and something clicks inside my head. He’s the baby, isn’t he? The one I used to piggyback around the vineyard. The one who always looked up to me and Armani, tagging along on whatever we did and driving us nuts. He never went anywhere without a toy car in each hand, right up until middle school damn near.
Racing is in his blood.
And he’smyblood. I can’t let anything happen to him while he’s doing what he loves—or ever.
“How’d the race go in Vegas?” I ask him. “First time on the pro circuit, right?”
Marco’s head snaps up at my question. He looks stunned that I care enough to ask. “Ah, good. We came in third, in a race that some people thought we might not even finish.”
“Some people, huh?” I say.
“We showed them. And no shady characters popped up, either. Well, no more than the usual ones, of course.” His voice lightens.
“Congratulations.” Armani raises his wineglass. “I assumed you’d lost, considering that you didn’t bring any women home with you to ‘celebrate,’ or whatever you’re calling your weird sex stuff now.”
Marco shrugs. “I mean, I would have, but there wasn’t enough room in the cab of the truck with my huge…trophy.”
It’s a lame joke, but it’s enough to break the tension in the room. We all laugh and it feels like a weight has come off a little bit. It’s good to see my brothers’ good-natured bickering.
“I somehow doubt your trophy is as huge as you think it is,” I say.
“Look man, when you’ve got a huge one, you use it to your advantage,” Marco says.
Armani rolls his eyes. “Which you didn’t, considering that you came home alone. You see, there’s a difference between size and skill, brother.”
Marco spreads his hands. “I got sizeandskill, bro. Sizeandskill.”
On that note, I get up and excuse myself.
As I walk out the door, Marco calls after me, “At least we know you’re not shooting blanks, Dante.”
“Fucking right, I’m not,” I call back.
And I’m inordinately pleased about it, too.
19
Dante
It’s almostcomical to see my wife’s burly bodyguards sipping fast food milkshakes out of palm tree-printed paper cups with their sunglasses on.
As I pull into the doctor’s office parking lot, I can see one of them leaning against the hood of the Escalade, and another posted at the front door of the clinic pretending to talk to someone on his phone. They’re not exactly subtle, but that’s fine. I don’t want them to be. I want anyone who might be watching to know that my wife is protected.
Inside the waiting room, I spot Donovan’s hulking form next to Frankie, a battered paperback held up to his face. His eyes dart to me as I walk in, then go back to his pulp novel. My wife doesn’t acknowledge my presence when I sit beside her, though Donovan moves a few chairs away to give us a little privacy.
“Did you enjoy your burger?” I ask quietly.
“I enjoyed three.” She picks up her own palm tree cup and slurps pink strawberry shake through the straw. “And I only puked up the first two.”
