I don’t sit. “What is this?”
“I’ll get to that in a second. Please, just sit.”
Rolling my eyes, I comply.
Sensing this is more than a conversational chat, I look around the room. I’ve been in here before, of course, but I’ve never paid much attention to the details. Leather-bound books are arranged in perfect rows on gleaming bookcases against the walls. The furniture looks expensive but showroom new, as if it barely gets used, the air a bit stuffy as if the windows are rarely opened to let in a breeze.
“Just another pretentious room, isn’t it?” I say. “Have you even read any of these books?”
He sits down behind the desk. “Most of them aren’t real. They’re just for show.”
“Just like everything else in this house.”
He smooths his tie and leans back. “You really don’t like the house, do you?”
I shrug. “It’s a beautiful. And huge. And cold and pretentious. Perfect for this cold and pretentious family.”
“So you’re not happy with the house.”
“What did you bring me in here for, Dante? My ankles are swelling again.”
With a sigh, he pushes the papers toward me. “This is everything you want to know.”
My mood grows serious as I start to sift through documents filled with accounting, contracts, photos of random people along with short, typed reports like a private investigator might do. Copies of emails and bank statements and lists of names.
“When our father died, my brothers and I swore we were getting out of the mob. All of our loose ends were tied up, except a few betting books that the Frisco family was happy to take off our hands. We didn’t owe anyone a single damn thing. That created the unheard of opportunity to get out, and we took it. We were finally clean. Ready to go legit. So we did.
“But then we found Bregman and…we got some more information.”
“About your dad’s accident.”
Dante nods. “That wasn’t all. He’d gotten paid to off Marco the same way, in a car accident. Bregman had plans to tamper with the race car. So we stopped him.”
“You killed him,” I say quietly, understanding dawning on me. “Neutralized a threat.”
I search my husband’s gaze, but all I see in his eyes are the familiar walls he keeps up.
“The threat didn’t stop there, Frankie,” he says quietly. “They targeted your sister, and if we didn’t take immediate action, they’d have already come after you. Probably Charlie, too. Anyone close to the Bellanti family is at risk.”
“Hence the security detail. And you being even more of a control freak than usual.” I take a deep breath, absorbing it all. The pieces are clicking into place. “So what now?”
“We had to get back in,” Dante says. “For the sake of keeping our family alive. We had no choice, not knowing who to trust or where the next blow might land.”
Closing my eyes against his words, I set the papers on my lap. “You’re back in the mob.”
“For now, yes. We’re working on an…arrangement of sorts.”
A tingle races over my scalp. “Will there…will there be another chance to get out?”
His silence gives me the answer.
“Okay,” I breathe. I take a moment. Then another. My eyes open. “Okay then.”
His chin tips up. “Okay? That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
I lean back in the chair. “Okay, I understand now. I believe you. And I’m going to take DonovaneverywhereI go that isn’t Bellanti property. Which will not be often.”
“You’re going to follow the rules, just like that?”
