Page 33 of Rent a Mob Boss

Lillie orders before the menus arrive, the moment we’ve sat down, because she has been ordering the same thing since she was three and sees no reason to consult a piece of paper about it. Quinn, on the other hand, studies the menu with the focus of someone defusing a bomb. “There are too many options,” she murmurs. “This is stressful.”

“It’s pizza,” I point out.

“Pizza is never just pizza,” she informs me. “Pizza is a series of decisions that reveal your character. Are you a pepperoni person? Do you prefer sausage? Extra sauce? Extra cheese? Or, the worst decision of all…”

Her eyes narrow, and her voice drops to a dangerous whisper. “Do you like ham and pineapple?”

“I would never commit a crime like that,” I assure her, tracing an X over my chest.

“You better hope not. Because that’s a dealbreaker, sir.”

I almost order ham and pineapple just for the hell of it, but decide on pepperoni anyway. She orders something with goat cheese and arugula—Lillie looks at it like it personally insulted her. We eat, and the bad feeling in my gut eases slowly.

This is normal. This is what normal feels like. A loud restaurant, a sticky table, a five-year-old with sauce on her chin arguing about whether pineapple belongs on pizza in the first place. Quinn is telling a story about her old roommate’s cat that involves a ceiling fan and a bag of flour. Lillie starts laughing so hard she winds up hiccupping. And I watch all of this while sitting here with a piece of pepperoni pizza in my hand, like I’m any other man in any other restaurant.

I reach across the table to wipe sauce off Lillie’s chin with my napkin. She swats my hand away. “I was saving it.”

“You were saving pizza sauce?”

“For later.”

“I’m afraid that’s not how sauce works.”

“You don’t know how sauce works,” she informs me in a way that makes me seriously dread the day puberty hits, because it’s going to hit like a motherfucker when it does. Quinn laughs so hard she starts choking on her water, and I think: this. This is the thing. Not the money or the house. This table. These two people. This is everything, and everything else is the machinery I’ve built to protect it.

Dessert is cannoli, because Gino’s cannoli are the reason God invented sugar. Lillie eats hers with the methodical precision of a jewel thief: shell first, then filling, licked off her fingers one at a time. Quinn watches her do it with an expression of such open, unguarded love that I have to look away for a second because the feeling is too big for me to handle.

Finally, Lillie puts down her plate. “I have to go potty.”

“I’ll take her,” Quinn says, already standing and reaching for Lillie’s hand. Fluid, instinctive, like they’re connected by something I can’t see. Lillie slides out of the booth and takes her hand, and they walk toward the back of the restaurant together, Lillie’s butterfly shoes clicking on the tile, Quinn’s free hand resting on top of her head the way it does when she’s steering her through a crowd.

I watch them go. Quinn glances back over her shoulder and catches me watching, and she smiles. It’s easy, warm. Lillie is saying something to her, tugging on her arm, and Quinn looks down at her and laughs. They turn the corner toward the restrooms, and I sit in a booth with cannoli crumbs on my fingers and think about how lucky I am.

A man like me doesn’t deserve this. A girl who smiles at him over her shoulder, a daughter like Lillie, and a night like this that feels like the entire point of being alive. I’ve spent my entire adult life building walls and cataloging threats. None of it—not a single moment—prepared me for the simple fact of being happy.

Because that’s what this is. This is happiness. I’m living in it at this very moment, and I’m afraid I don’t deserve it.

Lillie will come out with wet hands because she never dries them properly, and Quinn will carry her because Lillie’s legs will suddenly not work, the way they stop working at the end of every long day. We’ll go home, and I’ll tuck my daughter in, and I’ll take Quinn to my bed. Tomorrow will be another day, and I’ll figure out the Castellanos the way I figure out everything. Carefully. Completely.

I pick up my water and take a drink, waiting.

13

QUINN

The soap in the bathroom at Gino’s is the pink kind that looks like Pepto-Bismol. Lillie pumps it no fewer than six times until her little hands are overflowing with it. “I think that’s enough,” I finally have to gently suggest.

Of course, she looks at me like I’m a complete, hopeless idiot. “I have to make sure I’m very clean.”

“And I appreciate that, because it’s very important to keep yourself from getting sick.” I watch her tiny hands as she rubs them together very seriously, very thoroughly, before rinsing. As I watch, my thoughts drift a little. I can’t help it. My face hurts from smiling so much tonight.

“Quinn? Do fish wash their hands?”

I swear, I don’t know where she comes up with these things. “Well, for one thing, fish don’t have hands.”

“But if they did?” She’s taking this very seriously. “Because, you know, they’re always underwater anyway. So wouldn’t they just always be clean?”

“That’s a very good question. I’ve never thought about it before.”