Page 4 of Dirty Pool

Michel chucked. “Tell me what?”

“Your father said you should come home.”

He fiddled with the fob to his Mercedes as he stood beside the car, and then hit the unlock button. The car lit up on all four corners, the black paint job shining in the daylight. He didn’t immediately jump into the vehicle, instead opting to finish his conversation with his mother first.

Now or never.

“I’m not going to come home for the summer,” he said.

Catrina was quiet for a while, and he hoped he hadn’t upset his ma. He loved her, but he also needed this time. As it was, he’d made the move to Detroit a whole year earlier than his first year of pre-med had started. He wanted to settle in, and get used to the city. He was going to be here for a while, right? He might as well learn to love it.

That meant staying.

Catrina relayed what Michel said to his father. In the background, he heard Dante reply, “Well, tell him to stay out of trouble.”

“You heard that, then?” Catrina asked Michel.

He laughed. “I did.”

“Do as your father says, Michel.”

“When do I ever cause trouble, Ma?”

“Define trouble.”

She wasn’t lying.

Michel might not be actively in the life like they were, and yet, somehow he still managed to dip his hands in the waters. As his sister liked to say, there was no such thing as being a little wet where the mafia was concerned. One was either dry entirely, or soaked to the fucking bone.

He wouldn’t look for trouble, though, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t find him. This life was just funny in that way.

“Yeah, I’ll try,” he told his ma.

“You better.”

• • •

Michel walked into Bella—the mob-owned, Italian eatery—and inhaled the scents of mozzarella and pasta. Spices and richness followed, clinging just as firmly to the air as utensils scraped against plates, and laughter lit up the restaurant. Nothing reminded Michel of home as much as a proper Italian restaurant did, honestly.

The fact it was mob-owned probably helped with that, too.

He bypassed the chick at the podium with a Bluetooth speaker in her ear and a tablet in her hands. She barely even glanced at him, recognizing his face and knowing better than to ask if he had a reservation. He didn’t need one—he knew the owner.

Just because he threw all of his attention into that first year of pre-med didn’t mean he hadn’t taken the time to also make friends. In their life, it didn’t matter that someone moved away from family and the business—that shit was everywhere. Michel was still the son of a mafia Don at the end of the day, and he needed contacts. Something his cousins had been quick to point out to him when they figured out he was dead serious about med school, and moving to Detroit.

So, he made friends.

Ones with big names.

His last name probably helped with that, too. Everyone who was anyone in the world of organized crime knew the Marcello surname without further explanation needed. He suspected his father had a hand in putting him in the path of Salvestro Vannozzo, cousin to the Vannozzo boss and a top Capo of the family in Detroit, because Dante wanted to make sure Michel had some kind of clout watching his back during his time there.

He wasn’t complaining.

The Vannozzos reminded him of home, and that kept him from getting too homesick. He also wasn’t exactly good with normal. He could have easily made friends with people at college, and maybe he should have just because, but those people didn’t understand him. They didn’t know what it was like to grow up the way he did, and they would never understand the way he sometimes talked in riddles, or his serious dislike of anything related to authority.

He needed like-minded people.

Salvestro and the rest of the Vannozzo men he made an effort to spend time with gave him exactly those things, and more. Because he came from a familiar background and family, with a last name that afforded him a great deal of respect, Salvestro and the Capo’s men welcomed Michel in as a friend.