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“What’s she doing there?”
He hesitated. “Nothing. She’s gone.”
“You mean like . . . dead?”
Carmine cringed at the word and nodded.
He played again as Haven went back to her book. He felt no judgment, no disappointment, no pressure to explain. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized how much he craved that acceptance. She’d changed him. He wasn’t sure how, but he felt different. He was Maura’s son again, and not so much Vincent DeMarco’s heir.
* * *
“Look at the Suburban.”
Corrado’s voice was nonchalant, but Vincent knew better than to believe he wasn’t on alert. He waited a few seconds before turning, seeing the black Chevy Suburban parked along the curb half a block away.
The darkly tinted windows obstructed the inside view, but Vincent could manage a guess or two at who was there. “FBI, you think? Doesn’t seem like locals.”
o;You do smell like sunshine.”
“And how does sunshine smell?”
“It smells like the outside world. Warm. Happy. Safe.” She paused. “Green.”
“Green?”
She nodded. “Definitely green.”
* * *
Tarullo’s Pizzeria was a small establishment, owned by second-generation immigrant John Tarullo. He was what they called an omu de panza, a man with a belly, and La Cosa Nostra rewarded him for it. He minded his own business and looked the other way, and in exchange for his silence they made certain he thrived. Tarullo didn’t like relying on the mob—in fact, he’d told Vincent many times he detested the organization—but if it weren’t them, it would be someone else. Someone would come around expecting something from him, and it was better that that someone at least be a familiar face.
Vincent, personally, felt protective of the pizzeria. Tarullo had been the one to find Carmine the night he’d been shot, and Vincent would forever feel indebted to the man for saving his son.
It was something Tarullo would rather forget, though.
They never had much trouble at Tarullo’s Pizzeria, since everyone knew it was under protection after what Tarullo had done for Carmine, so Vincent was shocked when he received a call to go to the place years later. The moment he stepped inside the restaurant and heard the loud, disruptive voices, his hand settled on the gun concealed in his coat.
He stood still, surveying the men at the front counter, both Caucasian with sandy hair. Vincent assessed them as they bickered, their voices slurring. He wasn’t sure why he’d been called in for such a petty situation, but when the drunken men’s focus shifted to Tarullo, he took a step forward anyway. He barely made it three feet from the door when it opened, a single word booming through the pizzeria. “Zatknis!”
Shut up. It was one of the only words Vincent knew in Russian. He’d heard it barked many times in his life from the lips of the man now standing a few feet from him.
Vincent glared at him. He was tall and built like a linebacker, his gray hair concealed under a black cap. Although he was pushing seventy, the man had the mind-set of a psychopathic twenty-year-old assassin.
“Ivan Volkov,” Vincent said. “You’re not welcome here.”
Ivan stared at him blankly for a moment before turning around and walking out of the pizzeria. Before the door could close, he stepped back in. “I do not see your name on the sign.”
“I don’t need to own the place,” Vincent said. “You have no business being in this part of town.”
Despite the fact that Vincent was fuming, Ivan had the audacity to smile. “Why are you always serious? We have only come for pizza.”
“Go somewhere else.”
“But I wish to eat here.”
The two men stood at an impasse, Vincent’s hand still hovering near his gun. Ivan was unaffected, though, and appeared impatient as he scanned the price menu on the wall.
The door opened again as Corrado walked in. He didn’t look at Ivan as he stepped around him. “Volkov.”
