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But Tony, instead of laughing with him, wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Crazy kid. Who knows?”
Tony did. Obviously. They’d arrived together, worked together most days. Whatever was going on, Tony knew. And didn’t want to tell Lorenzo.
Blast it all. Now he couldn’t help but try to piece together the puzzle, when this was not what he needed to be thinking about tonight.
He trailed his brothers into the house, following the sound of Val’s laughter into Manny’s study. Their godfather shifted his frustrated gaze from Val to Tony. “What are you doing back here? You were supposed to take it to the millinery, and—Enzo?” Manny’s spine snapped straight, and his brows slammed down.
Lorenzo looked from Manny to Tony to Val. His fingers curled into his palms, and he could feel the blood rushing into his face. “Tony. What exactly were you doing at my building?” He saw again his brothers rushing in the door, looking over their shoulders while a siren wailed by.
Tony ignored him and faced Manny. “Thought we shook the tail within a couple of blocks of the brewery, but they found us again. We had to ditch the car, but they didn’t see it, don’t worry. We’ll go back for it soon.”
Brewery? Ditch the car? Lorenzo had to brace a hand on the back of one of the leather chairs to keep from lunging at his brother. “You used me as a getaway?”
Tony spun back to him, hands up in a placating gesture. “Now calm down, Enzo. We just went for a ride with our brother, that’s all. Someplace you were already planning to go.”
He clenched his teeth so tightly he could feel his pulse in his jaw. Still, it wasn’t enough to keep the words from spilling out. “So your original plan was simply to hide in my apartment until the cops stopped circling the block. My block. Where you’d come with your contraband.”
“Now, Enzo—”
“Don’t you ‘now Enzo’ me.” He sliced a hand through the air. “You’re all idiots. You know that, right? You know O’Reilly’s still gunning for you. You know he’s filing bootlegging charges and will have made sure every suspected venue is covered. So what do you do? Make a run to the brewery that you took him to a month ago! Did you think you wouldn’t get chased by the cops?”
Manny’s face went blank and hard, his gaze calculating as he leaned back on his desk and turned his attention from one brother to the other.
Val shifted from one foot to the other. “Ah, come on, Enzo. It was an emergency. The bars were almost out of beer.”
“Oh, well then. I can see the earth would have stopped spinning had you not gone and risked your lives.”
“Now Enzo.”
He spun toward Tony again. “Say that one more time, Antonio. I dare you.”
Tony shifted too—out of arm’s reach. “The risk was controlled. But don’t you see that the reasons you named are the very ones that meant we had to go? We couldn’t trust this run to anyone else. But it had to be done. No booze means no customers, no customers means no money—and worse, people talking about how Manny’s places aren’t dependable. People start going elsewhere, and it’s perceived as weakness. Other gangsters start moving in our territory. Is that what you want? More of Torrio’s men here, in our neighborhood? Shooting at our families? We do this to protect you—to protect everyone.”
Fury pulsed through Lorenzo’s veins with every beat of his heart. With them. For them. He couldn’t even tell the difference anymore. “Right. Every time you break the law, it’s for me.”
Manny pushed off from his desk, coming to drape an arm over Lorenzo’s shoulders. “For you—yes. So you could go to college, to law school. For Sabina, so she can walk these streets in safety. We make these hard choices so you can live the life you want.”
The old, familiar guilt sliced through him. He’d tried to find a way to achieve his dreams without relying on Mafia money, but in the end, he’d accepted Manny’s help with school. Just as he’d accepted the food his father put on the table all his life. He’d told himself that at least it would enable him to cut those ties, and it had. Finally. But those chains, the reminders, were still there.
And worse still, his brothers were now in the thick of it. He looked over at Tony and saw the insolent way he perched there, arms crossed. He looked like Father. Like Franco. Like Manny. Like nothing Lorenzo could ever say would make a difference.
It wasn’t calm that banked his anger. It was defeat. “The moral of the story being, once again, that I shouldn’t ask you to make different choices, to live a different life, as I’ve chosen to do.”
Manny gave his shoulder a friendly shake and left his side, heading for his chair. “I knew a smart young man like you would understand. Now, I assume you didn’t come here just to yell at your brothers. Did you speak with the senator today? Or are you just here to visit with Sabina?”
Lorenzo looked again from Tony to Val. Most young mafiosi proved themselves by spilling an enemy’s blood—had they? He hoped not, prayed not.
But even if they hadn’t yet, how long would that last? How long would they want it to? How long before the two brothers he had left, his best friends, abandoned the last of the morals their mother had tried to instill in them and embarked fully on the path of their father?
How long before those hands that had teased and shoved him all his life were red with an enemy’s blood?
One of these days, Manny would either retire or be unable to avoid a bullet. Franco or Father might take over, but they were both reaching that point in their lives when they might wish for a slower pace. And with Little G, the heir apparent, wanting a different life…who did that leave?
Tony. Val.
He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could believe that it wasn’t true. They’d never get that deep or go that far. But he knew it was only wishful thinking.
He’d spent his life in a Mafia family too—he’d seen it all. He understood what drove them. The desire to protect their families, their neighbors…no matter what it took. The satisfaction that came with accruing more and more power, more and more territory. Expanding the Family, growing the neighborhood. Doing what the government wouldn’t, restoring what other gangs had taken. The thrill that came from crooking a finger and having desperate girls do whatever they were told, of having underlings grovel and obey.
