AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’d never been scared of a man in my adult life.
Until today.
With barely any words, with only a few inferences, he’d managed to...
God, I didn’t know what.
My throat was dry as he replied, "No, none of us have a choice. I’m sure your research would have shown that too."
I dipped my chin, because I did know that. A little like a bar mitzvah, the various mafia families all had their own ways of introducing kids into their world. From boys, they turned them into men with their various hazing methods.
It was disturbing.
Even to someone who was acclimated to the way they worked, it was difficult to process.
Kids were meant to be protected. Shielded. Not inserted into the path their fathers and brothers and uncles had been forced to take too. It was wrong on so many levels.
My mouth twisted as I murmured, "It begins and ends with blood."
"That’s almost poetic."
"There’s a twisted kind of poetry to the way you all lead your lives, don’t you think?"
He stunned me by snickering. "If you told my da that, then he’d say there’s nothing poetic about our life. He’d say we weren’t fairies." He tipped his chin to the side. "Yes, he’s a politically incorrect old bastard. What would you like me to do? Make him woke? I’d like to survive my thirties if at all possible. The old fucker can’t live forever, after all."
Well, wasn’t that a lot of information to process?
"I never imagined he’d be woke. Everyone knows you’re expected to follow the Catholic way if you’re in the Five Points."
Aidan hummed. "And God help you if you’re different."
I frowned. "Are you...different?" I wasn’t even asking for a scoop. As much as he made my skin crawl with nerves, he was hot. The level of hot that made a woman sigh when she found out that the man in question was gay.
He snorted again. "Savannah, my dubious reputation is hard-earned. No, I’m not gay. But I can appreciate things my father doesn’t. We’re not cut from the same cloth." He pursed his lips. "That was a hard way to be introduced to adulthood."
Recognizing that he was talking about Isardo, I dipped my chin. "It took me a long time to get over it." Lie. I wasn’t over it. I had just adapted to knowing that society wasn’t as clean cut as it appeared.
"I can imagine. What I can’t imagine, however, is a therapist telling you to research the deadly wars between factions in the city as a means of helping you process what you saw." He grunted. "So what made you take that leap?"
"I wanted answers that no one would give me. I wanted to understand, and no one was willing to help me do that."
"So you took matters into your own hands?"
"Yes. I found out that the FieriFamigliawas at war with a small group of Dominicans." I shrugged. "That was why Isardo was targeted."
"He was acapo," Aidan agreed. "One of the thirteen Fieri had back then. Did it help? You knowing the reason for his death?"
"Not really, but I found that I was interested. It read like a story to me." I hitched a shoulder. "It might be your life, but to the average, everyday person, it’s pretty insane to think you guys spend your days as if you belong in a Tarantino movie."
"Trust me, it isn’t just insane from the outside looking in." He heaved a sigh and surprised me by reaching out. Tension hit me, of a different variety however. The way the tips of his fingers looped around my wrist, gently squeezing had me gulping in surprise. "Now that I understand where the obsession stemmed from, I’ll stop prodding that particular wound."
I straightened my spine. "I got over that years ago." His touch still burned me when he let go.
I could tell youexactlywhere each fingertip had seared my skin.
"That kind of violence leaves stains on your soul," he countered, and that he disagreed with me was clear. "If you’re an adult, then it’s hard to process. As a child? Impossible." He shook his head. "I regret that you had to see that."
He meant it.
