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Jess laughed. “Just tell me the damn story already.”
Tony tightened his arms around her waist, relishing the way she felt lying against him. “My great-grandfather Lorenzo Moretti immigrated here before the second World War.”
“Great-grandfather?” Jess exchanged an amused look with Rhys. “He’s gonna owe you twenty.”
Tony tickled her, then continued his story. “The Russos came over around the same time, and my great-grandfather grew up with Mattia Russo. The two of them were best friends. They even started their own construction business together. Lorenzo was married to a beautiful woman, Isabella. According to my nonno, Lorenzo was desperately in love with his young wife, so he was devastated when he discovered she’d had an affair with Mattia.”
“Oh no.”
“Apparently Mattia had had his eye on Isabella for a long time, and one night, he was finally able to seduce her.”
“What happened?” Jess asked.
“As you can imagine, Lorenzo was heartbroken. Isabella begged for his forgiveness, but Lorenzo was a proud man, angry. Afraid he’d never forgive her, Isabella killed herself.”
Jess stirred. “Oh my God. That’s a terrible story.”
“Lorenzo was devastated by her death and furious with Mattia. So he cut all ties with his former best friend. Their business was dissolved and the two never spoke to each other again. Lorenzo continued to work as a master carpenter, while Mattia, who’d always run the business side of their company, ventured into other things, amassing wealth through less-than-scrupulous means.”
Jess tilted her head. “What does that mean?”
“There weren’t too many crooked politicians Mattia didn’t have in his pocket, and there were rumors that he worked with the Italian Mafia.”
“Mafia?” Jess’s eyes widened.
“The Russos are crooked, cheating, greedy fuckers, always looking to steal what isn’t theirs. That trait has been passed down from generation to generation.”
Jess wasn’t quite convinced. “How do you know that? Maybe it was just Mattia who was the asshole.”
Tony bopped Jess on the nose playfully. “I know because history has repeated itself with each generation. Lorenzo married my great-grandmother, Juliette, a few years after Isabella’s death, and together they had my nonno. When Nonno was in his twenties, he met my nonna, Domenica. Mattia’s son, Riccardo, was the same age, and he and Nonno competed for Domenica’s hand. When she chose Nonno, Riccardo—the sore fucking loser—vowed revenge. It took him decades, but as Riccardo’s wealth and influence grew, he finally had the power to destroy my family’s small but prosperous construction business.
“Riccardo used his connections with local policy makers and county administrators to make Nonno’s life a living hell. Nonno fought for years to keep the business afloat amid countless inspections, audits, and fines for trumped-up violations, but in the end, his health suffered from the stress and he had a heart attack. That was when Nonna stepped in and said enough was enough. He closed the business and retired.”
“That’s terrible,” Jess said. “But again, it’s sort of ancient history. Two generations in the past.”
“My brothers and I grew up with the Russo boys. They’re just as competitive, believe me.”
“The way I understand it,” Rhys chimed in, having heard this story—or parts of it—retold countless times, “Matt Russo had been a big shot in high school until Tony and his family moved back from Baltimore.”
“He’d had three years to run unopposed for class president, and no one dared try out for quarterback of the football team,” Tony interjected.
“Let me guess. You did,” Jess added.
Tony grinned. “I won both.”
“What did Matt do?”
That was when Tony’s smile faded. “I’d been dating this girl, Adriana, most of my senior year. She was my first love, first serious relationship. I caught her and Matt in the backseat of his BMW right after graduation. Asshole actually looked up in the middle of fucking my girl and laughed when he saw me. I’m pretty sure he set the whole thing up so I would find them.”
“Shit,” Jess murmured. “What did you do?”
“Pulled his ass out of the car and started a fight. The two of us pounded on each other pretty good, while myexfirst love cried and begged us to stop. After a while, when we were both bleeding and breathing heavily, leaning on his car—which had a few dents, thanks to our fight—I decided neither she nor Matt was worth it. I told them they deserved each other and walked away.”
“Wow,” Jess whispered.
“Yeah, wow.” Tony hadn’t thought of that fight in years. He recalled how much it had hurt at the time, but now it was nothing more than a memory, one that evoked none of the piercing pain that accompanied that first broken heart.
Of course, the anger was still there, but that fire had been stoked by the history of their families and by Nonno’s fierce bitterness over losing his business to the Russos’ corruption.
