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“It’s a yes or no question.”
Would I? If the only way to save her was for me to die instead, probably not. I wasn’t the gallant type. I didn’t open doors for women, and I sure as shit didn’t offer up my life for them like some self-sacrificing knight. It was about survival, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit it. “No.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“Sure. Once.” Samantha from college. The best four years of my life were spent hanging out with my buddies with a girl on my arm. A brief glimpse into a normal life before my father sucked me back into his cesspool of darkness.
“Would you have died for her?”
I thought back to that time. A simpler time and a happier one. I imagined having to make the choice between her life and mine. I knew the answer before even pondering over it. My sense of self-preservation was too strong. There has never been anyone I would have taken a bullet for. “No.”
“Then you’ve never been in love.”
Maybe she was right. Someone like me couldn’t be capable of love, not with all the darkness eating away at me. “Was that how your Charlie died? Did he die for you?”
“No, thank goodness, because love and sacrifice work both ways. I’d have died for him too. And if he’d have died because of me, I wouldn’t have been able to handle the guilt.” She shook her head. “No, my Charlie had a heart defect, but that didn’t stop him from living his life the way he wanted to.”
“Was he a g—uh?”
“Gangster?” She laughed. “It’s okay, you can call a horse a horse. He was. He was part of the Irish mob in Boston.”
“And you never told Lila.”
“Nah. I planned to when she went to college, but then she started dating that preppy kid, Bradley. And even though I never approved of him, she was in love. It was her life, and I didn’t want to ruin her chances with a guy. A shady past will do that. Make someone run.”
I knew this. That’s what I’d feared and hoped for at the same time since I’d met Lila. That she’d find out about all the heinous things I’d done…and run.
“Once it was over,” Nana said, “she was so heartbroken, it wasn’t the right time to reveal the big family secret. After she graduated, I hinted at it a few times but never revealed the whole truth. Charlie had been dead for over thirty years by then, and it didn’t feel right to open up that closet of skeletons.”
So, Lila truly knew nothing about the crime world. “What about Lila’s parents?”
“Charlie wanted our son to follow in his footsteps, but Danny had other plans. When the boys in our neighborhood were getting into fistfights, Danny was saving kittens from trees. After high school, he told us he wanted to be a veterinarian.
“Charlie’s boss was against it, but when it came to our kids, Charlie never let the mob decide. It wasn’t easy, but we sent Danny to college across the country. Now he performs surgeries on injured animals.”
It sounded like Charlie was a better father than my dad had ever been. Better than most fathers in gang families. Sons rarely had a choice in the matter. I sure as shit didn’t. I was lucky Pop had even let me go to university. I’d had to come up with a kickass excuse to convince him. I had told him I could use the degree to open a legit business to have as a front, and with a real degree, we’d be less suspicious to the authorities. The fool had bought my bullshit. It had been my plan all along to have the front take over our organization one day, go completely legit. A plan I miserably failed at.
There was no out. That was never an option. Once you’re in, the only way out is with a bullet in your brain.
“…and before Danny got married, he found a way to tell his future bride about it without ratting anyone out. Danny knew what he could and couldn’t say. Charlie had taught him well.”
“What had Lila’s mom said?”
She shrugged. “Not sure exactly, but she showed up on her wedding day happy as a clam, eyes sparkling for my Danny boy. Whatever he told her, it didn’t scare her off. Love really does conquer all, kid.”
Was this her way of telling me it was okay for me and Lila to be together? Charlie sounded like a decent man, though. Nothing like me.
“I’m going to bed. Why don’t you go talk to Lila?”
She wouldn’t want to talk to me. If she did, she’d have stayed out here. “She’s probably asleep by now.”
“You really don’t know anything about women, do you?”
My death stare was automatic. I didn’t want to use it on a semi-sweet old lady, but she was crossing the line. “I know plenty.”
She patted my arm. “I bet ya a dime that she’s tossing and turning, wondering if you’re coming in there after her. And if she’s not thinking that, then she’s still crying ’cause you’re too much of a coward to be with her.”
This was the second time she’d called me that, and it was really starting to piss me off. Why couldn’t she see the sacrifice I was making for Lila? “I’m not a coward. I’m protecting her.”
