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She shakes her head. “Leave me out of this.” She butters the toast and then brings it over to me. “Anything else?”
“This is great, thanks.”
“You’re very welcome.” She smiles at me. “Marco’s a good guy, at heart.”
“I’m sure he is. The gentlest mafia boss in all the world. It’s like a fairy tale come true.”
She ignores my sarcasm. “He’s going through a bad time, that’s all. He lost his parents and his sister all in one day. The family dogs as well.”
The toast turns dry in my mouth. I force myself to swallow it, trying not to cough pieces into the air. “What happened?” I ask, not sure I want to know the answer. “Can you tell me?”
Fourteen
Anna
* * *
They look at each other. Giuseppe shakes his head, but Eva just frowns. “She has a right to know, don’t you think?”
Giuseppe throws up his hands. “On your head be it. You know what Marco said.”
“What did Marco say?” I ask.
Eva frowns. “What do you want me to do, Giuseppe? Keep her in the dark about everything?”
“You do you, Eva.”
“I will,” she replies before turning back to me. “Your father and Marco have been rivals for a long time.”
“Oh, God,” Giuseppe says, rolling his eyes. “You’re actually going to tell her.”
She shushes him before continuing. “Tony Piper worked with Marco years ago, but Tony decided there was more money to be made in less savory endeavors.”
“Trafficking,” Giuseppe pipes up. “If you’re going to tell her, don’t use euphemisms. It’ll only confuse her.”
“Fine. Tony wanted to traffic people rather than guns or drugs. Said there was more money in it. Marco wasn’t interested, so they went their separate ways.”
“Enough with the euphemisms,” Giuseppe says, cracking his knuckles. “I can see I might as well tell her. What she means is war. Tony and Marco fought tooth and nail to decide who got to say what went on in the city. Lot of people lost their lives on both sides before they got some kind of truce on the go. The commission arranged it.”
“The what?”
“The commission. You never heard of them?”
“Nope.”
“Wow, you really are a civilian. How do I sum them up?”
Eva speaks for him. “Consider them like a legal system that’s outside the law.”
“That’s not helpful,” Giuseppe says. “They’re like a government in charge of all the mafia families. They settle disputes, make decisions when people can’t decide between them, enforce the rules when they get broken.”
“What kind of rules?”
“Oh, things like the marriage contracts. That kind of thing.”
“What’s the marriage contract?”
“When you get married, no one can put a hit out on you. Otherwise, the families would all die out.”
