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“Yeah, well, she’s had to learn fast. She had no choice as it was too late to do anything about Ma Veneti’s blatant lies.”
Everyone kept telling me that she was good for Clara and Clemente—first Aloysius and now Marco.
But they didn’t have to live with her—or nearly get shot by her, or tricked by her ma, or put up with her fucking feline.
I sighed to myself. But maybe they were right—perhaps I should give her more of a chance?
I remembered the look Clara had given me tonight when I’d arrived at dinner. Anni had been right when she’d told me that Clara was worried something might happen to me like it did to her mother.
That thought cut me to the core. As a Made Man, I’d hurt many people, but I feel little guilt over the things I did in the course of my work. Causing pain to my child, however, was a whole different ballgame. And each time I saw how much the kids missed their mother, it made profound guilt prick at my conscience.
CHAPTER 27
LORENZO
The next morning I made sure that I stayed for breakfast
I had to make mealtimes with the children a priority—even if it did mean eating in the same room as that fucking cat.
“More eggs?” Clara said to me, after watching the creature devour a bowl of scrambled eggs.
“Of course you can have some more eggs.” I spooned another portion onto her kitten plate, and she gave me a beaming smile in return. Anni was right when she’d said that Clara ate more when I was home.
“Me too,” Clemente demanded, banging his tiger fork onto his matching tiger plate.
“Say please, Clemente,” Anni said gently.
“Peeze,” he said with a cheeky grin.
“Good boy,” I praised him, as I added more eggs to his plate.
Clara was wearing the old blue dress yet again, but at least Anni had it freshly washed and ironed every single morning—which was more than I used to achieve. Adelina retired after dinner, and it had been my job to remember to put Clara’s dress on to wash each evening; by the time I’d got the kids to bed, though, I’d often forgotten. That was one job that Anni had taken off my hands, and I was glad that she was remembering to do it every night. Even though Clara was insisting on repeatedly wearing the same dress, at least it was clean for her every morning.
“I’ll be home for dinner tonight,” I said to Anni.
“Okay.”
“We’ve had a problem with the bakeries.” I didn’t normally talk about my work with her, but I felt I owed her an explanation for the early starts and late finishes I’d been doing recently.
“The Fratellanza own bakeries?”
“Yes, we have a monopoly over the independent bakeries in Chicago and the surrounding areas. People love their artisan bread, and it’s a cash-only business.” Anni would know that this meant they were used as a front for laundering our dirty money.
“What sort of problems have you been experiencing?”
“Someone is stealing from the business. It’s hard to know who, though, as the bakeries are a fairly big operation with lots of people involved in it.”
“Are they taking a lot of money?”
“Some, but it’s more that if someone is disloyal enough to steal from us, it’s only a matter of time before they take the next step and shop us to the Feds in return for a nice government pay-off.” The kids were too young to understand what we were talking about, so I could talk freely in front of them.
“Do you really think they would go to the Feds?”
“Once someone is disloyal, they can no longer be trusted within the organization. Too much is riding on it to run that sort of risk.”
It was nice to be able to talk to her about my work, I thought. Rita had always refused to hear anything about it.
When everyone had just about finished, I dropped a kiss on the heads of both children. “See you at dinnertime,” I said, earning a big smile from Clara.
