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Long story short, he’s dead.
Buried.
Poof.
A distant memory.
No use crying over spilt milk. I try to never think about it if I can help it.
I never expected to have two families to take care of. To be the reigning Queen of all of Chicago…
But here I am.
Two Crime Families and one regular family all under my wing, nestled in like some sort of fungus.
And after yesterday I think it's time to finally pay the Colombos a visit.
“Did you even think about the downside of running two families?” Luigi asks. “When you took over for Edoardo…?”
“I thought about this for a long time,” I reply, ignoring his pointedness. “But what choice did I have?”
Rumors fly. The whole Crime World still talks about Edoardo’s death, but I don’t care what they think. Luigi and Frankie know the truth, but sometimes they let themselves get swept up by the rumors, too. I have always shrugged off every question; every accusation; every poke and prod. I didn’t want to talk about it. I did what I had to do. They could call me ruthless; they could call me whatever they wanted. I know what I know. And that’s all that matters.
“Do you miss having a man around?” Frankie asks over the rim of his glass.. Seems like a genuine enough question, but it isn’t. He’s being a drunken ass. “The real head of the Lorenzo family was a strong head of the household…”
I scowl.
“Watch your tone, Frankie…” I whisper. “I made you part of this council because I value your tenure, but I’m not afraid to do you in…”
Luigi and him both have a bad habit of thinking our relationship is a little closer than what it was. Luigi is my right hand man. My Underboss.
Frankie is my top Capo.
I value both of their inputs, but not enough to look the other way when they’re disrespecting me.
But…It was a question that I couldn’t help asking myself.
It has been a few years and I did miss having a man around sometimes.
I would have rather dated the dead rat in the dumpster out back than admit it though.
Later that night, my head starts stewing on what all we talked about in the meeting today. It wasn’t the battle plan… it wasn’t the stirring and whirling chatter about how we were going to make the Colombos pay. They’d pay. One way or another. We’d make sure of that. The thing my mind kept gravitating to was Frankie’s question…
Was all this blankness I felt— all this void — was thatloneliness?
My phone blares its awful ring and I groan, until I look at the screen and see my son’s bright face. He’s so handsome. Angular jaw, long dark hair, bright blue eyes. Dimples when he smiles.
He looks a lot like Edoardo.
He’s off at school. I miss him. I haven’t even seen him in a month now. It’s like he’s completely flown the coop. Mattia and Tomasso were soon on their way out the door, too.
I was going to miss having boys in the house.
The girls… they are bothtoomuch for me sometimes.
The attitude on them alone is enough to cause me to lash out and show them exactly what it means to be a mob boss.
With the exception of Alessandro, they have no clue what it means to be in the mob. Not really. Only what they see on TV. They’ve not seen the real thing. Not yet. And even with what they see on TV, I wonder how much of it they think I really do.
