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“I need to get a drink.” I headed out of the restaurant before Josh. I could tell from his expression that he was bemused and confused, but I didn’t care. I just needed to get drunk. I needed to think about anything other than Antonio and my dad. And Antonio’s mom. And everything in the world that was dissolving around me.
“We can go to the place I was telling you about.” Josh touched the small of my back lightly. “Let me just call an Uber.”
“No. I need a drink now.” I looked around the street for a bar. “I want to get drunk. I want to blur out everything in the fucking world that is trying to fuck with my mind.”
“Callie, are you okay?”
“No!” I shouted and then turned to look at a shocked Josh. He’d never seen me looking like this before. “I am not okay. Nothing is okay.”
“Is this about that—”
“I don’t want to talk. I just want to drink. Beer. Wine. Vodka. Tequila. Fucking absinthe if I have to. I don’t care. I just want to…” My voice cracked as my head started pounding. My dad was a liar. My dad was a liar, and I couldn’t believe it. Antonio was a liar, too. He’d used me. Everything I thought I knew in this world was crashing around me. Suddenly, lights were jumping off the ground and crashing into my body. I heard the beeping of horns and people shouting around me, but I couldn’t focus. I wanted to cry. But I didn’t. I wanted to be strong. I needed to be strong. I could be Joan of Arc; I would be a fighter. A strong, independent woman. “Was Anna Karenina strong?” I turned to Josh and grabbed his arm.
“What?” He blinked at me.
“Anna Karenina… you know, the novel by Leo Tolstoy. He was a Russian author. And right now the media tells us we should fear the Russians, but you know who we should really fear? Our dads… and Italian-American Mafia bosses or underbosses or whatever. They’re worse than the Russians. Well, maybe not Putin. Putin is a Rasputin.” I laughed. “Hey, that rhymes.”
“Are you high?” Josh leaned forward and pressed his palm to my forehead. “You’re acting super weird, Callie. You’re scaring me.”
I stopped and looked at him. I took a couple of deep breaths and shook my head. “My world is burning down around me. I’m not okay. But I’m not high. Maybe I should be. Let’s grab one drink at that bar on the corner. And then we can go dancing at that cool club you heard of. I feel like dancing. I just want to forget tonight.”
“I got you, Callie.” Josh smiled at me sweetly. “We can do whatever you want.”
“Thanks, Josh.” I nodded and then held my hands up. “‘All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,’” I exclaimed dramatically and then burst out laughing at Josh’s expression. I could tell he wondered if he needed to take me to check in at the looney bin. “It’s the first line inAnna Karenina,” I said softly with a smile. “But he was right, don’t you think? All families and probably all people are unhappy in so many different ways. Ways we most probably don’t even know exist.”
“I suppose.” He nodded as we stopped outside the gritty-looking dive bar called Minister’s Hand. “Shall we head in?”
“Let’s do it,” I said with a slight nod. “Not like I got anything else going on tonight.”
14
Antonio
Suddenly, it all made sense. Why Luisa stuck by my father’s side through everything. And why she’d sent Elisabetta away. Did Dad even know she was his daughter? Elisabetta was sulking in the back seat, and Alessandro was staring at his phone as I pulled up outside Florence’s on Fifth.
“You guys wanna stay here while I check out—”
“Nope,” Alessandro cut me off as I parked. “I need a drink.”
“I’m not staying here by myself. I wanna check out the family business,” Elisabetta added. “And I need a drink as well.”
“You’re not even twenty-one,” I started, and she giggled.
“Like you give a shit.” She opened the back door and jumped out of the car.
“Take care of your sister, Alessandro,” I growled as I exited the car.
“My sister?” He chuckled. “So now she’s my sister, even though we haven’t taken a DNA test.”
“Hmph.” I pressed my lips together as Elisabetta stood there with her arms folded across her chest. “Of course, that brat is our blood.”
“I’m not a brat.” She glared at me. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry about me trying to claim my inheritance or anything. I want out of the family. I want to move to Europe and—”
“What?” I rubbed my temples. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m saying that I want a new life,” she said, shrugging. “I want to reinvent myself. Maybe move to France or Switzerland. I just need some money to—”
“Are you hearing this?” I asked Alessandro, who was laughing inwardly. “Did someone forget to tell Elisabetta that she’s not even an adult yet?”
