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The meet was in an hour and I wanted to look my best. I’d already showered and shaved, my face completely bare for the first time in years, hair slicked back. I was looking in my closet, trying to find something that fit, but I’d gained a lot of muscle in the last decade, and I’d left everything behind when I came home. Coming home was something I never thought I’d do, but here I was, about to go to a meet where I knew Allegra Rossi would be attending. I sighed, thinking about the last time I’d seen her.
She took my hands in hers, looking up at me with shining brown eyes. I’d never been able to say no to her, not since the moment I’d met her, but what she was asking of me…
“Run away with me,” she pleaded. “Just you and me, Rocco. We can start over. Start our ownfamiglia, leave the Gallos and the Rossis behind.”
“You’d leave your father behind? What, be Allegra Moretti?” I asked incredulously. “You couldn’t do that,stellina.” I called her “stellina” because she shined bright like a star. My own little North Star, my reason to keep moving forward. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to run away. I just didn’t think it was really what she wanted.
“I just want to be with you, Rocco. None of the rest matters,” Allegra insisted.
I looked at her, searching her face, wondering if she knew what “starting over” with me meant. Allegra had always had the nicest things, never had to worry about where her next meal was coming from. I’d had to work for everything I had. We’d always been from different worlds.
“Sure,” I said quietly. “Meet me tomorrow night. Midnight, out by that tree where we first kissed.”
She smiled, and I put my hands in her soft brown hair, pulled her close, and kissed her like it was the last time. “Rocco,” she breathed, a hint of worry in her tone.
I smiled at her. “Midnight. Tomorrow. Don’t be late.”
She left out the window like she did every night.
By midnight the next night, I was already three hundred miles out of town.
I sighed, looking at the lines around my eyes. Maybe I wouldn’t see her at all. I had a lot of new scars, including one just across my right eyebrow. Maybe she wouldn’t recognize me. It had been almost a decade, after all.
Someone banged on the bathroom door and I took a deep breath. “Hurry up, I’m ready to go!” Ricardo bellowed, and I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t stand Ricardo Gallo, but his father, Enzo, had taken me in when I had nothing, so I had to put up with his son. It was like hell most days, but I made it through. I had to. Enzo was sick, maybe dying, and I owed it to him to make sure the business he worked so hard for didn’t go up in smoke.
I jerked open the door, glaring at Ricardo, and as usual he backed down, looking away sheepishly. “You’re just like a girl,” he complained. “Always primping.”
I snorted out a laugh. “Thanks, I like to take pride in my appearance.”Unlike you, I thought, looking him over. Ricardo’s hair looked greasy, and pimples popped out all over his jawline. His suits always looked rumpled and I could never understand why. I knew the dry cleaner Enzo used was immaculate, and Ricardo had the best tailors. He had the best of everything and just kept pissing it away. I suspected he was on drugs, probably the hard ones, because he was always twitchy and irritable; but that was a common problem among wiseguys, after all. He wouldn’t be the firstcapoin training to get hooked.
Our driver was idling in front of the car. Ricardo slid into the backseat while I sat in the passenger side. I wasn’t realfamiglia, after all, being only half-Sicilian. I had my mother’s dirty blonde hair and green eyes, only getting my father’s olive complexion and body hair. At least, that was what my mother said. I’d never met my father, and from what she told me, I didn’t want to.
I looked out the window, jiggling my leg anxiously as we drove. It was only about a fifteen-minute drive, but it seemed to take forever. I didn’t know if I was anxious because I wanted to see Allegra or because I was afraid to see her. Part of me wondered if it would just take one look into those brown doe eyes for me to fall back in love with her all over again. I’d worked so hard to put her out of my mind, to forget the silky feel of her skin under my calloused palms.
The meet was being hosted at Marco Bruno’s home. The old man had just turned seventy with no heirs. We all knew hisfamigliawas on the way out, although probably a cousin or one of his nephews would take over when he finally kicked it. I felt a pang of sympathy for him as we walked in and I saw him sitting in his wheelchair, greeting everyone with a handshake. I hung back while Ricardo greeted him, wishing Enzo had felt well enough to come with us. I missed the old man most when Ricardo and I had to do something like this together, something social. I wasn’t much for the public eye, usually just doing the driving and the muscle jobs Ricardo didn’t have the stomach for. It was the way it’d always been, since the twenty-five-year-old Ricardo had been a kid. Enzo had always relied on me as his right hand, and I guessed when he passed, Ricardo would inherit me as such, as much as I hated it. But I owed Enzo my life, so I would protect his son.
I nodded at Marco and he smiled at me, reaching out his hand to shake mine. I was surprised. A lot of thecaposin the area don’t greet the muscle the same way as they greet realfamiglia, so it was a nice gesture. I cracked a smile and shook his hand, his grip surprisingly strong for a man his age and in his condition. Wiseguys usually died hard and young, so I guessed he must be pretty tough in order to make it to seventy.
“Help yourself to some wine, Rocco,” he said, and I was even more surprised that he remembered my name. To my memory, we had only met a handful of times, when I was chauffeuring Enzo to meets and jobs. “Good to have you back in town.”
I nodded at him in respect. “Good to be back,sir,” I said.
Marco scoffed. “Call me Marco,” he said easily, and I gave him a half-smile as if I agreed, although I didn’t think I could ever call a man of his caliber by his first name.
Someone else came over to talk to him and I was grateful for the interruption. I looked around the mansion, looking for Allegra, but so far all I saw was a few of the mobster’s wives and mistresses. There was a bleached blonde standing at the top of the stairs with an amazing body, to be sure, and long legs, dressed in a blue cocktail dress that fit her perfectly and a pair of black stilettos. She had her hair in her face and, as she descended the stairs, she threw it back and looked right at me. Her eyes were the same brown doe eyes I remembered from nearly ten years ago, and my heart leapt up into my throat.
I kept her gaze, not wanting to be the first to look away, but as she walked toward me, I couldn’t help myself from turning and walking into the foyer, away from her. I cursed myself inwardly. Why was I running? I was going to have to speak to her sometime or another, the way the Gallos and the Rossis ran in the same circles. Moving back to the city had been a mistake, and a big one. I walked out onto the terrace alone, taking in deep breaths of fresh air and wishing I’d grabbed myself a drink.
Ricardo followed me out after a few moments. “What’s up with you?” he asked disdainfully.
I wanted to scream. Ricardo looked down on me and that much was obvious, but right now I needed a distraction, and maybe he was just irritating enough to do the job. “Do you want to get out of here?” I asked, turning to him.
Ricardo blinked and finished his drink. “You know I hate these fucking meets, but didn’t Pop say we needed to mingle since you just arrived back in town?”
I raised my eyebrow. “Do you really want to mingle with these old fucks?” I appealed to his younger, rebellious nature with that comment, and I saw his dull blue eyes sparkle.
He grinned. “Yeah. Let’s get the hell out of here. I know a new strip club that opened up near 37thand Broadway.”
We left from the terrace, Rocco putting his drink down on a nearby bench, and we headed to the club, just like Ricardo had suggested. Strip clubs weren’t really my bag, but maybe the heady chaos of it would keep my mind off Allegra, her doe eyes, her curves in that little cocktail dress. I certainly had to try.
