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Of course she did. All the heart to heart, all the soft and lukewarm was a new face she was showing to the world. The Chiara I grew up with was all fire and recklessness and I missed that. Her marriage toned down that spark in her eyes and it was one of the many reasons I didn’t like her husband one bit. I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him either, but one day my cousin showed up with him at my door and he was family.
I blamed Goliath Caputo for that.
Chapter 15
A world of fine arts and expensive taste inside the walls of a city – that’s Milano. You could see its history at every corner, feel it’s energy in the air. I loved Milano, but never realized how much until I got to live here and do the thing I love most. It’s only been a few days, but this city has done wonders for my broken heart.
No, I wasn’t healed – there was no healing after Salvatore Fiori – but I was better. I was functional and not thinking about him non-stop. I wasn’t thinking about my father either and the distance has dialed down my anger with him. Right now, it was me, myself and ballet, and the men in my life were not allowed to burst my Milano bubble.
Except Garon.
We were walking on the Piazza del Duomo when I heard him growl for the millionth time today.
“What now, you grump?”
“Why do we have to do this, Grazia?”
“Do what? Go for a walk?”
“Do the things tourists do. Look around, it’s only foreigners with cameras hanging around their necks. We’ve seen the Dome a hundred times before.”
“You really can’t appreciate the beauty of this place. Why did you come? You could have stayed in the apartment.” The place my father arranged for us was big enough to host my entire family, not just Garon and I, and it was minutes away from where we were standing.
“Because I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”
“Oh, really? Because I heard you sneaking out last night and I heard you coming back.” I crossed my arms. “At seven in the morning.”
“I don’t need to sneak off, I’m not a baby.” He muttered. “If you think I’ve abandoned you to go to some wild party, think again, because I spent the night with dad’s old pal, Andrea Vivere.”
“Vivere? Never heard of him.” I knew most of my father’s friends, at least by name, but didn’t recall hearing of an Andrea Vivere.
“That’s because he’s a hermit. Lives in the shadows, never shows his face, no paper trail, nothing. He and our father pulled a few jobs back in the day, before you and I were born, and they stuck together ever since. Until now.”
Oh, no. That didn’t sound so promising.
“Garon, did you do something?”
If there were two words always used to describe my brother, they were stubborn and handsome. Actually,impossiblystubborn anddevilishlyhandsome. Father wanted him involved in the family business, that was no secret, and Garon just wanted to live his best life and enjoy the huge pile of money he inherited when he turned eighteen, that was no secret either. Maybe this was the time father learned that his kids were even more stubborn than he was and Garon could ruin a partnership just to show daddy that he only works on his terms.
“That thing that father and you were fighting about before we left Palermo?”The Fiori famiglia. “It’s about to get way worse.”
I flinched and spun on my heel to look at him.
“What do you mean?”
“You know how we control the port and sometimes ships bring in ‘products’… and we distribute it?”
Yeah, right.
“You meanBabbo’ssmuggling network?”
“Shut up, you’re a little girl, you shouldn’t know about that.” He smiled, knowing damn well I’d eavesdropped at Father’s door since I was five. I was more up to date on how the business was doing than he was. “Andrea Vivere is our distribution line in all the North territory and he’s making us more money than we can count.”
“I still don’t understand what that has to do…”
“Salvatore is expecting his family business. He’s building on Adrian’s legacy big time. I got word that he’s expanding in the mainland, tightening his relationships with every damnCapo dei Capiin this country. He is buying a damn power-plant for crying out loud.”
“That sounds… impressive.” I cleared my throat in an attempt to hide my emotions. “Why do you care? Are you scared his piggy bank is going to be bigger than yours?”
