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I wanted more than stability. I wanted to feel something in bed. I wanted to feel alive and be in love. The type of work I’d been engaged in had destroyed me. Nico enjoyed his work, he lived to control and destroy men who wouldn’t accept him or follow him. For me it was soul wrecking to have to do this for the rest of my life. I didn’t know how long I could keep this up. I thought I wanted to be a Boss, but when Nico told me to get rid of Romeo, I woke up to the reality that it wasn’t worth it to me to turn away from what I believed in and follow Nico blindly.
I stood and strode near Mary Ann where she could see me. “I’m in love with a man. Not really a man. He’s more like a boy—”
“I hope he’s old enough. I don’t want to have to get you out of jail—”
“It’s nothing like that, he’s twenty-one or twenty-two. I’m not quite sure, but he’s old enough.”
“When did you know you were gay?”
“I didn’t know until I met the young man and had...”
“Sex. You had sex with him. That is the closer. You can tell everything about a man and woman when you have sex. I could tell that your heart wasn’t in it whenever you and I got together. I never felt anything either, so what you’re telling me isn’t a secret it’s the truth, and I hope you’ll continue loving me as a friend. Not a friend who you tell everything to, because with a brother like Nico it could be dangerous to our health.”
“Have you told Nico about Romeo?”
“No, because he had to leave town and I’m in charge. But before he left he ordered me to kill that boy I fell in love with at first sight.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I’m going back and get Romeo and leave town with him until Nico calms down, or until his latest fuckup is over and behind him. I have to meet with the head of the opposing family tomorrow and try to straighten this shit out, so Nico and Chad can return and free me from this obligation.”
“I’ve kept you out of all of this. Only Nico knows about you, but very little, and he thinks I’m straight.”
“That wasn’t a lie. You tried, Dante, so don’t beat yourself up over it, and if you think you’ve hurt me in any way, you’re wrong.” She leaned and kissed me on the cheek, and I held her. She whispered, “I knew you were hiding something. A woman knows, especially since we were close. You slept with me and tried to keep up the appearance, but your emotions concerning me were missing something, and I knew it. Why do you think when you would come over and tell me you were tired I’d let you sleep?” Mary Ann laughed, “You’re a gentle kind man, and you’re nothing like your brother. I can feel it. You tried to make me happy and you did. You gave me financial freedom. I haven’t sold a painting in years, so don’t feel bad. When I meet a man it will be on my own terms, or a woman.” She smiled with closed lips and a spark in her eyes. “Don’t be surprised. Love is love, and we don’t know when it will happen and with whom. It’s that connection that sets our hearts to fluttering.”
That was some of what Romeo had said to me. “We have a connection.” It didn’t register until I heard Mary Ann say just that.
“Go to your man, and tell him how you feel.”
I thought about what Mary Ann had said on my drive to the mansion. I saw nothing, but somehow I’d managed to get back to Jersey without thinking about anything or anyone but Romeo, and I didn’t know how I’d managed it when I pulled into the long road leading to the castle as Nico named it years ago.
When I drove up under the portico I noticed that something was different.
Chapter 17
Dante
When I left Mary Ann’s I headed back to Jersey to do as she’d asked me. I didn’t know how I’d gotten lucky by meeting her. A friend had invited me to a party, and I never went to parties, because I didn’t drink at the time, and probably never should have started, but after carrying out Nico’s orders, I had to have a drink that night and I stopped by his apartment for a drink. Not to meet anyone, but to chill out.
When I strode up to the bar, got my drink in hand, I leaned and turned to see Mary Ann sitting alone watching everyone. She was sober, and I could tell because no one was sitting next to her and she didn’t have a drink in her hand. She was looking around the room observing. Our eyes met and she smiled. You could recognize your own, because I was an observer too.
After that night our relationship grew into what it was now. I thought at the time I wanted to be with her, and I let her into my world. At first Nico was pissed because she was an outsider and he had hopes I’d find someone from within the family. One of the crew’s daughters. Someone who was used to our way of life—gone for days, men around, and left alone to wonder if we had gone to jail how would they make it and at the mercy of the family.
Mary Ann fit in nicely and there was never a problem, until I realized that I didn’t want a woman, but Romeo.
Mary Ann made me understand that I left Romeo with the wrong impression of me. I realized I’d have a lot to make up for. I suspected he’d been afraid of me, and why not? I showed little affection for him except to have hard unrelenting sex, not taking into account how he felt at all. In my selfish desires, I made him lie on his stomach, so I didn’t have to be reminded of who he was, and that I had a strange attraction to him. It felt weird because that was the last thing I thought I’d be doing, having sex with a man and enjoying every moment of it.
To me Romeo was a born tease which turned me on from the moment we locked eyes. I didn’t blame him for his youthful energy. Seeing what he wanted and going after it even if it was me. I might have forgotten what it was like to be his age, and now I felt ashamed of how I behaved, and I didn’t blame him if he hated me.
I’d behaved like someone who had little to no feelings for him, when in fact I had plenty for him. Another man who was openly gay would have enjoyed his delicious slim body without having him lying on his stomach and never looking into his eyes, especially if they wanted nothing from him but to be inside him, but I wanted more, and I couldn’t bring myself to admit—he was mine.
When I did, I let Mary Ann know, but I couldn’t hide much from her anyway. She was the closest person to me, to whom I finally revealed all my fears. She was even closer than Nico. I could tell her about my doubts for the future of our family business, and my desires, and she understood because she was like me—unsure of where she fitted into this world. Never experiencing a true emotion concerning love and sex, but wanting those things badly. Wanting more of a connection than what we had.
Mary Ann suggested that I tell Romeo everything, including my deepest fears, and that I wanted to be with him no matter what. I agreed. He was young and we could leave with all the money I had accumulated, and make a life outside of Jersey. Maybe go to Italy and live a good life there. Or to the west coast and get a beach house, and I would retire from doing Nico’s dirty work.
Romeo would probably love that. Get married, buy us a house on the Island of Capri or Malibu and adopt children. I was almost forty, and I needed a family. Not the kind I had now, but a real family. Why not? I thought, as I drove up to the mansion that was never a home except when our parents were alive.
As I reached the entrance, I noticed the door had been left opened. I pulled my sidearm, expecting someone from Alonzo’s crew to come looking for Nico or me.
