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“I’m not happy Gino put you on my case either, ok? And I was fine with you treating me like I have the plague when I’d only see you once a week when you came to drop Gino’s share from the clubs or at some family party making out with a whore in a dark corner. Now it feels personal.”
I didn’t know what shifted inside me, but it did. I wanted to just serve him another sharp line, make him frustrated because it was part of the game I got used to playing with him the past couple of months, but instead, as crazy as it was, I was starting to feel hurt. Utterly hurt. I had never done anything to Hugo, but it didn’t stop him from pushing me away, and the worst part was I was the only one. Yeah, he was a taciturn bull, talking more with his eyes than with his mouth, but I saw him with my brother, when he relaxed and let that frown he had on his face smooth out. Every time he drove me to my mom’s house, he would kiss her on the cheek before making his way back to the city, and when our family gathered, he made time to play with my younger cousins, pretending to chase them around, so I knew he was capable of human fucking interaction.
“What’s with the extra bitchiness today, Cat?” Without thinking I stretched my hand over the console and punched him in the shoulder hoping he felt something. “The fuck?”
“Go to hell, Mustafa.” He looked at me like I was crazy, and to be fair, I couldn’t make sense of the way I was acting myself. “Forgive me for trying to actually have a conversation with you. I’m done.” I opened the car door and stepped out, turning only to gather my things from the back seat. “Treat me how you want, but next time, remember that I’m still your boss’s sister.”
I smashed the door so hard, the car shook behind me, and I walked to the house with powerful strides, I might have even left prints of my high heels in the pavement, and didn’t stop until I was in the foyer. I let my head fall back on the closed door and took a deep breath. I didn’t know where that anger had started or why, but it was like a tsunami, and now that the waters were settling, I was left struck with confusion.
Hugo’s lack of interest in my life had been bugging me for years, but I always thought it was because even if our lives were irreversibly intertwined, our points of contact were few and far between. I got why he wasn’t the first to RSVP to my unicorn themed tea parties when I was six years old or why he didn’t show up when I started high school and had a proper mafia pomp. In all fairness, when I started high school, he was in jail waiting for his court date. But now things were different; he was my shadow from the moment I woke up to the time I put my head on the pillow. All I was asking for was some basic emotion.
I took a deep breath and straightened my shoulders, crossing the entry to the main elevator and hitting the button for the third floor. Hugo said Muse was waiting for me, and this floor was dedicated to common rooms, including the kitchen, dining room, home cinema, living room and a place where Gino went to box sometimes.
The elevator made the bing sound, and the doors slid open. The smell was the first thing that got to me, and only then did I realize I was famished – or maybe I wasn’t, but the aroma would make a fasting monk ready to sit down and enjoy the meal. A symphonic voice was serenading the room, and I recognized it instantly; it was Montserrat Caballe and her magistral interpretation of Mio Bambino Caro at the Munich National Opera House. Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi was Gino’s favorite opera, and when Caballe had that stunning performance back in 1990, my brother took me to Germany, and we watched it live.
I followed the sound to the kitchen and found my brother and his Muse dancing slowly around the kitchen isle. From their impermeable bubble of love, they didn’t notice my presence so I stopped and watched them for a second. Her hand was over his chest, and his was covering it. My brother’s other hand was wrapped around her waist, sealing their bodies together. I liked to see my brother like that, his face pure jubilation and his steps light, because it was a rare sight.
What most people didn’t understand was that we weren’t just a crime family. We were mob royalty. The Nucci family had a chunk of everything the city had to offer. When the world was thinking about my kin or my brother, they thought of drugs, nightclubs, maybe a restaurant or two, and illegal poker games, but they were blind to the rest. Yeah, there were restaurants and clubs and a few open lines for cocaine to flow in and out of New York, but my family’s hand stretched way beyond that. Their farmer’s markets, their tailoring shops, factories, hair salons, barber shops, bodegas? The buildings where the sharks were making big stacks of money with their Harvard law degrees? The car shops and laundromats? All part of the Nucci capital, and all the cash was coming to Gino before he would split it with the family, his soldiers and his associates. That was an enormous power but also a dangerous responsibility. He was literally Damocles with the deadly sword hovering ubiquitously over his head. All of that faded when he was with Muse.
The song came to an end, and they melted into a kiss that grew deeper and deeper until I felt the need to clear my throat and let them know I was there.
“Am I interrupting?” I asked with a malicious smile on my face.
“What took you so long to get home?” Gino asked.
“It’s half past three, Gino. There was traffic.”
I dismissed him and gave Muse a warm hug.
“Hungry, Cat?”
“Yes! Something smells amazing. What is it?”
“Baked ziti, your favorite.”
We all sat together around the twelve seat round table, bathed in the milky December light that was entering through the large windows, and she served us the food. Most of the food I had when I was in the city during the week was prepared by Flora Maria who was one of the maids in the house responsible for the kitchen and doubled as a home chef, or I would go out to eat, but I loved when Muse was cooking. It wasn’t about the food per se, but she had a warm way of serving it. It made me feel taken care of.
No one talked much during the meal, just a few lines here and there, but the rest of the time, we were surrounded in a comfortable silence. Just like a family.
“Gino, your dog told me you have something to talk about,” I said after licking the last trace of ziti from my plate.
“Hugo?”
“Yep.” The thorn in my side.
“You two aren’t on good terms again?” His brow crooked in annoyance.
“Not exactly.”
“I suggest you kiss and make up because he’s moving in for a few days.”
Excuse me, what? Why would Hugo come to live here? He had his own fucking place.
“Why?!” I threw my hands up, exasperated.
My house was the last place I wanted Hugo to look at me with a frown on his face and a growl on his lips.
“Because Muse and I are leaving for a trip.”
