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“Dante’s office.” I shake my head because I find it funny how both of them are always so quick to correct that. “But yeah. Stayed behind to watch him. Glad I did, watched your dumbass walk in there like you knew what the fuck you were doing, all dolled up like you were going to seduce him.”
I turn my head and stare, my mouth open just slightly.
“I was not trying to seduce him.”
“Princess, you were trying to seduce someone. Thank the good Lord every fuckin’ day you came on a day Dante was out of the office. I can just see it—you walking in, him going fucking haywire psycho man and then scaring you off.”
“Oh, so instead he got to slowly go haywire psycho man?”
“You really trying to tell me if he started his obsessive act as soon as you saw him, you’d be chill with it?” I look away, rolling my lips because he’s not wrong. I one thousand percent would have been scared off by his psychoses. He laughs, and then the car is silent for a few more turns as we both mull over the past and the present, the would haves and could haves, before he speaks again.
“He’s not shitting you, you know.”
“What?”
“Dante. Fell for you before he knew who you were. Two years ago, some blonde came up to him, chatted with him for five fuckin’ minutes, and he told me to find you. Swear to God, Lilah, thought he lost his damn mind. Find me a girl, he said. Early twenties, I think. Blonde.” I smile, loving to hear this side of things and thinking how much Marco most definitely thought Dante was going insane when he told him to find an early twenties blonde and left it at that.
If I let myself fall into ideals and daydreams, I can convince myself this was always meant to be, always in the cards, Dante and me. Like somehow, we were always meant to find each other. Like it was so important to some version of history, the universe brought us together twice, begging for us to make it happen.
I sit on that thought through the rest of the drive, and it’s a few more minutes before we’re parked out front of a familiar building.
“Why are you doing this, Marco?” I finally ask what has been bugging me.
He doesn’t have to do his, doesn’t have to put himself further on the line for me.
But then he looks at me, putting those ever-present sunglasses on top of his head and turning in his seat to stare at me, like he wants to make sure I understand whatever he has to say to me.
“Because you belong at the head of this family and they need to know that.” My heart flutters at his words.
“So you’re taking me to prove myself to Alfredo?”
“I’m taking you so he can prove himself to you.”
“I’m . . . I’m confused,” I say, looking at my friend, and then the door of the building where I was turned away last time I came here, then back to Marco. He leans over, grabbing my chin between his thumb and pointer finger. It’s not a romantic touch, not even a friendly one. He uses the grip to tip my chin up just a hair and force me to look at him.
Instinctively, like the move reminds me of who I am, my shoulders move back a bit, the siren snapping into place.
“You don’t prove yourself to anyone, Lilah. No matter what, you’re boss of that family once Alfredo dies.” The sentiment is great, but in reality . . .
“But people will argue. No one knows me. People won’t just . . . agree to that.”
“Fuck ‘em,” Marco says instantly.
“Fuck ‘em?”
“That’s your place, Lilah.” He moves back, crossing his arms on his chest. “Your father wanted that for you, yeah?” My mind moves back to the carefully scrawled words on a piece of paper that was wrapped around a photo of a man holding a baby, love in his eyes.
A letter my father wrote me before he died.
You will be a queen one day, my Delilah. You will have the power to take this family further, to help our community, to grow and to flourish.
“He left me a letter,” I say, my eyes staring off behind Marco’s head. “Told me to spit in anyone’s face who told me I shouldn’t rule.” My lips tip up with the memory of the line, and Marco’s laugh fills the car.
“Fuck. You’re a lot like him, aren’t you?” he asks, and I smile.
I’ve never had that, someone telling me I’m like my father.
And I think I like it a lot.
