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She walks off, moving toward a table with black slacks. “Anyway. That pissed off Paulie. The kid thought he’d get all of Tony’s assets, the money, the cars. Tony sold the compound to Dante before the feds got wind of all of his assets and put a freeze on them, put the cash offshore, signed a bunch of shit off in my name.” A feline smile creeps over her lips. “Paulie thought if I were out of the way, it would all be his. But he’s stupid and can’t see past the excitement. Can’t see the game. Throws a fit when things don’t go his way.” She shakes her head, her curtain of dark hair moving with it, and sighs. “He was always that way. A terrible temper and hated to lose. Fuck, once we had the Gambini kids over, they were playing Monopoly while their mother . . . God, I can never remember her name. Anyway, they were playing and it looked like he was losing, so he took the board and chucked it at the little boy’s head.”
Another shake of her head and a sigh, the perfect portrait of a disappointed Italian-American mother. “He could have gotten far, you know. He’s a smart kid. But he never wanted to put in the work.” As I follow her toward a display of summery dresses, I interrupt her slowly.
“I’m sorry, Teresa, but . . . I’m very lost.”
“You won’t be. Eventually. This family is one big mess of secrets that will all reveal themselves to you eventually. But first things first, you gotta win them over. You know that, though.” She moves farther into the racks and I watch from the corner of my eye as Jason moves as well. Despite looking entirely out of the happenings of two women shopping, he’s got an eye on us.
“He’s going to be the hardest nut to crack,” she says, shifting her eyes to our bodyguard and lowering her voice. “He’s a sweet kid, a little high strung, but loyal to the bone.”
It feels like everything this woman says is a giant riddle I need to decode. I don’t understand a single bit of it.
Actually, that’s not fair. I understand the what, I just don’t understand the why.
“He’s got a daughter, you know.”
I did know that. According to what I’ve been able to find out from Dante, Marco, and even Johnny, Jason is a single dad with a daughter he absolutely adores.
“Tensions are high between them. Some of it’s normal preteen girl shit, part of it is he’s never around for her. She’s got some kind of father-daughter dance in a few weeks. Jason asked Paulie to give him the time off, but of course the ass won’t confirm or deny if he’ll be on that night.”
I try not to seem too eager to learn this new information as I file it away and try to figure out how to use it to my advantage.
“On?” I ask. “Does Paulie have some kind of . . . job?”
“On for the family. Paulie thinks he’s hot shit, makes his men take shifts ‘on’ just in case. Makes no fuckin’ sense, but he loves the power. So he puts them on call like fuckin’ police officers or doctors, makes sure they can’t make any plans during that time just in case.” There’s a scoff and a shake of her head. “Can you believe that he’ll actually make shit up, call whoever is on, and have them do some dumb ass errand for him just to make sure they haven’t made any sort of plan? Last week, he called Tino and had him bring over a fuckin’ pizza.”
How the fuck does this woman know that?
“That’s . . . That’s crazy,” I say, choosing my words carefully because, again, Paulie is her son, after all, and I don’t know this woman well enough to understand if she’s the type that is okay with me bad mouthing her son so long as she did it first.
“You’re tellin’ me. Problem is, like I said, Paulie loves that power. Fuckin’ asshole makes sure he always puts men ‘on’ when he knows they have somethin’ going on.”
“So, he schedules them for . . . a . . .” I try to figure out how to phrase it. “An unnecessary workday, but he does it when they have something going on?”
“Gian missed his brother’s wedding three months ago.”
“Wow,” I say in a whisper. She stops her perusing and stares at me, taking me in like it’s the first time she’s done it.
“You know, heard about this whole thing—” She moves her hand around in my direction. “Thought it might be crazy. Thought that Dante might actually be giving that dumbass the family, that we were all fuckin’ doomed. Then you walk in and my mind was . . . changed.” A smile grows on her lips. Not one of joy, but of . . . satisfaction.
“I don’t—”
“Like I said, you’ll need to pull them to your side,” she says, her voice low, grabbing a dress on a hanger and not even bothering to look at the size or the price. “If you want to make your plan work, you need them on your side.” She repeats what she started earlier and again, my gut drops. Teresa continues to pull me along through the store, keeping Jason at a distance and adding clothes to the piles in her hands, handing some off to me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, accepting another little black dress from the woman before she nods at me, walking away from me quickly as I follow, trying to keep up.
“Marissa!” Teresa says, waving at a woman standing near the dressing rooms of the expensive department store. She tips her head in my direction before jerking it in a this way move as she tosses her pile of clothes to a chair, moving to the stranger. Her hands are on her arms when she leans forwards, pressing a kiss to each cheek.
“Can we get the big room and share?” Teresa asks the woman after a minute of useless small talk.
“Of course! Anything for my favorite customer!” the woman says before grabbing a key ring and jingling it in our direction, indicating we should follow her.
“Teresa, I—” I start, trying to tell the woman kindly that I have zero desire to undress in front of her.
“Jason’s too close,” she murmurs through gritted teeth, grabbing my hand and squeezing.
I go quiet, understanding.
Whatever she’s about to tell me is not for mixed company.
