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“There won’t be any talking to my father.”
“Umm, how is he? There’s been… rumors.” Sure there were. His enemies were waiting for him to crack like hyenas gathered around a crippled antelope. Fabiano was one of them.
Father did a great job hiding his illness for years. His body didn’t show weakness until a few months ago. He went to Rome to sit in theSacra Corona Unitawith the heads of the last ten crime families still standing in Italy, the greatestDonsof our times all at one table together. I told him not to go, but the old man was as hard-headed as a ram. The travel, the nights he’d lost drinking, it all must have been too much for him. He started coughing blood and it was enough for one man to see him for the word to spread.
“He’s doing well.”
“He really is sick, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” I answered reluctantly, because this wasn’t what we did. We didn’t talk about family because it didn’t matter. None of it could come between us. “Cancer is eating his lungs.”
“Oh, God.” She touched my knee. “Salvatore, I’m so sorry.”
“He’s getting treated.” I tried to look at the positives, which wasn’t something I did often. “He has at least another year.”
“I feel terrible for not being able to see him. I betBabbodoes too.”
“Doubt it.”
“Are you really not going to tell me why they fought?”
“It shouldn’t come from me, Grazi, and I don’t want to lose any time speaking about them.”I didn’t want to be the one that knocked her father off the pedestal he sat on in her eyes.
“I’m just curious, that’s all.” She bit her lip. “Tell me something else. Do you think it was worth it? The thing that split our families?”
That was one hell of a question. When the feud split the city between Fiori and Caputo, everyone around us paid a price. To break thirty-something years of tradition was a crime, but our fathers did it. Actually, mine did. He looked Fabiano Caputo in the eyes and told him to leave or take a bullet to the back of his head. Did I think it was worth it?
“Yes.” And it was on me to hate her kin when dad would be no more. “It’s almost three in the morning. I’ll have to take you back soon.”
“I know. Can you just hold me for a while?”
“Come here.” I opened my arms and she climbed into my lap, nestling. “Now tell me, who the fuck let you leave the house in this dress?”
Grazia’s laugh rang through the night.
“You like, Fiori?”
“You know I do.” I let my hand travel down the curve of her hip. “I like it a lot.”
“Then stop nagging me about it. You sound like an old wife.”
“It’s too short. How many men have stared at your ass in that club?”
“I’m sure Yannis will give you a full report about that.”
“Yes, he will.” I crooked my neck and licked her collar bone. “I could devour you whole in one bite.”
“Don’t even think about it. I’m still mad at you.”
“No, you’re not.”
I kissed her some more and she sighed, relaxing in my arms. “No, I’m not.”
“Then let me make you feel good.”
“No.”
“And why not?”
