pistachios and pick up her supplies, the shop had had that same unique smell. It was more condensed in this room, where there were only the two of us and not that many plates.
It brought me back to the guy with the tiger tattoo on his neck—Cash Kelly. I planned on paying him a visit soon. I recognized him. He was the son of one of the most infamous Irish bosses Hell’s Kitchen had ever seen. After Cash got out of prison, he started a war to get his streets back.
“Besides that,” I said.
She took a drink and then started to speak. “You have not cried over your grandfather. I know what kind of man you are, what you are accustomed to, but you have been conditioned to be so…unfeeling about death. Even to those closest to you.”
I had no fucking clue what she was talking about.
“He was my grandfather,” I said. “I’ll miss him. But life moves us all toward death. We accept it and keep moving.”
She was right. It was a fact of this life. We were conditioned to accept our fates. No one wanted it, and most men tried their best to avoid making stupid mistakes that would cost them, but in the end, it was what it was. We were all going to end up in the same place someday anyway.
“I understand that notion,” she said. “Still. The loss hurts. It’s okay to cry, to grieve. Those emotions make us human.”
“Emotions make us weak,” I said.
“I am not weak,” she snapped. “And I feel everything. That’s what makes me strong. I grow after I go through it.” She leaned back in her seat. “Grazie,” she said to the waiters who set her plates down.
Sylvester set mine in front of me, and Alcina licked her lips, her eyes growing big. “That smells good,” she said.
I grinned, cutting her a piece. I put it to her lips and she closed her eyes, opening her mouth. “How is it?”
She put her hand up to her mouth, signaling that she was still chewing, and then said, “So good.”
Alcina had always enjoyed eating, but ever since she found out she was pregnant, she was on an entirely new level.
“Shouldn’t you be sick right now?” I cut off another piece and took a bite. The steak was damn good.
She laughed, twirling the pasta around her fork like a fucking pro. “All pregnancies are different. Some women get sick.” She shrugged. “Others do not. I do get a little bothered by smells—raw chicken. But nothing severe, or you would know.” She twirled more, but this time she fed it to me.
I nodded. “Good, but not as good as yours.”
“My zie in Modica make a pasta like this.” She smiled. “Paired with the smells, it brings me home.”
We didn’t talk much after that. We enjoyed our meals in companionable silence, swapping bites and a little conversation every so often. We were sharing three plates of desserts when Adriano stuck his head in the room.
I could tell he was trying to inhale the food through his nose; his nostrils flared. “Company.”
I dropped my napkin on my empty plate, meeting his eyes.
“Silvio and some of the men.”
The sit-down wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow. I guess he got the feeling he was going to get walked into a room but never walked back out. He was fucking right. Why go ten rounds with a guy when I could knock him out in one? It was that fucking simple.
What wasn’t simple was having my wife with me.
Sylvester stepped back into the room and cleared his throat. “There is another room,” he said, pointing to the left. “Mrs. Capitani is more than welcome to wait for you in there, until business is over.”
I nodded at Nunzio and he nodded back.
“I guess you are sending me away,” she said.
“Just for a minute.”
She huffed and stood. When she was almost to the door, Silvio stepped in front of her. She stopped like she had run into a wall. Her eyes moved up to his and hardened. He couldn’t hide the shock in his eyes—he wasn’t expecting her. What she looked like.
“In a different league than Junior,” I said, forcing his eyes on me. “Makes sense now. Why he had to force her into something she didn’t want.”
Her lips moved without sound again, and I wondered if she was cursing him as Nunzio escorted her into the next room. If Silvio believed in what the old folks said, he should have cupped his