a head, the body fails. If this wasn’t a place that catered to men like me, I might have truly considered the implications. However, this wasn’t about the act, but about the blatant disrespect.
Vito and I had a problem.
Vito turned around and stepped over his best friend a second later, rushing out of the restaurant.
Sylvester appeared as soon as Vito disappeared, closing the door behind him. He had a card in his hand. He slipped it on the table. “Dinner is on the house,” he said. “Mr. Macchiavello will be in touch. Do not worry about this.” He nodded toward where Silvio bled out.
Dishes clanked next to me. Adriano had pulled Alcina’s plate closer, removing the plate he must have put on top of it so the blood wouldn’t splatter onto it, and was finishing her dessert. “I’m starving,” he said, shrugging. “The doc has me on steroids and I can’t get enough to eat.”
“Are you sure about this, cugino?”Adriano sat next to Baggio in the front of the car, narrowing his eyes against the windshield, trying to see past the rain coming down harder than it had two days ago.
“If I wasn’t—” I fixed my tie “—we wouldn’t be going.”
I took out the card Macchiavello had passed on to me through Sylvester, flipping it around with my fingers. Something shady was going on with him. He ran one of the most successful restaurants in New York. He owned one of the biggest nightclubs in New York. The Club. And none of these places were on any of the books.
He could have been a legitimate business owner, but he catered to too many high profiles. There was a certain kind of honey that was put out for men like us. Once we started hovering, we became comfortable, patronizing places we knew.
Some men got comfortable.
I never created patterns in my life. It was too easy to figure out people who did. One thing I learned in this life—we were all capable of the same amount of damage, so none of us feared each other. What was important was to be able to outsmart the next guy.
Mac Macchiavello was smart.
I was, too.
I had an uncanny ability to read every man in the room, his intentions, and to approach him in a way that would turn the situation in my favor. If not, I acted accordingly. Rarely did I lose my cool, though, because there was no need.
It was either to be or not to be. What was there to get upset about?
“You don’t get mad, Corrado,” my grandfather used to say. “You don’t even get even. You strive to rise above, no matter what it takes to get there. If the door refuses to open, go through a window. It’s as simple as that.”
My grandfather taught me early on what it meant to be a man worthy of this life.
What it meant to have respect, not only for men, but for women.
What it meant to be loyal. To respect a code put in place for a reason.
What it meant to carry on traditions. To honor our old ways and welcome new ones that would only make us stronger as a family.
What it meant to love as fiercely as we hated.
He was a product of that life.
So was I.
I wore the fucking suit.
Alcina felt that I was cold, even callous, and I was. I was a gangster, a mobster, a racketeer—a rare breed in this life, my grandfather used to say—and the boss of one of the largest and most powerful families in New York. I wasn’t even forty years old yet. I had started at the bottom just like everyone else, and I made my way up to the top with no problem. I was smart, and I rarely made mistakes.
Yet, despite who I was, I loved that woman more than a poet loved romantic words. Even more than the night sky loved the moon.
My grandfather used to say, “You can’t have a heart, Corrado. They’re too expensive.”
Alcina Maria Capitani was out of my price range then. Because I had a heart. It was that woman. And I’d never be able to afford her. I’d owe for the rest of my life and beyond for her love.
Of course, my grandfather wasn’t referring to a woman, but to this life of ours. The only feelings you were allowed to have was for yourself. If you didn’t take care of the situation, the situation took care of you. But when my wife would say