“Just come,” he replies, but I can hear him smiling.
I say goodbye to Felice’s mother and then head out to my car. The warehouse drug packing operation is important. I spent almost a week making sure it would be ready to run as soon as our first shipment arrived. The way Levi’s been acting lately, I don’t have the faith I should that he’s keeping everything on track. That’s a bitter admission, but it’s the truth.
But when I arrive, Levi is standing outside, grinning, smoking a cigarette.
“Ciao, Angelo,” he says, sounding upbeat. He flicks the cigarette to the ground. “Come on. Take a look.”
We walk into the warehouse and … and, Jesus, it’s beautiful. I’m not sure how it would look to somebody unschooled in the life, but to us, it’s a work of art. The shipments are being efficiently unloaded and packed into smaller packages for distribution. There’s a cutting house at the back, lab-clean, with people working quietly and neatly. It looks more like a pharmacy than an illicit drug operation.
We keep walking and end up in the counting room, where the cash from our other operations is being fed into machines. Soon, these machines will sing with King Kong money, too.
“Jesus,” I say. “This is—”
“Il futuro,” he says, reading my mind. The future.
“Yes. Yes, it fucking is.”
We clasp hands and, looking into his face, at the happiness there, I know that whatever minor suspicions I’ve had have been misplaced. Sure, he was stupid to let that Mikey prick pull one over on him, but that was it: stupidity. He wants what I want. He wants to run this goddamn city.
“Nothing can stop us now, fratello,” I smile. “Not a damn thing.”
Hours later, the business taken care of, Levi and I are sitting at the dock, drinking beers. It’s how we used to sit as kids after one of our schemes was successful, shoulder to shoulder, talking about how we would take over the world.
“Do you remember that hustle with the cigarettes we swiped off the delivery truck?” Levi asks. He gestures towards me with his pack of cigarettes.
I shake my head, but wave at him to smoke away. I’m in a damn good mood, that’s the truth. Business looks like it’s going to be booming for a very long time. Despite the attack, I feel hopeful. “I was just thinking about that the other day,” I tell him.
“It got me thinking about your wife,” he says.
“Fake wife,” I correct.
He laughs. “It got me thinking about your fake wife. The similarities, how we must make sure she is believable.”
I grin. “I made that comparison, too.”
He returns my grin. “Great minds, Angelo.”
“I may have found a candidate,” I say. “She’s … she’s fierce, Levi, self-assured enough to make Father believe she’s truly a woman I would choose as a queen. She’s funny, too, which I guess is just an unexpected bonus. And there is this …”
What. The. Fuck. Am. I. Doing?
I stop, and sip my beer just so I don’t have to look at Levi staring at me. I gaze at the sea instead, at the stars glittering on the water, at the moonlight. Anything not to look at what I am sure is Levi’s stare of outright disbelief.
But when I finally look at him, he’s smirking. “Didn’t we just say a fake wife, mio amico? You sound smitten.”
“Fuck you, Levi,” I say sharply. “Smitten? I’m a fucking don, in case you forgot. Or I will be soon enough.”
“No, Angelo,” Levi counters seriously. “You were once a cold-blooded killer. Now, I think you have become something else.”
“Let’s just drop it,” I grumble.
“But she’s the prime candidate, you think? Soon we will be able to put our plan in place?”
“Fake-marry this woman, convince Father, prove to him I can lead, take over the business. Yes, Levi, we’re ready.”
He takes a long drag from his cigarette and gestures with his beer. We clink them together and go on drinking in silence for a time.
“How is your mother?” I ask after around ten minutes, our beers almost empty.
“Fine,” Levi says quickly. “You know her, hates any fuss. I convinced her to walk with a cane, which she’s been putting off for a long time.”
“That’s good,” I say. “That’s progress.”
Another silence, and then Levi says, “You remember when you got that little girl’s balloon from the tree?”
I roll my eyes, groaning. “Why won’t you ever let that shit go?”