awkwardly. “Just, please …”
He looks down at his employer, a bloody mess, and it’s clear he wants to say: please don’t do the same to us.
I nod shortly. “We’ll be in touch,” I tell them, turning away. “In the meantime, this corner is shut down. If I get word you’re slinging any Albanian shit, I’ll be back. And you will suffer for it.”
I return to the car. Only then do I realize blood is dripping down my face from the two shots I let the Albanian land. I take my handkerchief from my suit pocket and wipe it away, then toss the silk onto the dashboard.
“Boss,” Giuseppe says after a moment.
“Yes?”
“We’re not really going to trust these pricks with our product, are we?”
I smile. “Of course not. But now they’re expecting a bunch of Italians to show up in a truck. And when they go around to the back of the truck to unload …”
“We’ll be waiting,” he says, nodding. “And then this corner is ours.”
“And then this corner is ours,” I agree.
“But why not just do them here?” he asks.
“That’s the best part, Giuseppe,” I tell him. “There’ll be more men there for the delivery, maybe as many as ten. That’ll teach those Albanian pricks what happens when they kill a Family man, when they attack a place where women are working. Fucking animali.”
I start the engine, smiling slightly. I wonder if this is what Father means when he talks about thinking of the bigger picture, about being tactical.
I must admit: it feels good.
After handling some business at the club, I return home at six in the evening to find Dani on the couch, reclining in her bathrobe with her hair up in a towel. She’s not wearing any makeup and she’s just sitting there reading a medical textbook, but she looks angelic.
“Dani,” I say, standing at the edge of the couch.
She glances up, looking at me with that mixture of affection and confusion. “Yeah?”
“I think it’s time you met my mom and dad.”
“You mean you think it’s time we really sold this lie?”
She’s teasing, but there’s a bitter edge underneath it, I sense. I have to remember that this is the reason she’s here to begin with, though. Not how it’s spiraled out of control with this … closeness. No, we’re here to sell the lie, so I don’t correct her.
“Yes,” I say. “I’ve bought you a new outfit. It’s on your bed. You don’t have work tonight, do you?”
She shakes her head. “I got off a shift an hour ago,” she says.
“Good, then get ready. We leave at seven.”
She puts the book on the table, eyeing me skeptically. “Angelo, is there any reason you’re being all short and cold right now?”
I laugh darkly, thinking about how I beat a man within an inch of his life only a few hours ago, about Felice and his fatherless daughter and sonless mother and how fucked this all is. I want to hold Dani close and tell her everything. It’s distracting and completely unlike me.
“I’m getting a drink,” I say instead of answering her question. “You might want to have one, too.”
“Your parents can’t be that bad!” she calls as I walk over to the bar. But I can see she isn’t pleased with it. “You make them sound like a nightmare.”
“You don’t know my father,” I reply by way of explanation.
“Is he bad?”
I pause and think about it. “He’s Carlo De Maggio,” I answer finally. I shrug. What else is there to say?
When we arrive at my parent’s mansion, I glance at Dani to see if she’s impressed. It’s in a nice neighborhood, the sort of place you’d expect a mafiosi don to live. But Dani isn’t looking at the house. She’s looking at me.
“What is it?” I ask, killing the engine.
“Is it crazy that I’m nervous? I know it’s all pretend, but this is your mom and dad. I’m meeting your parents.”
When I walk around the car to open the door for Dani, I expect some feisty response. But instead, she takes my hand and steps out, giving me a wry grin to let me know that she knows I was expecting a feisty response, and she’s deigned to hold back.
“I could tear that off you right now,” I snarl. “Watch those jewels fly everywhere and just take you, Dani, take you until—”
Dani blushes, looking at somebody over my shoulder. I turn, my face already reddening as I see that Dad has silently walked up behind us. He’s