I was going to break that cycle.
Among other ones.
But those would come further in the future.
“No one went to the cops,” Terzo said. And that was about what I expected. It was why I typically stayed in my neighborhood. Where everyone knew who I was, and no one wanted to get on my bad side.
It helped that I’d paid for everyone’s meals and gave the restaurant itself a nice stack of cash for the inconvenience. And to erase any of their camera footage.
Things are getting harder and harder these days. What with people and their nonstop use of their phones and tendency to record and post anything they found online for the world—and the cops—to see.
Luckily, I employed a lot of the street kids. So they kept their phones in their pockets.
“Good,” I said, grabbing a cup of coffee.
“Where was my guard?” I asked, looking at my brothers.
Typically, one of them would be with me to act as a lookout. And to rein me in if I got out of control. Dawson and Dulles had been with Isabella all day, so I’d sent them home. But if Terzo had something to handle, he should have replaced himself with someone.
“My fault,” Terzo said, shaking his head. “I got a call.”
“From whom?”
“Vissi.”
“Vissi,” I repeated, spinning around. “He’s in Italy. It would have been—“
“One a.m. there,” Terzo agreed. “But he wasn’t in Italy.”
“Where was he?”
“At JFK.”
“What? Why?”
Vissi was our distant cousin. He’d gotten into some shit a year or so back, prompting me to send him back to the old country to be with his relatives until shit blew over.
“He said it was time. Bitched that his grandma made him put on twenty pounds and was trying to marry him off. I didn’t want him stranded at the airport. I should have sent someone else,” Terzo said. “Won’t happen again.”
“Where is Vissi now?”
“He went to see his ma. You know how she is.” I did. She was the strong Italian mom that my mother hadn’t been given the chance to be. And she would break a wooden spatula across Vissi’s head if he came to see me and work before he saw his mother. “He said he would be here in the morning for coffee and to catch up.”
“Good. It’s been too long.”
Vissi might have been a cousin, but he was more like a best friend to me. He’d been closer to my age than Due and Terzo had been at the time, back in the day when the difference between twelve and thirteen and sixteen might as well have been a decade. So Vissi and I fucked around and got in trouble together while Due and Terzo stayed home.
Maybe that was why Due had turned out as warped in the head as he had. And why Terzo was as moody as he was.
I should have been around to protect them more.
Hindsight was twenty-twenty.
“He’s going to want a party,” Terzo said, rolling his eyes. “You know how Vissi is.”
I did. He liked to be the center of attention almost as much as he liked food, friends, drinks, and fucking.
“Alright. Arrange it.”
“When?” Dulles asked.
“Tomorrow night.”
“Where?”
“Here. We’re still not sure how safe it is for Vissi. Better to be safe than sorry.”
“He’s going to be shocked to meet your… wife,” Terzo said, and I didn’t like that pause. Was it a non-traditional situation? Yes. But she was my wife.
“Did you tell him?” I asked.
“No. I figured that was your place to explain.”
“Probably for the best,” I agreed. Vissi wasn’t going to be overly accepting of the whole situation. Especially if he got the information from someone who didn’t know how to break it to him. “Alright. I want you to put the word out to the capos about keeping an eye for any suspicious cartel movements. They’re going to figure out Vissi is back eventually. I want us to have a heads-up if they decide they want to try to make a move on us.”
“Got it,” Terzo said, nodding.
“And what do you want to say about the party?” Dawson asked.
“Capos and wives, girlfriends, or fuck-buddies. No kids.” It wasn’t that I didn’t like kids. But it would be late. And late-night parties and kids just meant a lot of whining and screaming.
“You don’t think maybe you should, y’know, check with the missus before you plan a whole party?” Dulles ask.
“She’ll be fine with it.”
“Okay then,” Dulles said, but there was something in his smirk that said he disagreed with me.
As it turned out, my brother knew my wife better than I did.
“That will be a no for me,” Isabella told me later when I made my way into the bedroom after my brothers had taken off for the night.
“What? Why?” I asked, stopping short on my way to the bathroom to take a shower.
“For any number of reasons,” Isabella said as she rubbed on some soft, feminine-smelling lotion as she sat off the side of the bed, her back to me.
I didn’t know what to expect from her when it came to her bed clothes. I’d only ever seen her on her way to work or to see family or go meet up with friends before. And her style was modern, yet timeless.
What did this woman choose to wear to bed?
A fucking gown.
I mean, it was one of those floor-length silky nightdresses, but it might as well have been a gown with its fancy lace back and the sexy way it glided over her body. Something about the wine-red color of it went really well with her dark hair and tanned skin.
“Name one,” I invited, leaning against the bathroom door jam.
“Okay. You didn’t discuss it with me first.”
“Fucking Dulles,” I grumbled.
“What was that?” she asked, turning to face me, brows raised, daring me to repeat it.
“Nothing. I am not going to be the kind of husband who runs every little minor detail by his wife.”
“And I am not going to be a wife who tolerates a husband who doesn’t respect her enough to ask if she wants a bunch of strangers in her… home.”
That word was hard for her.
I figured it would get easier as time passed.
“They’re not strangers. They’re Family.”
“They’re your Family,” she shot back.
“They’re yours now too. Whether you like it or not.”
“I’m getting really fucking sick of that phrase. If you wanted someone who was just going to take whatever shit you shovel at her and thank you for it, you married the wrong woman. You could have ordered in a wife from some other country who would have been happy to live in your fancy apartment and spend your money. But you chose me. And I won’t be a doormat that you walk all over, Primo.
“I get that you’re an egotistical asshole and maybe it is going to take me putting my foot down a few times to get you to understand where I stand here. So this is me putting my foot down. I am not going to be paraded around your fucking family like a trophy of your cunning deal to get one over on the Costa Family. Entertain your guests by your fucking self.”
With that, she whipped up the blankets, climbed under, and turned off the light.