I’m fully aware of how that sounds. I mean, any sane person would consider that a blessing after witnessing what I did.
“I know about Mitch and what Rocco did to make your problem go away and I warned him to cut ties with you,” Victor revealed. “I told him you were too young and too naïve. That you wouldn’t last in his world.”
I stared at him blankly, digesting his words, trying to decide how I felt by the lack of confidence and if there was any merit to it. I was young, yes, but I’m not naive. I’ll never lie to myself about who they are and what they do. Do I condone it? Not exactly, but I accept it. What choice do I have? Joaquin is my family and Rocco…well, I don’t know what he is.
I swallow and focus my attention back to Victor.
“Rocco doesn’t want me. You heard him yourself, I’m an annoyance.”
“You’re not naïve, you’re just blind. His life is about to change dramatically, something I’m sure he hasn’t shared with you. Am I right?”
Considering I had no idea what he was talking, I shook my head.
“He’s a loose cannon and without your brother in his ear, he’s going to need someone to reign him in when the pressure becomes all too consuming. Someone to ground him and remind him that he’s only human. Someone who isn’t afraid to tell him when he’s wrong. Someone who will remind him of who he is outside the underworld.”
I still wasn’t completely grasping what he was saying or how it pertained to me. Surely, he didn’t think I was someone with any hold on his nephew. Rocco wouldn’t listen to me if I were the only person on the planet.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I’m saying you remind me of my Grace,” he reiterated.
Grace grounded him.
Those words are still ringing in my ears, even now after the plane has landed and we’ve parted ways with Victor.
Could I be that for Rocco? Could I remind him of who he was outside the mob? Would he even let me?
“It’s the second building on the left,” Rocco says, pulling me away from my thoughts.
I divert my attention out the window of the sedan, realizing we’re turning onto my block. The driver slows the car in front of my mom’s house, and I send a silent prayer up to God that my mom has left for the restaurant already. I’m not in the mood to hear her go on about Rocco or give me the third degree on why I’m home a day earlier than planned.
My head is spinning and I need a little time before I start lying through my teeth.
“I know I don’t have to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway,” Rocco starts, drawing my attention to him. “Violet, whatever you saw, it stays here. You don’t go running your mouth.”
“Right, because I’m just itching to tell everyone I took cover under a table and saw a woman die before my eyes.”
“I’m serious,” he exclaims.
I sigh exasperatedly, throwing my hands up.
“C’mon, Rocco, who the fuck am I going to tell?” I angrily sneer.
“I’m just saying, it’s a lot to keep bottled in. You might be numb to it now, but you were a mess afterward and that shit doesn’t just disappear. It’s going to fucking haunt you and when it does, I want you to call me.”
I’m sure he’s right. I won’t forget what happened in Miami anytime soon and whenever I can’t reach him or Joaquin, I’ll be transcended back to last night. I’ll fear the worst and wish crime never found their lives. But what happened can never consume me because the second it does, the mob wins. The men who shot up that restaurant and killed Pilar, they win and I won’t let that happen.
Not to me.
“Did you hear me? I want you to call me,” he repeats.
My eyes lock with his. He doesn’t want me to call him—not really and I call him out on it.
“Why so you can play with my emotions?”
“What are you talking about?”
He can’t be this dense.
“Last night you crawled into bed with me, Rocco. You kissed me and you touched me—”
“That was a mistake.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“It didn’t feel like one to me,” I whisper.
It felt right.
It felt overdue.
He can call it whatever he wants but like there are two sides to every story, there were two people in that bed.
Me and him.
Mistake my ass.
“Well, it was. I’m not good for you, Violet, and if you think otherwise, then maybe you should remember how you felt when you looked at Pilar,” he says, reaching out to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I’m going to be in New York for a couple of days, then I’ll fly back to be with your brother for Pilar’s service, but I’m taking residence here. If you need me, you call.”
I smack his hand away.
“I won’t,” I say defiantly.
“I hope not,” he murmurs.
“Why is that?”
“Because, you my pretty ballerina, are my greatest weakness.”
Chapter 14
Violet Cabrera
After Rocco dropped me off at home, I didn’t see or hear from him. As suspected my mother was on my case, wanting to know why my trip was cut short. I lied and told her Joaquin and Rocco were busy with the nightclub and Miami isn’t fun when you’re flying solo. Whether she bought my fib or not remains to be seen.
“Mija, table six is waiting to have their order taken,” my mother calls from the kitchen and I quickly pocket my phone.
In the last two days I’ve texted and called my brother countless times and all have gone unanswered. This morning I almost called Rocco to see if he had heard anything from him, but I quickly decided against it.
I told him I wasn’t going to call him and here I was almost two days later, about to cave. I can just imagine the smug look on his face.
Yeah, no thank you.
I was dealing with the events of the weekend just fine on my own. I’m not sure what kind of person that made me. I mean, most people would be traumatized to the point of not being able to function and yet my only concern was my brother.
He’d call eventually, though—at least that’s what I kept telling myself.
On top of that, I was still reeling from my conversation with Victor. It was almost as if the man was encouraging me to pursue Rocco and while I have been training my whole life to do just that, I was tired of being pushed aside and more than that I hated being called a mistake.
Rocco and my brother live in a cruel world. A world that sometimes appears glamorous but in all actuality is a living nightmare, one that seemed to be getting worse by the day. Choosing to be part of that world was a mistake, living for the moment and giving into your feelings, falling in love--those things are not mistakes.
People are not mistakes.
And I think Victor Pastore would agree with me.
Even gangsters need love.
Something I realized the moment I stared across the plane and listened to Victor speak of his wife. Here was this ruthless man who had a laundry list of crimes under his belt, a man who ordered hits and tore families apart, but he had a soft spot for the woman who stood in his shadows. The woman he claimed grounded him and reminded him that he was human. He loved and he lost. He rejoiced and he grieved. He held the power of New York City in one hand, and the heart of his wife in the other.