But Lorenzo kept his gaze trained on Lupo’s visage. Beyond the eyepatch, his cheek was scarred, and Lorenzo knew that Val was the cause of the disfigurement. Was Lupo here to settle that score?
Or was something else going on?
“Enzo, let’s deal with him!”
“Not yet, Frankie.”
He waved his brother back and stepped close to Lupo, who was downing shots of whiskey, courtesy of Paulie’s nervous hands.
“Do you want to talk?” Enzo asked.
“Not sure. Are you as badass as your brother?”
Lorenzo failed to move, and Joey Lupo mocked him with a show of hiding what was left of his injured face with both hands.
“So scared!” Lupo teased. “Yeah. The college boy is just a poser.”
The laughter from Mario caused Lorenzo to tense. He wanted to prove himself by finishing what Val had started. But when he thought of what it might cost Michelle, he held back and swallowed hard.
“I’m back in town,” Lorenzo said. “And I’m looking after Ms. Moretti’s best interests.”
“Are you now?”
Lupo downed one shot and took another. Lorenzo tensed, his skin crawling as the man with one eye rose slowly and halfway stared Lorenzo down.
“I am,” Lorenzo said. “And what are you?”
“What do you think I am?” Lupo asked.
Enzo wanted to call the thug out for what he was and put him in his place. There were other patrons about and calling Lupo a coward for threatening one of their own might do the trick.
“I think you’re going after a man who just needed a little bit of help. And then, as soon as he got sick, you turned the screws.”
He had yet to meet Angelo Moretti. But to hear Michelle tell it, that was what happened. Lorenzo was more than ready to defend the man who had been felled by a stroke and help keep his family business in his daughter’s hands.
“What if Angelo talked to us before he took sick? Ever think of that?”
Lorenzo hadn’t. No doubt Michelle followed his line of thinking. “You’re bluffing,” Lorenzo said. “Michelle is honest.”
“And you think she inherited that from her pop?”
With his blood turning cold, Lorenzo tried to brush the accusation off. He would go to Michelle and get clarification before the day was out.
“Better watch that girl, Parisi!” Lupo warned. “She might be playing you as well, smarty.”
Lorenzo nearly tripped as he made his way back to his brother’s side. Frankie moved fast to steady him, and he made a point to show his gun to Lupo’s henchman as he offered his brother what was left of his drink.
“Enzo? All good?”
Lorenzo found what was left of his second beer. He wanted to dismiss Lupo for his vile accusations. But a glance back at Joey saw the man supremely confident.
“Frankie?”
“Yeah, bro?”
“I… what if Angelo is in league with the enemy? And this is just a setup?”
Frankie started to laugh when Lorenzo narrowed his eyes. The younger man tensed as he fiddled with his empty glass and looked in the direction of Joey Lupo’s fading laughter.
“Do you think Michelle knows?” Frankie asked. It was the most obvious question, and it was one to which Lorenzo had no answer.
“No,” he finally said. “She thinks this is just about a bad debt and her father’s stroke.” Was that even true? He still believed in her even though he knew it might seem foolish. She could be in on this, and he might be leading his family into the lion’s mouth. “I want to talk to Angelo,” Lorenzo said. “You’ll come with me?”
Frankie smiled, and the Parisi brothers carefully walked past Joey Lupo’s table. The one-eyed man’s laughter chilled Lorenzo’s back, and he stopped just short of his brother’s car.
“Enzo?” Frankie asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Give me a gun.”
“But that’s not your style,” Frankie protested.
No. His brother was quite right. But who was he to think that he could dip his toes back into the water and come out unsoaked?
“I’m changing,” Lorenzo said. “And I want to be ready for whatever comes next.”
For a second, Frankie seemed unsure. But then he reached into his glove compartment and handed his brother a pistol.
“If you’re ready, just know that I have your back.”
And Lorenzo was more than ready.
8
“Pop? What’s wrong?”
Michelle had reluctantly left Rodolfo after her father’s phone call. His voice sounded strangled over the line, and he told her he had to talk to her in person. Hurrying into the subway and coming back to the surface two stops later, she raced up the steps in their building and swiftly unlocked the door.
“Pop?”
She expected to find her father sprawled on the ground and unable to get back up. To her surprise, he was sitting, somewhat calmly in his armchair.
“Pop, what’s going on?” Michelle demanded.
He turned to face her with a set of sad eyes, and Michelle’s mind shifted gears.
“Did you get bad news or something?” she asked, worriedly rushing to his side, and kneeling by his feet. When she tried to touch his face, she found that he had tears in his eyes, and she reached for his hand.
“Why did you call me home?” she asked.
“Because I want you to stay safe.”
A second question nearly left her lips when her father turned away from her and rose from the chair. Her first instinct was to leap up, to steady him where he stood.
“Wait… what?”
He was walking without a limp. Both sides seemed to function, and she could hardly believe what she was seeing as he retreated to his bedroom and came back again just as quickly bearing two packed suitcases. In two unimpaired hands.
“We have to go, Michelle. Right now.”
“Go? Wait. What are you talking… how are you all better?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” he snapped. “Let’s just go. Now.”
He tried to grab her arm, but Michelle shied away from her father’s touch, holding her ground as she pressed her hands to her hips.
“No. You’ll need to tell me what’s happening.”
“Don’t cross me, Michelle. I’m your father!”
“And from where I stand, my father has been lying to me.”
Dropping the suitcase, his right hand at full power, he raised his arm to strike her. Michelle bit down on her lip and did not flinch.
Angelo suddenly recoiled as he started to weep and hid his face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “I would never hurt you.”
“Never?”
Her voice was like ice as she trained her eyes in a glare. When she was a child, Angelo had never spared the rod, instead Michelle had been raised much as a son would have been. Rough slaps when she disappointed him, shoves when he was in a foul mood. But now, he cowered, one hand over his eyes, the other set of fingers trembling in the air.
“I… I know I haven’t always been straight with you,” he started.
“Like when you failed to tell me that you were fully recovered from the stroke?” she asked.