Chapter 19 #2
My stitches hurt like a motherfucker after that.
I keep telling myself to ignore them. I don’t want to remind Tre that I’m injured too.
She’ll fuss and insist I take something to ease the pain.
I’ll refuse. I don’t want to cause an argument.
The pain’s unpleasant, but it reminds me that I’m not just here to keep my girlfriend company.
We’re here because someone hurt her. I’m here to protect her.
“Sleep, chica. Let me hold you.”
“Rocco, calm the fuck down.”
Tre’s reaching out her hand as though she can hold her cousin back if he lunges at me. I was awake when her family arrived, but she was still asleep. I’d been awake for hours, and I was peacefully watching her until they showed up and shattered the little peace we’ve had.
“You grow up here and not a single person attacked you. You go to New York, and you’re safe there. Come back with that stronzo, and you’re being mowed down by a car.”
Asshole.
I know what it means because the Mancinellis have called me that enough times to recognize it.
Vaffanculo.
Fuck off.
I can swear in Italian too.
“No one hit me with their car, but you know shit happened while I lived here. Don’t you remember the guy at Fenway? His beer poured over my head wasn’t an accident.”
“That didn’t put you in the hospital.” Rocco snaps at Tre, and I’m ready to gut him.
“I didn’t say that it did.”
She shifts her attention from her cousin to her brother as she responds.
However, Tristano remains a silent observer for now, not siding with his sister or his cousins.
I won’t meddle unless I feel it gets out of hand.
I accept their anger because I’d react the same if I was in their position.
She knows these men better than I do. I trust she knows how to handle them.
But the moment I sense they’re upsetting her, or they say something I deem offensive, I’ll take over.
Steven steps forward from where he’d hung back by the door. He greeted Tre, then me before moving out of the way.
“We’ve been looking into it. We checked out the street cameras, but we couldn’t get a clear shot of the plate. Did either of you see it?”
I see what she meant about him being the voice of reason. I get why the others are so worked up. I’ve had time to calm down and get used to seeing Tre in the hospital bed hooked up to an IV. I appreciate Steven getting to the point though.
“There was a three and a B. That’s all I remember.” Tre looks at me.
“And an H. That’s all I had time to see as it came toward us. I wasn’t looking at the plate when I shot at the car.”
I already gave this information to my family, and they haven’t gotten any hits from the DMV.
The plates, along with the car, were likely stolen.
I’m not expecting any matches. I’m certain the Vizzini men know this too.
I’m certainly not going to turn down their efforts though.
I’ll gratefully accept any offers to help us.
“You know who has issues with us, and you know who has issues with Joaquin’s family. I need him here with me, so I’m asking you to help us, please.”
Her brother, three cousins, Steven, and Emilio Mancinelli—there’s a fucking ghost from the past—stare at me before their gazes shift to Tre’s belly. Then they’re glaring at me.
“For fuck’s sake. We all know I’m pregnant. Stop looking at Joaco as though he did this to me. We did it together.”
I watch Steven, but he has no different reaction from the other guys. None of them enjoy thinking Tre has sex, whether it’s with me or any other guy. It eases that unfounded territorialism.
“Joaquin, was it the Iglesiases?”
“Possibly, though I doubt it was los Iglesias. They can’t afford to piss us off after what happened to my cousin’s wife.”
Non-Spanish speakers butcher the plural form of Spanish surnames.
Granted, plenty of Americans don’t know that adding an apostrophe s doesn’t make a surname plural either.
My brothers and I realized not long after we moved to the States that when people would see us referred to as Tres Js, they thought Js was some Spanish abbreviation they didn’t know.
That or they’d try to say it phonetically with ridiculous accents—trace yazes.
No one’s ever that excited to see the three of us together.
We gave up hope and adopted the apostrophe just to make it easier. Still makes me twitch when I see it.
“We heard about that shit with Florencia.”
It surprises me when Dante speaks up. He’s the quiet one in the group. Not shy like me. Just an ape who can barely string a sentence together. I’m not even convinced he’s literate. Too many knocks to the head playing rugby haven’t helped him either.
What I’m about to say isn’t even remotely true, but I don’t need to air our dirty laundry when I don’t believe Filipe would put a hit on Tre or me. I also want to see if any of the Vizzinis disagree with me. It might give me insight into something they know that we don’t.
“So, you know they’re on their best behavior with us right now.”
“Are you still thinking it’s the O’Malleys?” Steven shifts his attention from me to Tre, who shrugs and looks up at me, waiting for me to answer.
“Tía Elle told me what happened when you were at the party with Steven, and Ewan approached you. How the cabrón is still alive is beyond me. I figured the O’Rourkes would’ve dealt with him ages ago.”
They’ve struck back when Ewan’s reached too far, but they’ve let him live. It’s likely only for Nicolina’s sake, though I doubt she’d shed too many tears.
“He’s the lesser of all evils. His buddy, Colt, would probably try to take over if Ewan died. He’s a hothead. That’s the last thing we need.”
Steven’s assessment matches mine. He was Nicolina’s former fiancé, and a royal douche.
Apparently, he cheated on her and blamed her for it.
Said she wasn’t attractive enough—too thin.
Yeah, like a supermodel. He’d manipulate her into doing whatever Ewan wanted.
He’s fine showing up as the muscle, but he couldn’t lead their men out of a bucket.
“The Volkovs?” I name the fourth major Boston family, and the shit with Misha comes to mind.
“Possibly. I could see them targeting a woman, especially if they believe Maks wouldn’t find out.” Tristano reaches out his hand and takes Tre’s.
“If they’re the only Boston family you think would do this, what about outsiders? I don’t mean New Yorkers.”
The Vizzinis have pissed people off on both sides of the Atlantic. I still think this is more about them than my family. I could be wrong, but I could be right. I sense the men want to look at each other, but that’d be a massive tell. Instead, they lift their chins and stare at me.
“Can you have your pissing contest against my boyfriend later? They’re going to discharge me tomorrow, and I want to know who to look out for. Joaco, what about that woman?”
“What woman?”
A chorus of six voices fills the room. Their expressions scream they believe Tre’s referring to a woman from my past.
“While Joaco went to get a doctor because I started cramping, a woman came in here. She looked like a nurse and had a scalpel and tried to attack me. I defended myself until Joaco came back. One of his men took her away.”
“She didn’t come up in the Massachusetts or New York DMV records when my brothers looked. They’re expanding the search. We figure she’s a mercenary, so it won’t be easy to trace her.”
Jorge texted me this morning with that news. The guy who dragged her out of here sent a headshot to my brother. They got nothing out of her, so they disposed of her. I trust my men, so I didn’t ask how or where. I just thanked them.
Tre observes me before looking at her family. She’s contemplating something, and it makes me uneasy. I know she’s still hiding things from me.
“I need to tell Joaco the whole reason I was sent to New York.”