Chapter 25 – Peter
Chapter Twenty-Five
Peter
“The wife isn’t home. Want a beer?” Michael asks, yawning and wiping sleep out of his eyes. He doesn’t paint a perfect picture of married life when he behaves like this, but I can’t deny that my concerns have given my nerves an anxious rumbling that I want to quiet.
“A morning beer?” I ask him, trying to withhold my judgment. Michael raises an eyebrow.
“Maybe you’ll understand when you’re a father,” he says. Again, I don’t understand in the slightest. I would be more fearful of the entire thing if I didn’t see Lorenzo Taviani handling it just fine.
“That might be soon.”
Michael laughs in disbelief. “Shut up. Voodoo Ranger?”
“For breakfast?”
My brother’s stresses from becoming Leandro Taviani’s underboss must be weighing down on him more than I realized. Michael grunts and squints with his good eye until he finds the bottles in his fridge. Michael pulls out two beers, which immediately sweat when he sets them on the counter.
“It’s good beer.”
I shake my head and immediately search over his shoulder for something more palatable on Michael’s countertops. Everything else there is baby-related.
“I’ll have wine, if you have any.”
Michael chuckles. “You are so fucking Italian. And yes, I have wine.”
My older brother doesn’t take the offense to heart for long before he pulls out a chilled bottle of wine out of the fridge. He slides the whole thing over to me as if an entire bottle of wine were appropriate at this hour.
“Just put it in a glass. I came to ask a favor.”
Michael laughs and takes a sip out of his disgusting beer. “I know. Why else would you be here at the crack of dawn?”
He doesn’t seem annoyed that I’m here to ask a favor, which is a good thing.
My brother has always been a bit more… tense…
about favors. He might not be as much of a dick as my cousin, Luigi, but he takes his role within the family seriously.
That has only increased since Leandro named him my father’s replacement.
“I’m seeing Gino’s lawyer,” I tell Michael, trying to ease him into the story, since I’m pretty sure Flora doesn’t sit around gossiping with him and she’s the only one who knows.
I haven’t had to worry about Flora in weeks, which makes her a much better ward than Cosima, who has always bumped heads with Michael and been his responsibility.
“The guy?” Michael asks, his voice elevating with disbelief at what he perceives as a sudden change in my interests.
“No, you dumbass,” I grumble. “Aricia Plant. The lead partner.”
I wait for a beat to see or hear any reaction from Michael and while I should expect his response from a Corsini, Michael shocks me.
Michael raises his eyebrows. “The black lady?”
There’s just surprise, not judgment. Michael spent the past decade or so brooding in isolation that was apparently born out of his deep love for a black woman that he couldn’t get past. So I don’t expect him to pass harsh judgment on me for loving Aricia.
I can’t tell how he’s reacting. Maybe he isn’t.
“Yes. She’s a decent lady,” I respond, trying not to sound insecure, or like I’m seeking my brother’s approval.
“Woah.”
What the hell did I say?
“That’s basically a confession of love coming from you,” Michael says, smirking at me like there isn’t a good reason I would keep my personal life to myself in this excessively involved Italian family.
I scowl at Michael.
“I’m not telling you this to gossip.”
“I know,” Michael says. “You want a favor. You made that much clear.”
I start drinking the wine out of the bottle. It didn’t take long for Michael to crack me open as it turns out.
“Her ex-husband was a real piece of work.”
“Need me to whack him?” Michael asks, grinning with excitement. “I could use something to take the edge off.”
“Beer not enough?”
“Strangely, no.”
“You could join me and Gino at the gym.”
“I prefer exercising alone,” Michael says. He pauses to think for a little bit and then he furrows his brow. “So you don’t need me to whack him?”
“He’s dead. Unfortunately, he left a mistress behind.”
I have Michael’s attention now. “Interesting.”
I give Michael the basics of the story, which I’ve only heard secondhand from Aricia. Michael has questions, and I do my best to give him answers and details as I tell him about this woman who won’t leave Aricia alone.
“I can’t get the girl unless I remove everything that stands in our way.”
“We have rules, Peter.”
That’s the answer I expected from Michael despite the detailed story I just told him. This is why I called my request a favor.
“She’s pregnant with my kid. You would do the same thing if you were in my position, and you know it.”
“I might have. Before I had to report every move I make to Leandro.”
“Then we don’t have to whack her. We can drop her off in Ohio or something.”
“Think that would work?” Michael asks, seeming to come around to my way of thinking pretty quickly. “Trouble has a way of popping back up.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t speak to Leandro about this,” Michael says. I don’t want my heart to sink with disappointment, but I can feel my body caving. While I would prefer not to avenge Aricia alone, I’ll do it if I must.
“Understood.”
My mind churns with possibilities for how I can get what I want without Michael. My efforts to hide my disappointment clearly are not entirely successful. Michael polishes off what little remained of his beer. I haven’t made much progress on the wine.
“I did not say that I wouldn’t help,” he says with a sigh, as if I regularly burden him with this type of shit. “What’s this woman’s name again?”
“Inessa Dabrowski.”
“What is she, Polish?”
“Or Ukrainian.”
“I don’t like the idea of leaving this matter open,” Michael says. “Even if Leandro doesn’t approve… Perhaps I can find a way to convince him.”
“Great. Think it would help if I talked to him too?”
I built up some good will with my Uncle Leandro by finding the law firm and getting us to the point where Gino most likely won’t see a day in court.
“No. Keep Aricia distracted. She’s a lawyer with a fiduciary duty to report the type of work we get up to if she becomes aware of it.”
Keep Aricia distracted… It sounds like an easy enough mission. She’s pregnant with my child, I love every second I spend with her, and I want what we have to last for the rest of my life.