Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Giovanni
My brother Luca’s house is quiet in a way I recognize. Not empty. Just settled.
I let myself in through the mudroom. The guard at the gate already waved me through. He doesn’t ask questions when it’s me.
I follow the smell of espresso to the kitchen, passing the shrine of photos that have appeared in the home since Luca came back.
There’s Luca at twenty with a hand on his late wife’s back at some banquet; there’s Carlotta by herself, eyes like summer rain; there’s Vito in a Halloween cape showing his teeth; Nico with a fishing pole, patient even then; Caterina, small and ferocious, chin up like her mother; and Lucia at two on a kitchen floor, curls everywhere, cheeks fat with a meatball in each one. A few of Robert, Antonio, and me.
Then there are the new ones. Luca and his fiancée, Elena Pennino. And the newest member of our family in her arms.
Luca is where he always is: at the island, tiny cup in one hand, baby Alessandra tucked in the other, her head cradled in the crook of his elbow.
“Knock knock,” I say, which is stupid because I never knock. But, even though I lived here for a time after Carlotta passed, this is not my house. There’s another woman who lives here now, and a brand-new human with sensitive ears and loud cries.
He glances up, sees me, and the line between his eyebrows disappears. “Door’s open,” he says out of habit, then tips his chin toward the hallway. “Elena’s taking some time down. If you slam anything, I’ll break your hands.”
“When do I slam?” I ask. I walk closer and keep my voice low. “How is she?”
“Running on fumes,” he says. He looks down at Alessandra like that explains everything. It does. He takes another sip, sets the cup in its saucer, and rocks the baby without thinking. “Four a.m. and six a.m. belonged to this one. Eight was the gallon of coffee.”
“She worth it?” I ask.
“Every minute,” he says, not even trying to play tough. He kisses the baby’s forehead. “This one knows what she wants.”
“She’s a Conti,” I say.
He snorts. “God help us.”
I check the room. Same layout. New high chair in a box against the wall.
A basket on the counter with little socks, a burp cloth hanging out.
Two bottles in the drying rack. A pack of wipes next to the espresso machine because, apparently, babies need supplies on every surface.
The marble island has a hairline crack that I don’t remember in one corner.
Otherwise, it’s the same kitchen we bled and ate and argued in for years.
“You eat?” he asks.
“Not yet.”
He shifts the baby to his left arm, pulls out a pan with his right, and reaches for eggs.
He cracks them one-handed like it’s a card trick.
I’ve seen him do it a thousand times. He salts with gusto.
I don’t bother to ask if he wants me to take Alessandra.
It’s all very practiced. He moves easily, like a man who’s done this every morning for a month.
The baby watches him like a TV show. He narrates under his breath.
“Eggs for your uncle. Don’t tell Mom how much salt we’re using. ”
“She’ll arrest you,” I say.
He smiles. “She already did. I liked it.”
“Keep that to yourself,” I tell him, but I’m smiling too.
He plates for me and eats what’s left out of the pan with a fork. He never bothered getting fancy in this kitchen. He never needed to. We lean on the island. The baby makes a small noise and then settles.
“Roberto tells me you went to Regalia for the memorial,” he says.
“Stopped in,” I say. “Paid respects. Stayed on the wall. Roberto kissed everybody.”
He makes a face. “Of course he did.”
“Francesca didn’t want us there,” I say.
“She threw you out?”
“She thought about it.” I take another bite. The eggs are good. He knows how to do the simple things right. Always has. “But we kept it short. Crowd was big. People loved Sabina.”
“They should have,” he says. The softness in his voice is the old kind, the real kind. He doesn’t use that tone for many. “Francesca think you’re coming to collect?”
“I didn’t go to collect.”
“But she thought.”
“Yeah, that’s why we kept it short,” I say.
“So that means Francesca is taking over,” he muses.
“Not sure,” I say. “I assume there’s a will.”
Luca lifts a shoulder. “Yeah. There’s always a will. And there’s always the rest of it.”
“The rest,” I say.
He glances at the monitor, then at me. “You know how Sabina did business. Straight as she could.”
I nod. “Seems like that follows the bloodlines.”
“No,” he muses. “No, it didn’t.”
“I’ve got it,” I say.
“I know.” He rubs a finger over Alessandra’s tiny sock like he’s smoothing a wrinkle out of time. “When?”
“I figure I’ll wait a few days. Maybe a week.”
“A few days,” he says. It’s not said in a commanding tone, but as the leader of the Conti family, it very much is one.
“A few days, then,” I repeat. “I’ll pay a visit. Just a quiet one.”
I finish the last of my eggs and walk the plate to the sink to rinse.
“Anything else?” Luca asks.
“There’s always else,” I say. “But nothing that can’t wait.”
He nods. “I’ve got to pick my battles while I’m stuck inside the fence.” He twists his foot left and right. The ankle monitor on it flashes green steadily.
“You don’t have to stay inside the fence,” I say, referencing the fact that our men broke the tracking on Luca’s monitor months ago, that we could make it say whatever we wanted it to say.
“I know, but for Elena’s sake,” he says, then sighs. “The things we do for love.”
I suppose that’s what he gets for falling in love with a federal prosecutor. Well, former prosecutor, anyway. They don’t take too kindly to prosecutors having babies with mafia dons.
“Just use the fence,” I say. “People underestimate a man who can’t move. Makes them talk more.”
“Been doing that,” he says. “Sometimes I like it too much. A different kind of challenge.”
I drink the last of the espresso. Bitter, clean.
The baby stirs. He puts a hand on her back, and she goes still. His jaw softens.
“Remember when you brought Lucia to the doctor for the two-month shots and you almost threw up?” I say.
“I did throw up,” he says, deadpan. “In the parking lot behind a dumpster. Carlotta laughed until she cried. Then she cried for real.”
“You tried to fight the nurse,” I say.
“She was five feet tall and had a needle the size of a harpoon,” he says. “I was protecting my kid.”
“You were twenty and stupid,” I say.
He smiles without looking at me. “Still am, some days.”
We don’t have to say the other part. Lucia’s name hangs in the air, easier now that it’s been said out loud between us. He skims a look at me. I give him one back.
“You remember her like this?” I ask because the sight of him with a newborn is a time machine.
He doesn’t answer for a beat. He looks past me, into some room none of us live in anymore.
“Every detail,” he says at last. “She was light. Didn’t feel real at first. Then you hold her for five minutes and you’re ruined.
She liked the morning light by the back door.
Carlotta used to take pictures that we never printed because we kept saying we’d do it later. I don’t know where that roll went.”
His voice goes soft and wistful.
“She’s coming,” he says. “Lucia.”
“When?”
“Elena’s working on next week. Lucia picks the day. We keep it simple. Dinner here. Not a circus.”
“Good,” I say. “Small.”
“As small as we can manage,” he says. “Me, Elena. You. Roberto and Antonio. The kids. Nick. Lucia’s girls.” He pats Alessandra on the back and begins rocking her. “Introduce them properly. No audience. No extras. No one trying to make it a show.”
“Understood.”
“Elena says Lucia talks more with her. Easier that way. No history to trip on.”
“Elena’s good at this,” I say. “The first steps.”
He nods. “The meet we had last month. It wasn’t enough. I didn’t even see— They didn’t bring their daughters. I hope that she will this time.”
He blows out a breath, and I see what he doesn’t show. How much the meet with Lucia meant to him, however brief and formal it was. How much it’ll mean to him to see his granddaughters for the first time.
It reminds me of the last time I saw Lucia. At a courthouse smelling like sweat and old carpet. Reporters camped outside like seagulls, waiting for scraps. Inside, the air tight and suffocating. I don’t know how Roberto does it day after day.
Luca’s in a suit but cuffed. I stand two rows back, hands in pockets so I don’t break the wood in front of me.
Lucia walks in with a public defender and a spine made of wire.
No makeup. Hair pulled back like she’s going to take a test. She doesn’t look for us.
She looks at the judge, then the microphone.
When she raises her right hand, everything feels unreal.
Her voice is steady. Not loud. Not small.
She says what she saw. What she knew. She doesn’t add extra.
She didn’t need to. It was enough to seal his fate.
The prosecutor nods like he got what he wanted. Luca looks at Lucia, willing her to look back. I look at him and then at her, and I’m angry at everything—at the state, at the life, at the bad luck that put a kid in that chair.
When it’s over, she steps down and disappears through a side door. And that was it.
Eleven years behind bars for Luca. Twelve years of silence from her.
So, yeah—next week will be a lot. The house she grew up in. The siblings she left behind. The family she hasn’t seen in over a decade. And the new family she found along the way.
We keep it small. We let her lead. We feed everyone and don’t ask for anything she doesn’t offer.
I see him there in that hotel bar, ankle monitor hidden under his pant leg, Elena mediating, Lucia across from them with her chin up. I wasn’t there. I can still see it.
He glances over. “You okay if I ask you to stand in for me if I start… you know.”
“Pushing,” I say.
“Yeah.”
I nod. “I’ll watch out,” I assure him. “What are you expecting from the dinner?”
“Not forgiveness,” he says, fast. “I don’t want to put that on her. I just want to sit at a table with my brothers, my kids, and her kids. I want to pass bread and not make a speech.”
“Then that’s what we do,” I say.
He blows out a breath that ends on a light laugh. “Elena wrote rules on a Post-it. Vito already hates them.”
“Vito will live,” I say. “Nico will help. How’s Caterina taking it?”
He rubs his jaw. “She says she’s fine. She isn’t. She hasn’t seen her sister in… so many years. I know they’re years apart, but for Caterina, Lucia was her best friend, her big sister. You know? She’s not ready to talk about it yet. I don’t know if she’s feeling happy or betrayed.”
“Both,” I say. “People carry two things at once.”
“She might try to make a scene,” he says. “Of that, I worry.”
“I’ll keep an eye on her as well,” I tell him. “If she starts cross-examining, I’ll cut it off.”
“She’ll hate you for it.”
“She’ll get over it,” I say, and he huffs a laugh.
“Yes. But she won’t make it easy.”
“She never does.”