51. Matteo
51
We’re finally on the jet and flying back to the States. Four hours into the flight and I start to relax. Job one: check. Job two: botched in the best possible way. Tasha is sitting on the other side of the plane with noise-cancelling earphones, pretending to watch some movie, but I know better. She looks up often and stares out of the window, without going back to see what she’s missed. She might be tired, or her mind is simply drifting, like mine is.
These past few days had too much action for me to get my head around everything that happened in Sicily. A lot of questions have formed in the back of my head ever since I dealt with Randazzo, and the fact that he felt like someone I knew, or should know, beyond his history with the Scaleras. The Don never doubted Randazzo’s eagerness to see me, and to get a meeting with him—one of the most secretive and elusive capos in the European Mafia—was way too easy. And then there were his eyes…
“Matteo, you’re not fucking concentrating,” Stephano sighs. “I know you’re pussy-whipped?—”
“Yeah.” I can’t even get angry at him because he’s right. I shift in my seat, tearing my gaze away from Tasha. Stephano is keeping his cool, but I know he’s annoyed with me. He’s even more annoyed that Gigi Trapani was there last night, but I can’t get anything more out of him as to what happened with her—with them—once we left. He has nothing to show for months of work, plus he’s out of pocket with all the expenses he incurred to get the show on the road. He can do me a favor and get over it. They’re all Il Consiglio expenses and in the bigger scheme of things, insignificant. One man getting the prize is the natural outcome of any auction, and none of his clients need to know the final bid: zero.
We’re trying to run through some numbers while we’re together in an attempt to move on from what happened in Cannes, but my mind isn’t in it. I close my laptop screen and Stephano does the same.
“What’s your plan with her now?” Stephano asks.
It’s a loaded question. Tasha looked on as Stephano dealt with Tatiana’s assailant, Greg Martinez. I might have planted a bullet in his head, but Stephano would want some guarantee that Tasha will never talk. When it comes to that, dead is best.
“When we get off this plane, we’re getting married.” There. I’ve said it. Made it public.
“What? Why?” Stephano keeps his voice low, but it’s still shocked.
“It’s the only way I can really protect her.”
“Not from me,” Stephano grunts. “But why the rush, dude? It’s not as if she’s going anywhere.”
“No, she isn’t.” Whether she likes it or not, Tasha has been sucked into our world. She has no choice really, but when things start falling into place... At some point she’s going to realize how our pasts intertwine, connect those dots between Alex’s death and her mom’s and brother’s.
“Just fuck her until you’ve had your fill and let her go like you always do. It’s easier in the long run?—”
I lean over the desk and fist his shirt. “That’s enough.” One of Stephano’s bodyguards makes as if to stand up, but this is between brothers, so he hesitates. “You speak of her like that again, and I will fucking damage you beyond repair.”
“You’ve lost it, bro.” Stephano strangles my wrist and tears my hand from his shirt. He’s strong, as he should be.
I shrug loose and fist my hand in frustration. He is right, but he doesn’t get it. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.
Stephano shakes his head with sigh. “Be careful, Matteo. The Don is dying and the last thing we need is you losing your common sense because of a woman. That woman in particular.”
“I don’t care. Best you let the others know how to treat her.”
“You’re the one with that reputation, Matteo. Not us.”
“As if yesterday’s performance on the yacht was something to look up to,” I snap back. How I was in the past with women is just that: the past. “If Gigi gave you hell, you deserved it.”
“Fuck me,” Stephano grunts as he stands. “I need a drink.”
When he comes back minutes later, we’ve both cooled off, if only on the surface. I’m no longer in the mood for his company. At times like these, a private jet feels like a cage.
I take my laptop and shove it back into my backpack, careful to slot it in next to the two cans of sardines I’ve been hauling along for the Don. I take the offered whiskey and walk over to where Tasha is sitting. She looks up and takes the earphones off.
“What are you watching?” She’s opted for the smaller seat screen and not the massive one on the wall that cordons off the bedroom. Burley is occupying the bedroom with bullet butt, giving me no privacy to initiate Tasha into the mile-high club.
“Ghost. I’ve watched it like a hundred times.” Her gaze follows me as I sit down next to her. “It’s comforting.”
“You like horror movies?” Didn’t peg her as one of those.
She blinks at me, her jaw going slack. “It’s not horror… it’s… it’s like the most romantic movie ever.”
Should have known. I’ll put it on the to-watch list. “Come here, kitten,” I murmur and as if she reads my mind she comes to curl up on my lap. I don’t know when this woman has gone from invading my mind to easing it by just sitting on my lap.
“What’s up?” she asks as she cuddles into my embrace and plays with a shirt button.
“We’re getting married as soon as we arrive in Boston.”
“Like on arrival?”
“At city hall—it will be after hours, but an official is waiting for us.” Money makes the world go round.
“Oh… that’s very soon.” She doesn’t pull away but seems to want to get even closer to me. “I was hoping my dad could be there.”
Really? Hasn’t she realized by now that her dad is a fucking loser idiot? The beat of silence between us stretches way too long. “I don’t want him there.”
She presses on my chest to sit upright, and now she has tears in her eyes, and they wreck me. “I can’t be estranged from him, Matteo. He is the only family I have left.” She wipes at her face. “Up until you… we were each other’s everything.”
“I don’t expect that, kitten,” I say as I brush at a tear she missed. “Just don’t expect me to invite him over for Sunday brunch.” Or for him to ever see his grandkids.
Thinking about Peter Armstrong’s grandkids comes out of left field, and I blink. A wave of protectiveness fills me like a rage, and I press Tasha to my chest again, hugging her close. The Don is another grandfather that will never see his grandkids. Funny thing: cancer is going to take him before it ever comes to Tasha having my baby, but if it didn’t…
There’s no chance in hell that the Don gets anywhere near my children. Never mind holding my first—his first grandchild—I won’t allow him to set eyes on them. And to guarantee that, I’ll kill him.