Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“ I t would mean great changes, Lucianna. But think about it. From there, who knows? The sky is literally the limit.”
Alessio only talks nonsense like that when he’s anxious, and that’s only ever when he’s trying to avoid something. Waiting it out is getting uncomfortable. Especially since I think I can guess the broad shape of what’s to come.
My thighs are starting to stick to the chair.
“Think of all the opportunity, Lucianna. We could be truly going global.”
I swallow. “Have you talked to Bruno yet? Or Carlo?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Why of course? You want their input, don’t you?”
“Yes. Of course I do. But I need to talk it through with you first.” I need to talk it through with you. These are not the words of a man who is talking to his boss. This is how he would sound when he’s about to take over.
“So. Talk.”
“What? Well, what do you think, Lucianna?”
“I think you haven’t got to it, Alessio. Not yet. Not the part you need to talk to me about.”
“No. But in principle, Lucianna. What do you think? Wouldn’t it be fantastic? You can see that, right?”
“What I can see is that there’s a piece you’re not telling me yet, Alessio.”
He nods. Takes a moment to pause.
“It’s a big change, Lucianna.” He keeps calling me by the more formal ‘Lucianna.’ I know he’s bracing himself for something bad. I wish he would just say it, though. I feel like I’m waiting at a doorway to hell and, I know it’s hell, I just don’t know what kind yet, and how bad it is.
All I know is that my patience is running out.
“Come on, Alessio. Get to it.”
“We’ll be full members. We’ll have that same seat at the Commission table as any other major family. Not only that, but the Washington Oregon territory families will operate under the rule of the Famiglia Fortuna.”
He sits back. “We will be the head family. In the whole Pacific Northwest, everybody will be looking up and kicking up to us. All of them. Everybody. Think of it, Lucianna.” His chest swells.
“Has anyone taken that great news to Don Romano yet? Or Don Pucci?”
Don Romano is in his late fifties, but he still has a reputation for dealing with whoever displeases him with his bare hands. And he has very big hands.
Recently, when the Romano clan found that one of their lieutenants was skimming more than he should from the local protection schemes, and he wasn’t pushing the tastes up fast enough for the Don’s liking, the Don took the man’s eye out with the ring pull from a Coke can.
And then he used the same tool to kill the man. Horribly slowly.
If I sent a man to Don Romano to deliver the message that Alessio just gave me, I know for sure that man would never be seen alive again.
Don Pucci is said to be way more savage.
Those men didn’t get to be the heads of the top mob families in the state by accident, they didn’t win it in a lottery, and it wasn’t from a geniality contest, either.
He reaches across the table, but he can’t quite stretch to my hand. Not without leaning forward. It’s a gesture, a tiny dance that we’ve done a million times. He’s expecting me to slide my hand toward his.
I don’t.
When he sees that I don’t move, his palm slips slowly back across the white linen and his lips tighten.
I keep my face as still as the rest of me. I can’t believe that he’s doing this.
“The Romanos and the Puccis can wait,” he tells me. Brave words, Alessio. “It’s you I have to talk to first.”
I can feel it coming. I don’t want him to tell me. My cruel, dark, merciless heart cannot bear what he’s going to say. Sitting poised like a marble statue, inside I am splitting apart and breaking in two.
He starts. “Our arrangement…” he’s talking about us. Him and me. And Bruno and Carlo. He’s calling us an ‘arrangement,’ like it’s some under-the counter, dirty deal.
I can’t take it. Not from the man I love the most.
No. That’s not right. It’s wrong to say, The man I love the most because I love all three of them the most. More than I ever believed I was capable of loving anyone, especially a man.
From too much bitter experience, I know what men do. I know what I’ve had done to me. But now, when I least expected it, I found love grew and spread out from my heart. Unconditional, selfless love with no boundaries. For Carlo, and for Bruno.
And even for him, the least accessible, and the least outwardly lovable of the three Fortuna boys.
Even now, I feel that hurt from somewhere deep, somewhere far back in the past. It’s primitive. And it’s ugly.
Alessio is easy to want. To need. A look from under the dark hoods of those cool blue eyes can tear you open, cut through you like a blade of ice. The cruel, sardonic detachment of his laugh would make you shudder and tremble inside, and still at the same time it stirs a deep pool, a dark, swirling well of yearning need, way, way down in the dark depths.
At the first rumble from his powerful chest, you want to give in to him completely. You want to trust him. But he’s a hard man to love. You’re left in no doubt, if you trust this man, he can protect you from the fires of hell, but if it amused him he could be just as likely to drop you straight into them.
Seeing that, knowing that, I’ve loved him. I gave him my love. Freely. Fully.
And now, I can hardly bear to hear the words I know are coming. So small, so slight, but I know what’s coming before his lips begin to move, and I know what it means. It means complete and total betrayal.
Finally, Alessio tells me,
“Jerry wants to see you.”
I feel like the whole of me has been poured into an ancient terracotta vase, and he just shoved it off a balcony. With his foot..
As still as a statue on the outside, I’m in free-fall.
He makes it sound innocent. Like, Hey, my uncle wants to meet you. Wants a chance to get to know the amazing woman who captivated me, as well as Bruno and Carlo. He wants to embrace you, to hold you to him and welcome you to the other sides of the family.
But if it was anything remotely like that, he could have just called. If it was as friendly, as loving and as happy an occasion, he could have just showed up at the door with a bottles or two of Prosecco.
No, this is not that. This is a reckoning. This is a lesser member of the extended family, coming to claim back what he believes should never have been mine. At this point it could be soft, simply a demand. You’re not of our blood. Return the territory. Turn over control and we’ll say no more about it. But that’s only one of the ways he might present it.
One thing and one thing only has made Alessio’s uncle Jerry say he wants to see me. When he tells me that, My uncle wants to see you , I know that means they have discussed the situation together. That Alessia has talked about me. He’s told his uncle what I’ll say. Jerry asked what Alessio thinks I’ll do.
It twists inside me, like a knife in my heart. He’s just one step away from plotting against me..
I know what it really is. It’s not a declaration of war, but it’s the closest possible thing to it. It’s a prelude. And an invitation to me to surrender.
Hoping against all my instincts, wishing with all my heart that I’m wrong, I ask him,
“Why, Alessio? Why does your uncle want to see me.”
I can’t bear it. But I have to hear it. And I need to get it from Alessio’s lips. Damn. those lips. there’s a cold sensation at the corner of my eye. I blink it away.
“He says,” he almost flinches as I fix his eye. I know that he’s killed men for less.
“Well, it’s a big thing. You can see that, right? It’s been almost a century and there has been no hint, no sign of recognition from Chicago or the Commission or anybody else on the national scene. Not for the organization in Seattle.” He waits. Do I see a flicker of a question in his eyes? Could there be the tiniest, most distant flicker of a sense that he knows and understands what he has done?
I stiffen myself. There’s no point in clinging to a foolish hope now. Alessio has been blinded. His uncle has made him believe his lies about the Pacific Northwest territories. Beyond that, his uncle Jerry has dangled the keys to the kingdom in front of him. He’s painted a picture where it can all be Alessio’s for the taking.
Now, Alessio can only understand what’s good for Alessio. As far as he’s concerned, that has to be what’s good for everybody. For the whole world, if he thought about it. Nothing more nothing less.
His uncle has told him the thing, the one thing that Alessio has no defense against. Jerry has told Alessio what he wants to hear.
My world is falling and crumbling, literally smashing to pieces, shattering inside of me.