Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A lessio shifts in his chair. “Nobody knows yet. Only you. Now.”
“So, what makes you think even the Commission knows?”
“Uncle Jerry…”
“Or even anybody else in Chicago?” I feel like I’m rising in the chair. I’m not controlling my voice. “Your uncle could just be floating this whole thing. Spinning you a line.”
“No…”
“Who was with him?” the words slide out through my lips. Slip, like a blade.
“What?”
“When he told you.”
“We were alone.”
“He could just have made up a scheme. Or it could all be a joke. What makes you think this is anything more than him breaking your balls?”
“No, he’s totally serious. I’m certain.”
“Are you? Why? How?”
“He said…” He falters and stops.
Alessio. One of the most feared and ruthless men in Seattle and Washington state. The man who rules for our family over thousands of men. A man who has taken me in ways that make me quiver to recall. Over and over.
What can be making him hesitate. How has he been wrong-footed, this fearless street-fighter?
In one of those mysterious moments of clarity, in a cold flash, maybe there’s a way that I read it on his face, some trace in the combination of micro-movements, a sense of what they add up to.
I know what it is that he’s holding back. What he needs to say, the words he so badly doesn’t want to form in his mouth and utter. And in the same moment, I understand what it means.
Because I still love him so much, my heart wants me to let him off the hook. To say it for him. To show him that, whatever I think about it all, I understand him. That it will be okay. We’ll get through this together.
That’s what my heart wants.
But my cold, black soul is going to watch him twist in the wind. I can see what he’s done. How he has betrayed us. Betrayed me.
In my heart, I want to hold him. To save him. To repay all the times he’s saved and rescued me. Protected me.
But I can see what he’s done. And it’s not going to be alright. Not ever again.
For that, my soul screams from deep down inside me, a silent howl for revenge.
“All that they want is to see a more traditional structure in the family.”
“Do you mean that they want you in charge?”
“It’s not about who’s in charge.”
When he says that, I want to shake him, grab his immaculate lapels and shout in his face. It’s all I can do to stop myself jumping at him. Knocking him flat onto his back. Sitting on his chest with his hair bunched tight in my fists while I bang his head against the thick carpet.
Can’t you see it, Alessio? Can you really not see what this is? Have you learned noting?
My breath leaves me in a silent shock, like the floor dropped open under my feet.
He’s lying to me. I know that he is. It’s always about who’s in charge. Always. Everything is. Now, this time, more than ever. If it was one or all of the Fortuna sons who were at the head of the family business, nobody in Chicago would care ab out us. We would never even come up in their conversations.
Their precious Commission would not bat an eye.
In eighty years, maybe more, Chicago haven’t given one single thought to us in Seattle. They never come to visit. They don’t call, they don’t write. Not one contact, not a word, as far as I know, not for the best part of a century. The East coast families, Florida, Vegas, and LA don’t recognize us and the Commission don’t either.
We were all getting along with that, with the fact that the Commission and all the families include us out of their whole world. They were okay, we were okay. So what changed? It makes me stop and take a breath. Then the business of the whole country suddenly takes notice of us. Now.
Now that one of our major families is being run by a woman. A woman with what they will call ‘unconventional ways.’
Is that really it? Is that why they’re making this move now? Are they really re-considering their whole policy toward the Pacific Northwest — the policy of going about their business as though we didn’t even exist, they’re going to re-think al of that because a family is being run by a woman?
Well, if they think any of that is going to change on their say-so, they’ll find they have a bigger fight on their hands than they’re ready for.
I would have expected Alessio to be the first to say it. My bold Alessio, the face that lights hot coals of fear in mens’ eyes, the man who wears power like a tee-shirt. I’ve always counted on him as my most brave and outspoken champion. Can he really be ready to throw that away?
What could they have offered him?
“That’s all they want in return for what? They’re offering franchise, right? Has your Uncle Jerry come with a guarantee?”
“Not just franchise, Lucia. Not only franchise for us, for the whole region. All of our made guys will be fully recognized, full privileges, coast to coast.”
But what’s in it for you, Alessio? How have they bought you and taken you from me?
“There’s more, Alessio. I know it’s more than that.” I keep my voice steady but my throat is sore from welling up.
He says, “Yeah, this is the good part. Are you ready for this? Our family is going to be the head family. For the whole region, Lucia. All of Washington State and Oregon. The whole Pacific Northwest territory.”
I wonder how he thinks Don Romano and Don Pucci are going to greet those joyful tidings.
Sure as hell, I’m not going to be the one to deliver the message.
“There’s still a part that you’re not saying.”
“Lucy…”
“You’re breaking up with me.”
“No!” He looks shocked. Poleaxed. Like he really never even considered the fact. “No, Lucia, I’m really not.”
“You’re not listening to me, Alessio.” My voice is hardening. My hands clench. “Yes, you really are. If you do this, you’re breaking up with me.” I pull both my lips in and bite. “Worse than that, you’re hiding behind your uncle, and getting him to land the blow.”
His eyebrows rise in a steeple, pleading, “It doesn’t have to be this way. Lucia. What we’ve had…”
Had…
“Now you’re not even listening to yourself. I cant believe that you’re doing this. To me. To us.”
His hand stretches out again. His face twists in a storm of anger and confusion.
“Listen…”
“No, you listen, Alessio.”
My chair scrapes as I stand up. I’ve had as much of this as I can take. My blood pulses, hard. My heart pounds.
Alessio stands to face me. “I just want to do what’s going to be best for the family.”
“Don’t try to give me that.” The smell of him near makes me want to rip his clothes. To shove him to the ground.
“The family and all of the families in the region.”
“Oh, right. You want to do all of this as a self-sacrificing public service. It’s putting back into the community . But on a big scale, right? Only, for the good of everyone, you will just have to take the hit, bear the burden, and be in charge.”
I have a raging urge to grip his hair. To slap him and jam my pussy in his face. I want to see his eyes as I saw my wet wings in his mouth.
His arrogant snarl rises to the surface. I want to sit on his head. He says, “How is that different from what you want?”
“It’s different because I know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, Alessio.”
My panties are drenched. “I have the power in my hands, and I know how to use it. I have the strength to do it, and the guts and the ability to make it all work.”
I would give anything to hold him down and gush into his mouth. To watch his eyes when I do. I don’t have his size or his strength, but I have my rage, and that closes a lot of distance.
I tell him, “I am working for us, Alessio. For you and me. For the family. Bruno and Carlo and everybody in our little corner. But I am doing it because I want it. I’m not pretending it’s all for some greater good.”
We’re getting closer. I don’t know how. Or why.
I can’t stop. “Yes, I want the power. But it will do so much good for everyone. You don’t see that because you don’t want to see it. You have everything the way that you want it, and you don’t want anything to come along and upset your applecart.”
His eyelids dip. Then he looks back at me.
“I want the power, I don’t deny it. But it’s mine. It belongs to me. It’s my right.”
AT LAST .
He let it out. He’s told me the truth. Finally.
“There it is.” I hold his eyes with mine. Why couldn’t you have talked to me, Alessio? Why bury it all this time. “Why wait for this, Alessio?” my eyes are pleading with him. “Now the ground has cracked open between us.”
“No…”
“We were so tight. Now we’re on opposite sides of a canyon.”