Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
S o. All I know is that somebody who still wants me dead, knows the location of the new house.
The name that flashes up in my mind for what feels like the millionth time is Jerry. Even more insane-making, the name ‘Alessio’ jumps up right behind it.
I’ve had enough of all of this bullshit. It has to stop.
I call for a clean-up team while Mikey goes out to scout nearby for the vehicle that brought our uninvited guests. There’s not much chance they will have left any clues behind, but it’s worth a look. In any case, we’ll need to find their ride and have that disposed of, along with the guests themselves.
My glass of red wine feels well-earned, even at this time of day. Bruno calls. As soon as his name lights up on my phone, a wave of relief threatens to burst inside me. I take a breath.
Before I answer, I stand straight and wait. I want to have myself under control before I speak.
My effort is wasted. The moment I say, “Hello,” I can hear the snap in Bruno’s breath. He’s picked up on my tension.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Of course. I’m fine. We had a disturbance at the house, but it’s all taken care of. How are you?”
“I was just calling to let you know that a thing came up that I had to deal with and I’ll be a little late getting there. I should still be in good time for us to have brunch together, if you can wait. Are you hungry?”
“Yes.” My voice sounds brittle. “No. I don’t know.” My throat is tightening.”
“Don’t worry. Go ahead and start without me.” Then he’s quiet. Listening. Bruno has told me before that he can tell how I am by listening to my breath. I’m sure that’s what he’s doing now.
He says, “What’s wrong, zuccherina ?”
“Nothing. Really. I’m looking forward to seeing you.” I don’t want to tell him anything more about the intruders before he gets here. It would only make him worry. We’ll catch up in more detail face to face.
“Tell me.”
“I don’t want to.”
That isn’t what I meant to say.
“Lucia.” I can’t resist him when he says my name like that. “Okay, straight answer? I’m going out of my mind. I need this business with fucking Jerry to be settled and over.”
“You think he sent the clowns to the house?”
“I think I’m tired of guessing what’s next.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“What choice do I have?”
“Lucia…”
“I’ve gone to Chicago to meet with them. They won’t help me. I’ve tried to reason with Alessio, he won’t help me. Don Romano is hoofing the ground for what he believes this all is. Which makes me think he’s an idiot, by the way. I’d much rather have smart competitors, adversaries, and enemies.” I take a slug of my wine. “Idiots are so fucking unpredictable.”
My chest is humming as I tell him. “What choices have I got left?”
He says, “Carlo said he was on his way. Will you at least hold off until he gets here?”
“I don’t known, Bruno. Maybe.” A rise of tension in my core is making me buzz in a way that I don’t want. “On top of all of that, I feel like we’ve lost the Twelve Tribes and the Cascades development with them. that hurts. We had a real bond of trust.” My breath catches. “The way it feels right now, I don’t know if we’ll even get to keep our interest in Sun-a-do.”
“Maybe it can still be saved.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.” I don’t like the tone in my voice. I take a long, slow breath.
Then I tell him, “You know what? The worst thing is, the worst thing of all of it, I feel like the four of us are side-eyeing second-guessing and mistrusting each other and we’re losing each other, We’re losing — I’m losing, the biggest and best and most important thing I ever had in this whole damned god-forsaken world. the most precious thing I was ever even fucking close to, and thats us. I feel like we’re slipping away through my fingers and there doesn’t seem to be a single damned thing I can do about it.”
“That’s because it’s not your fault.” His voice is soothing. You can’t fix it, not on your own, because you didn’t break it.”
“But I NEED IT FIXED,” I smash my glass on the counter. Red wine splashes and shards and splinters of glass go everywhere.
“I NEED ALL OF YOU. You’re my whole fucking world. I can’t lose US and OUR THING. I can’t live without it. I can’t lose any of you.”
“Lucia.”
My voice cracks. “All the men I love are somewhere else and I feel like Im losing everything. I’m all alone here in the house and two men broke in to kill me. I killed one of them myself with a skillet he’s dead on my kitchen floor. And I kept my my white Armani dress perfect and now it’s is splattered in fucking red wine.”
“I’m coming right away.”
“Honestly,” I tell him, “Finish whatever you’re doing. Take your time.”
I have to bite my lip.
He says, “I love you, Lucia. Zuccherina ”
“I love you too, Bruno.”
My cheek is wet.
“I’ll be right there.” He hangs up.
I have to face the fact that Chicago can’t or won’t get along with our relationships.
While I’ve got no idea where Alessio’s head is at right now, I don’t really know where I stand with Bruno and Carlo for sure, either. With Carlo, I could be solid but at this point, I just can’t tell.
I know that Alessio needs his non-blood-family brothers, almost as much as he resents and scorns them. The fact is, unless I’m tight with all three of them, I don’t know or certain if I’m secure with any of them.
Jerry’s talk of franchising and ‘made guys’ is definitely working on Don Romano. He’s hot to trot.
And, as far as I can see Alessio is in with Jerry’s plan, though I really wonder if Jerry is leveling with him about that.
And we’ve still got a rat. And the Cascades deal looks like it’s dropping down a hole. And, most important to me, Im losing my kings, my loves. My men.
Damn I want to cry.
I set brunch for the four of us out on the patio. It’s not too hot and we have a view of the ocean through the trees. Sipping coffee, I can’t help thinking of the view from the ridge at Don Romano’s hilltop property.
First I think about getting the trees cut down. Then I realize the house would be exposed and visible on at least two sides.
I try to get my head straight. Jerry wants me to give up everything.
Not only to step away from heading the family businesses, but to cut my ties with Alessio. With all my men. I don’t know if I’m even capable of that.
But have known men like Jerry. They tell you they just want one thing. But they will hammer on and on for that one thing like it’s their holy grail, their life’s quest. And so, they wear you down until, under pressure and duress, finally you give in.
By then you’re thinking, ‘It’s not so much. And it’s only this one thing.’
But, of course, it’s not.
As soon as you give in to the first demand, they’re back with the next one. And it’s the same. It doesn’t seem so much, but it will get them off your back. And then on to the next. And so it goes on. And it never stops.
With a man like Jerry, any time there seems to be a choice, the choice winds up being between on the one hand doing what he says, or on the other hand getting whacked.
Bruno bursts through the door and he comes running through the house and out to the patio.
He grabs me into his arms and pulls me to him, knocking all the air out of me. He wraps me in a huge hug. Strokes my face and runs his fingers in my hair as he takes a long kiss. He holds me close. “Are you alright, Lucia?”
I look into his face. “Yes.” I stroke his cheek. Poke my fingers into his hair and grip. “Yes, Bruno.” For this moment, I forget everything. I kiss him, tasting and relishing the tangs and scents of him and the crush of his hot, strong mouth.
I tell him. “I’m okay.” Right now, I am.
His eyes gleam and shimmer as they move, looking in my eyes and flicking to look at all of my face. He says, “For now.”
And he holds me tighter.
Bruno is so instinctive and he understands me so well, it almost makes me choke.
We hug and I cling to him like a woman drowning in a storm, holding on tight to the mast of a sinking ship. He strokes and soothes me until I calm down a little. His voice is gentle but so strong and reassuring, it makes me grip him tighter.
He says, “There’s got to be a way through this.”
When Carlo arrives, he comes around the outside of the house to the patio. My heart leaps to see him. I’m running to hug him, but I stop when I see the look on his face.
“Alessio says he can’t make it for brunch. He apologized and said he was in the middle of something and he didn’t have time to call.”
“He called you and told you that?”
“Yup, micia . That’s what he said.”
“He called you to tell you that he didn’t have time to call.” Carlo nods. Then shakes his head.
Bruno says, “Prick.”
Carlo flinches. “Me? Or him?” He shrugs and says, “Or both?”
“No. Him.”
“It’s okay. I felt like a prick as I was coming here with the message.”
I hold his shoulders and pull him to me. It feels so good to hold him.I’m furious with Alessio again for what seems like the millionth time for dropping that bucket of cold water on our meeting.
“You? Why should you feel bad?”
“Because I should have told him to poke it and to deliver his own wet, scummy excuses.”
Bruno asks, “Did he say what it was he was doing that was so fucking important?”
“No. But by then I wasn’t really listening anyway.”
We all drink coffee and juice, eat toast and scrambled eggs, but the air feels thick and heavy.
Eventually, Bruno brings up one of the things we all don’t want to talk about. He says, “So, what’s your take on all this, Lucia, what do you think? Is this Chicago making a play, or is Alessio’s wise guy uncle out on a limb here?”
He narrows his eyes and shakes his head.
Then, retreating, he says, “Anyway, what difference does it make? Either way, it’s a threat and we’ve got to kill it. I say we take out Jerry and see what comes after.”
I ask, “Carlo?”
“Sorry, Bruno, but that’s short-sighted. He’s a made guy and he’s one of the tall trees in Chicago.”
“Not the top.”
“Not the top, no. Not even the top family. But still. He’s a noise. Whatever the story is, if we whack him, we would need to be ready for some serious comeback.”
We all look at each other.
I say, “I don’t know, I really don’t.” I’m still all ground up about Alessio not showing up here. “I wanted to bring us all together so at least we could all say what we felt.”
Bruno says, “I hate him making the rest of us feel like we’re not enough just because he’s off playing whatever fuckwit game he’s into right now.”
Carlo adds, “It’s not completely impossible that he simply couldn’t find the guts to be here and face us all right now.”
I know that we’re all thinking it.
Carlo wants to be put in the picture, so I tell him, “I went to Chicago. They were pretty understanding, in fact. But they won’t take my side against Jerry.”
So Carlo says, “What are you going to tell Jerry?”
“I don’t have much of a choice. You know the thing care most about is, whichever way it all goes, how can I keep Alessio on side? With us?” I look to Bruno.
He says, “No point asking me. I do love him, but he’s an idiot.”
Carlo says, “Me either. Sorry. I’ve talked to him. Or, I’ve tried talking to him at least. I think Jerry has taken root in Alessio’s brain.”
Bruno grabs my hand across the table and says, “Don’t make me choose, Lucia. I won’t choose Alessio against you, but I don’t want to have to choose you against him either.”
It’s like another kick in the gut. I can’t keep my face from collapsing.
“So that’s your answer, Bruno?” I knew this wasn’t all just going to blow away and I told myself that I was braced and ready. But, now that I’m face to face with the crevices and gulleys that are opening up between all four of us, I’m really not prepared at all.
Bruno’s brow pinches and dents as he looks at me. “I’m going to stay at the old house and hope that you two can sort it out between you.”
“And if we can’t?” I say, “If I can’t make Alessio see sense?”
“I’m hoping it won’t come to that, Lucia. I don’t want to lose you. Or him.”
Carlo says, “I want to say that I have a better plan. I always want to be able to say that I have a better plan than Bruno. Obviously.” ewe nearly laugh. “But this time, I don’t.”
I slump.
“So, you both don’t want to side with Alessio and against me.”
I have to stand. Walk around the table.
“But you’re both staying in that old house with Alessio, instead of coming to live in the house we’ve built together. The house that was designed from the foundations for us to be together in.”
“Lucia…” Bruno pleads.
I go on, “You don’t want to side with Alessio, but you’re both staying with him and you’re leaving me in this big empty house, all alone.”
Even Carlo can’t make it any better. He tries, but it’s no good.
I tell them both, “You’d better leave,” they’re getting to their feet reaching their hands towards me, but I turn.
“Please. Before I say or do anything I can’t take back.”
As they leave, i feel like that time may already have passed.
I’ve sent away the two of my three men who I just might not have completely lost.
I feel hollow, empty and adrift. Lost like a dead flower on s stormy sea.
More times than I can count, I’ve heard Alessio happily admit that he wouldn’t be able to run half of our businesses. He doesn’t have the first clue how the sports books work. To him, the events ticketing operations are like voodoo, but in Dutch or ancient Greek. I’m pretty sure that if he tried to run just one of our bars and he had nothing else to do or worry about, I would give it a month before the bar was broke, bankrupt, and shuttered.
He’s a great leader. I would say he could be world-class. And he has many of the qualities of a fine general. But as a businessman? He would be bored to death on the first morning. By the end of the week he would be setting fire to things just so he could see something happen.
Whatever Jerry’s game is here, I am certain that it’s not whatever he’s telling Alessio it is, and it’s definitely got nothing at all to do with what he’s telling me. It looks to me like he’s working for a total takeover of the whole Pacific Northwest region.
From the darkness, one more possibility pokes out its ugly head; what if Alessio really is all in on that with Jerry?
However much I love this house, I’m starting to hate all the empty spaces.
I can’t stand to call Jerry. i know that if I speak to him, voice to voice, I’ll lose it.
Instead, I send him a text.
I’m ready.
Meet me in the roof garden of Sun-a-do at 5 this afternoon.
To drive the point I send another text straight after .
I’ll have you cleared for admission as my guest