25. Teo
25
TEO
T here are a hundred things I should be doing right now. Most of them start with me picking up my phone.
A mere glance at the screen tells me I’ve missed calls from almost everyone at the Guild. Messages are incoming even as I lie there and simply watch. There’s no confusion as to why.
Leon Natali declared war on the Guild when he burned down the casino. The fact that I let him go in order to come here will not sit well with anyone. Nor will the fact I openly attacked the cartel, which will likely antagonize Amos Rubio to retaliate in kind.
If I’m not very, very careful, I will have a war on two fronts.
And though I’m fairly confident that the Guild could handle the Prince’s Hand, throwing the cartel into the mix will complicate things. They’ll complicate things a lot.
The Guild and the cartel’s mutual existence in Brooklyn has never been peaceful. Despite the fact the Guild’s main trade is luxury goods and entertainment, whereas the cartel focuses on narcotics, there’s just too much crossover.
Both sides have dabbled in the other; both sides have pushed the limits and been burned for it. And the docks are always the most contested territory as both rely so heavily on imports.
As a kid, it had all felt like mindless politics to me. But now…now, it’s my responsibility to fix this mess.
Only, I can’t bring myself to begin.
Isabella lies at my side. Her golden hair drapes over her naked shoulders and shifts in time with her breathing.
Evidence that she is alive despite the darkening bruise around her neck.
I’m so grateful for each of those breaths. For a moment, I just lie there, counting them, letting them bring me no end of comfort.
But the slow headache begins to build, and I know it won’t leave until I’ve had some caffeine. With a sigh, I disembark and head toward the kitchen, content to busy myself with the mundanity of making coffee.
By the time I return to the room, Isabella is awake and propped up against the headboard.
Her expression relaxes when she sees me. “Is that for me?” She nods toward the second mug in my hand.
I hand it to her wordlessly before getting back into bed. It’s oddly domestic when I crawl back under the covers, and she instantly curls into my side, humming happily as she sips her drink.
Then she freezes slightly. “Is this…”
“A skim latte with two pumps of vanilla? Yes, it is.”
“You know my coffee order.”
I smile as I press a kiss into her hair. “What kind of psycho stalker would I be if I didn’t know that?”
“You’re a bit of a freak, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
She hums again at this, a sound that is quickly becoming one of my favorite things.
For a few short, blissful moments, we just lie there in comfortable silence, neither of us wanting to be the first to ruin the moment, but both knowing that it is inevitable.
Eventually, Isabella puts her empty mug on the side. “We have to fix everything today, don’t we?”
“Sounds a bit impossible.”
“I enjoy a challenge,” she says lightly, but when she turns to face me, her expression is devoid of humor. “But where do we even start?”
I grimace back. “The beginning, I suppose.”
“So what, we need to cover almost a century of our family feuds? The Vitales and the Natalis have been at each other's throats for generations.”
“Okay, so when did that start mattering to you?”
She thinks about this for a moment. “Well, I suppose, when they stole the casino from my mother and killed her parents.”
“ Took the casino back,” I correct automatically.
“Teo.”
“Fine. Okay. For argument's sake, let's say both our families have equal claim on the Prince’s Hand casinos.”
“Sorry, did you just say plural? There was only one casino the last time your family stole it.”
“ Took it back,” I mutter. “And had my family remained its custodian, we would have twice as many locations as you do.”
“That’s unverifiable.”
“But is this really the point?” I say, already wanting to smash my head against the wall. “This is personal because my grandparents killed yours, correct?”
Isabella looks at me strangely. “You don’t care about the casinos, do you?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, belle , I’m the don of an entirely different Mafia now. Getting those casinos back would be great for my pride, but it’s just another thing to manage on top of everything else.”
“So let Leon manage them for you,” she says as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. “Blue sky thinking, okay? The Prince Hand and Guild start working together. Leon can keep running the casinos and even help open up locations in Brooklyn.”
“And what, the Guild could venture into Manhattan?” I want to laugh at her. “Why would either party go for something like that when war is already on the cards, and the winner takes all?”
“Because we have a common enemy,” Isabella insists. “The cartel took it personally when Leon attacked in their territory?—”
“Not their territory.”
Isabella rolls her eyes. “ I know. And then you went and killed a near dozen of them on an apparent whim. Do you really think they’re not going to retaliate? You said it yourself, Teo. We’re all Italian. It doesn’t matter to them.”
“So, in this wild theoretical future, we all hold hands, make up, and drive the cartel out of Brooklyn?”
“With the Prince’s Hand, you could drive them out of New York.”
We stare at each other as this sinks in.
It would take a lot more than holding hands for an alliance like that to work. Hell, even if I got down on one knee and married Isabella this afternoon, it wouldn’t be enough to convince the two warring sides to unite.
But…there’s something alluring about the thought of the united Italians ruling New York. A pipe dream, one that all factions of organized crime have at some point thought up. But a dream, nonetheless.
I let out a long sigh. “Maybe. Theoretically, it might be possible. But the discussion is entirely moot, isn’t it?”
Isabella gets an irritated crease on her forehead. “Well, maybe if you and my brother actually sat down and had a civilized conversation about it?—”
“I can’t.”
“Teo—”
“No,” I say firmly. “This may have become personal for you when your grandparents died, but your parents murdered my family. I can’t…I can’t just pretend like that didn’t happen. I can’t forgive your mother for what she did.”
Isabella runs her hands through her hair as if she’s trying to tug it out. “My mother didn’t do anything! Your parents set mine up! They agreed to a meeting, only for yours to set the place on fire.”
My neck almost snaps with how quickly I look at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She glares right back, the stubborn tilt of her jaw telling me she has no intention of backing down.
“Your parents invited mine to their home for so-called ‘peaceful’ negotiations. But it was a trap. They locked my parents inside and tried to burn the place down. You can’t blame my parents for escaping, even if it cost them their lives.”
My jaw feels like it might fall off entirely.
“You…you think it was my parents? That they started a fire in their own home?”
“I know it was your parents.”
Something inside me churns, and I have a dangerous urge to vomit. “Who told you that? Did she tell you that?”
“You’re going to sit there and tell me my mother is a liar?”
“ YES!”
“Fuck you, Teo. You weren’t even there. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“But my SISTER WAS,” I all but roar in her face. “You think my parents would set fire to their own home, knowing that their eight-year-old daughter was sound asleep upstairs?”
Isabella suddenly goes very, very cold. “W-what?”
“She didn’t tell you?” I would laugh if it wasn’t so fucking painful. “Of course, she didn’t tell you. Why would she?”
“Tell me what. Teo, tell me what?” Her voice, though quiet now, is laced with desperation.
It’s strange that things were so warm before when we were just drinking our coffee and enjoying each other's company. Now, it’s almost as if I can see the ice crawling up the walls, the clouds of breath that escaped her trembling mouth.
She didn’t know.
This whole time, she thought I was fighting to settle some kind of generational score.
“Isabella,” I say softly before stopping myself. I’m trying to find the right words.
“Teo!”
“I…” I swallow and take a long breath. “She was sick that day. We were both supposed to stay at Rocco’s, but she was too tired to get out of bed. So I just…we just left her there.”
Isabella’s eyes are already filling with tears. “No.”
“She was only eight. The doctor said the fever would pass overnight, and my mother wanted to stay by her side. But the meeting with the Natalis was important. My parents fought about it before I left for Rocco’s.”
I look away. “The last thing I said to her was to get better. That I’d see her again in the morning.”
Isabella makes a strangled kind of noise.
“They told me after that my parents…their bodies…they were in my sister’s room when they found them. They must have gone up to get her, but by that point, it was too late.”
“She…she wouldn’t,” Isabella croaks through her tears. “She…she…”
Instinctively, I pull her close to me as the misery of my words wrecks her body. Her grief is so shockingly familiar I feel my own heart clench at the sight of it.
My sister’s death, my parent's death, is a burden I have carried my whole life. But I never suffered under any delusion about who was responsible for it. Even if there’s still a part of me that wants to blame myself.
Isabella is not only learning the horror of the truth, but also that she was lied to about it by someone she clearly trusted.
And though our grandparents, and great grandparents and generations of Vitales and Natalis are probably turning in their graves, I hold her all the tighter.
After a long while, her body stops shaking and a muffled voice whispers into my chest. “She admitted it. I didn’t realize then, but she said she would have happily cleaned up the loose ends. ”
I let the familiar wave of anger rise and fall within me. “I’m sorry, Isabella.”
“No,” she half chokes. “No, don’t you dare. It’s me that needs to apologize.”
“Don’t. It still doesn’t change anything, does it? She’s still your mother.”
She opens her mouth to protest but seems to think better of it. “She needs to be brought to justice for this.”
“You know what kind of justice I require.”
Isabella shakes her head. “No. No. Don’t do that. Let me talk to Leon. When he knows the truth, he’ll cast her out. We’ll abandon her, we can…”
Her mouth suddenly goes slack.
“What?”
“Leon,” she squeaks.
“What about Leon?” I say more urgently.
She looks at me with wide eyes. “Phase two. Teo, we need to stop him.”
“Stop him from what? Isabella. Tell me right now.”
She scrambles to her feet, suddenly looking absolutely terrified. “He set fire to the casino when? Yesterday? What time?”
Baffled, I get to my feet, too. “It was afternoon…late afternoon.”
She curses loudly as she whips around the room, searching for her clothes. “He knows the only way to defeat the Guild is to get to you. But when that happens, he needs a clean surrender. There can’t be anyone left who would remain loyal to you.”
I rummage for my own clothes as cool dread slips down my spine. “What are you talking about?”
“Rocco,” she cries. “He’s going after Rocco.”