Chapter 11
Pietro
The Caruso long table had a rhythm, and I was learning it by heart: Dante at the head, back straight, sleeves rolled precise to the wrist; Marco to his right, already on his second espresso and quietly pocketing the good biscotti; Salvatore opposite, scanning every face like he was drawing a map; Tonio at the end, legs sprawled, with Olimpo’s huge head dropped like a medicine ball across his boot.
Me, I was supposed to be running point. Instead I was picturing her.
Angela over my knee: it played in my head like a bootleg tape, jumpy and saturated, stuck on repeat.
Her scalp bowed to the floor, hair in her face, hiding her eyes but not her breath.
The way she tried to swallow every gasp, every shiver, as if silence could buy her something.
The ten she’d whispered—barely a whisper, more a promise to herself than to me—had nearly ruined me.
She was so sure she wouldn’t make it to five, so panicked when she did, squeezing the cushion with both fists, knuckles white, but still she counted.
Counted like she owed me and herself both, like she believed the math might save her.
Her voice had broken on six, cracked open on seven, and by eight she was shaking so hard I thought she’d splinter.
She didn’t. She only pressed her fist to her mouth and rode it through, stubborn as a bloodstain.
When it was over she’d stayed where I put her, as though the world made more sense upside-down, on my lap, her cheek to my thigh.
All that fury and static burned out of her marrow, replaced by something dangerous and soft.
I’d said, You are forgiven and she’d practically burst—she’d come so hard it left a wet patch on me. I felt her body buck, heard her breath catch. Then, she’d said thank you like it was the first real air she’d ever breathed.
After, in my bed, she’d curled above the covers—hypervigilant, braced for the next thing, wanting and terrified—and I’d known I could never let her go.
Not just because she was a problem, not just because I was supposed to “protect the asset,” but because she was the first puzzle I’d ever wanted to solve with my teeth, not my fists.
It was better than any movie. It was worse than heroin. It was an ache in my gut that pulsed with every beat of my heart, growing sharper every time I tried to smother it.
I didn’t even realize I was grinning at nothing until I caught Sal’s look from across the table.
He was watching me through hooded eyes, like he knew a secret and was trying to decide if it was worth the trouble to say it out loud.
Marco just kept twirling his spoon, but he’d shifted his chair a few degrees, so the lines of attack were now all in his favor.
Tonio, oblivious as ever, was scratching behind the dog’s ears and making a show of not listening to any of us.
I’d missed whatever Dante was saying. It was about the airport crew, something about product, coming in and out.
Guns, drugs, whatever. An extraction—someone had mentioned an extraction, maybe?
Sal had printed the dossier, and Marco had color-coded the highlights for the kind of nerd who needed the visual.
The only words I caught were extraction, window, and professional.
I tried to pick up the thread. Dante finished, then let the silence go for a second, eyes on the city outside.
Sal cleared his throat. “Pietro,” he said.
I blinked. “Yeah.”
Sal waited, then: “Your take, cousin?”
Ah. Fuck.
A pause. I opened the dossier like I’d been reading it all along, but it was sideways. Sal’s eyebrow went up. Marco smirked behind his coffee.
Tonio grinned, teeth bright. “Fratello, dove sei?” Brother, where are you. It was the kind of thing he’d say if you’d missed your stop on a bus and wound up in Indiana.
I said, “Thinking,” and closed the folder. I improvised, hope I’d be near enough to buy me some time to catch up. “The men at the airport are C-list, but they’re not here for anything casual. We have to be vigiliant, anyone could be the target.”
Tonio made a noise. “What about Olimpo? Maybe they’re here to extract a dog.” He ruffled the fur behind the brute’s ear. Olimpo didn’t even lift his head. He just opened one suspicious amber eye, then rolled it closed again.
Marco said, “If they touch the dog, we leave them in pieces.”
Sal nodded, which was approval, or at least the closest he got to it.
Dante drummed his fingers on the table, slow, then let the hand fall flat. “We have forty-eight hours before they make the move. No doubt we’ll find out what this is all about then.”
I knew this was important, had to be, but I didn’t care. All I wanted to talk abiout was Angela, what the boys had dug up on her, how I could keep her safe.
There was a beat of silence. Marco’s eyes flicked across to me. Just a second, a little muscle twitch at the side of his mouth, like a private joke. He knew. Of course he fucking knew. You can’t live in this life and not see when a man’s been shattered.
Dante saw it, too, but he didn’t say a word. He just took in the room, the way he always did—like he was looking at a chessboard and every piece was already accounted for. He poured another coffee, black, topped off Sal’s mug, then stood.
“Fifteen-minute break,” he said. “Olimpo’s restless and I need the air. Then, the real business.”
Tonio snapped to his feet. “Dog walk!” Olimpo rumbled and thumped his tail once, a slow-motion wag.
Marco was already halfway to the terrace, phone in one hand, a biscotto between his teeth. Sal stayed at the table, watching the steam from his cup, thinking a thought so heavy you could feel it in the concrete.
I exhaled, felt the sweat under my shirt, felt the tension crawling under my skin. For a minute, I was grateful. I could get out of the room before I had to answer for myself. Maybe not forever, but for a quarter hour, I could be just a man on a walk, not a man with a secret.
I shoved the chair back, left the folder closed, and followed the dog and my brother out the door.
The air outside was sharp, dry. Tonio led Olimpo out and let him off the leash. The dog did a circuit of the brick, nose down, then flopped onto his side in the single patch of sun and rolled, paws in the air, a clumsy display of joy that didn’t fit the mood.
Tonio stood with his back to the door. He put his hands in his pockets and stared at the sky like it might have an answer for him.
For a long minute, he didn’t say a word.
Just breathed, watched the white vapor leave his mouth and disappear.
I waited, arms folded, watching the way his shoulders squared against the cold.
Finally, he said, “Fratello.” Not loud. “You seem distracted. How are you, really?”
I smirked. “Never better.”
He shook his head, no smile, still staring at the clouds. “Don’t do that. Don’t make it a joke. I’m the only one allowed to do that.”
I said, “What do you want to know?”
He turned, then, face open and raw in a way I hadn’t seen in years. “Pi,” he said. “It’s been two years since you even talked to a woman. I have been waiting. Hoping. But at least you talked to me. Now, since you started guarded Angela, you don’t say a word. Tell me. I’m worried about you.”
I looked past him, at the city skyline, and picked my words like they were glass on a plate.
“I’m in love with her, Tonio.” It hurt to say it, but it was a good hurt, like air on a healed wound.
“It’s the dynamic Marco lives. I asked him for help.
She signed the contract. It’s better than anything I’ve felt since before. ”
Tonio’s face did something I hadn’t seen since we were kids.
He grinned, wide and bright, but then it faded into a kind of private happiness, quieter, the joy of a man who’d hoped for you for a long time and finally got proof you might make it.
“You are really in love?” he said, voice low. “Like—crazy, movie kind?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
He gripped the back of his neck, squeezed once. “You know, I always thought you’d do this first. Before me. You were the one who loved first, Pi. Even when we were children.” He laughed, but it wasn’t mocking. It was proud.
I shrugged, felt heat rise under my collar. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“Who would I tell?” He looked up, then said, “Are you honest with her about everything?”
I didn’t even blink. “Yes.”
He studied my face for a second, then nodded once, slow. “That’s good, fratello. That’s all I wanted. And she feels the same?”
“I think so.”
“Five days? It’s been five fucking days and he’s in love!” The smile on his face was warm and broad; a reminder of why I loved him. Tonio loved life, loved me, loved everyone. He was a nightmare, but he was our nightmare.
He reached out, clapped my shoulder, and turned back toward the house. “Come on. Dante will have us sweeping the whole city if we’re not back on time.”
He left. Olimpo rolled, let out a long huff, and crawled up to my feet. I knelt, scratched behind his ears, let him lean his enormous head into my palm.
When we came back in, the table had reset: mugs topped off, biscotti replenished, folders realigned to the inch.
Marco was already back in his chair, phone face-down, the look on his face the one he wore when a plan had finally landed where he wanted it.
Dante stood at the window, watching nothing, and Salvatore was in his usual spot, hands folded, as if he’d never left.
Olimpo flopped under the table and let out a groan. The noise echoed.
Dante didn’t sit. He kept his hands in his pockets and waited until the last of us was settled.
Salvatore reached into his folder and slid a single piece of paper down the table. It came to a stop in front of Dante.
“So. Important work.” He sighed. “It’s Valenti. Enzo. He’s bought the Halberd contract.”
The room went dead quiet.
My pulse throbbed in my temple with anger. Trust Sal to fucking wait, patiently, while we discussed other business—unimportant business—before dropping this on my fucking head.