Chapter 34 #2
We end up in the kitchen, because Rosa declares we’re not standing around in a drafty foyer. Benedetti doesn’t seem to mind having coffee with the staff. He’s charming to Rosa, and I catch Vito giving him the side-eye.
“He’s a married man,” I mutter to Vito. It doesn’t help.
Twenty minutes pass. Then twenty-five.
“Shouldn’t they be done?” I ask Benedetti.
“I have trained my grandson to be thorough. These things cannot be rushed, Signor Orsini.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Caligula says to me, calm and steady, and I realize he’s been managing me this entire morning.
Smoothing edges, redirecting tension, making this whole thing work.
He brought Benedetti into my world. He made this happen for Sammy.
And now he’s sitting at my kitchen table drinking coffee like he belongs here.
The worst part is, he does.
He belongs here. In my kitchen, with my people. And I need to kill him before the week is out.
At last, we hear laughter in the corridor. Actual laughter from Sammy, which might as well be a miracle.
“...just down here,” Sammy is saying, and he jogs down the steps into the kitchen, followed by Ricky, and I can only stare.
I’ve never seen Sammy look like this. Lighter. In his face, in the way he holds his body, in the way he’s grinning at this Benedetti kid like the world just got a little bigger.
“We’re all done, Gramps,” Ricky says to Benedetti. “We even went through the samples, and Sammy picked out the fabric he wants.”
“Sammy doesn’t know what fabric he wants,” I say at once. All it gets me is a kick under the table from Caligula and a glare from Rosa.
But I don’t think Sammy heard me, because he’s too busy blushing at Ricky Benedetti, who is looking at me now like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “Oh, he knew exactly what he wanted, Mr. Orsini. He’s got a great sense of style.”
Fan-fucking-tastic. Does this mean I’m gonna be spending another fortune on a Vanquish II suit? But I can’t find it in me to protest, not when Sammy is smiling so wide at the compliment this suave motherfucker gave him.
Rosa makes them coffee at the counter, and the two of them lean their heads together, talking about something—I catch the word Guggenheim—and Sammy’s face has a kind of openness I’ve never seen on it.
He’s always been guarded, always armored, always flinching away from warmth.
And this kid with the easy grin and the good clothes is somehow getting past all of it in half an hour.
When Benedetti and his grandson finally leave, Sammy’s phone gives an alert almost immediately. He checks it, and color floods his face as he fights down a smile.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“Ricky wanted my number.”
I open my mouth to say something about security and not giving out numbers and the Bratva threat—
“Ricky is such a nice guy,” Caligula says warmly. “And he seemed to like you a lot, Sammy.”
Sammy is pleased for about half a second before he remembers to glare at Caligula. Then he turns to me. “When will the suit be ready? Will Ricky deliver it?”
And despite everything—Big Gee’s ultimatum, Daniel King, the plan I can’t execute, the golden-eyed man that I’m supposed to hand over or kill—I almost smile. Sammy is so young and so transparent and so goddamn hopeful right now. I’ve never seen him like this.
I guess it’s a good thing that someone in this house can have a few minutes of happiness.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “But you shouldn’t be going out on dates right now, anyway,” I add. Because it’s not about Sammy feeling good, it’s about keeping him alive.
Caligula gives me a look—an exasperated expression that I’m pretty sure means shut the fuck up and let him have this—and Sammy’s face has fallen.
It’s his birthday, after all.
“Not right now,” I amend. “Once things settle down, you can see him.”
“But when will—” Sammy begins.
“Let’s have dinner,” Rosa says quickly, because I think she senses that this conversation is only going to end in tears and slamming doors—which admittedly is how conversations often end between Sammy and me.
We follow her back down to the kitchen, and we all eat around the table, and Sammy won’t shut up about some artist he and the Benedetti kid both like, until he gets another text, and then he gets real quiet and real busy on his phone for the rest of the night.
After dinner, Rosa pulls out a cake worthy of some of the best bakeries in New York City. She adds some small wax candles, just ten of them, even though Sammy is a lot older than that, but she says each of them represents a wish that Sammy can make.
The whole thing seems pretty childish to me, but even if it is, everyone else seems to like it. And as Rosa dims the lights and the candles glow, I find myself looking at Caligula Clemenza. His eyes look even more golden than usual, and he’s watching Sammy with a fond smile.
Whatever else Caligula is—a liar, a Clemenza, a schemer, a survivor, the son of my father’s murderer—he’s kind when it counts. Kind without expecting anything in return.
Sammy leans over with a big grin and blows out all ten candles with one breath. I bet I know what his wish was.
Rosa flicks the lights on and starts cutting the cake, and the room fills up with warmth and chatter and the small, ordinary sounds of people being happy together.
Vito eats two slices. Sammy accepts a third when Rosa pushes it on him.
Even the Clemenza eats a piece, and Rosa gives him a look that might contain the faintest trace of approval.
I stand against the counter and watch them. My people. Under my roof. Safe, for now.
Then Caligula looks over at me and smiles, and I think: four days, now.
I have four days left to kill him.