Epilogue
LUKA
One month later
I set the third and final box of books in front of my bookcase.
Edie wanders over. She’s in her favorite light green dress and beige hat, hair curling softly around her heart-shaped face. “What are those?”
“I’ve been shopping,” I say to her. “Take a look.”
She opens up the box and gasps. “Books!”
“A man can’t have fake books on his bookshelf.”
She beams at me, delighted. “You know what this means.”
“What?
“We have to figure out categorization!”
We spend the afternoon putting the books in piles in what she calls preliminary categorization, and then we start filling the shelves.
It seems like a lifetime ago that I pulled her out of that fucking cage that psycho put her in.
We spent a few weeks searching for a seaside home for Edie to share with Mary.
We ended up getting two side-by-side cottages, one for Mary and one for Edie and me for when we drive out from the city.
As much as I’ve enjoyed getting to know Mary, I want privacy, especially since I plan to spend a good deal of time there doing things that require privacy.
I head around the kitchen island and start putting together a charcuterie board.
Edie turns and grins at me. “You ready?”
“Ready for what?”
She goes to where I put the hated fake cardboard book facades and rips one of them the best she can, which turns out to be half ripping and half folding, and then she stuffs it into the recycling bin, repeating the process with the others.
“You know those were perfectly good fake book shells.”
“There’s no such thing as a perfectly good fake book shell, thank you very much.”
I go to her and kiss her. “So, how long have you been waiting to do that?”
She laughs into the kiss. “Since the moment I laid eyes on them.”
“Hate at first sight.”
“You got that right.”
I could not love this woman more.
I dump a tin of candied nuts into a small bowl and set it next to a hunk of brie. “We need a gouda on here.”
She holds up a yellow trade paperback. “What is this one? Million Dollar Teams ? What is that?”
“It’s about creating high-functioning teams,” I say.
“I didn’t know you got this. It looks good. I’m making a contemporary nonfiction section, which I might split into business because you have a few of these.” She grins. “Your businessman books!”
Edie is endlessly amused that I might apply business principles to running my clan, but it’s gotten to be a fad among the Albanian clan leaders .
In any case, a crime organization is a multimillion-dollar enterprise, and a good business book can be valuable for somebody in my area of work. Thanks to the last book I read, I’m focusing on the strongest lines of business and learning how to streamline resources and functions to support them.
I never wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps to be a kyre , but I’m loving it, truth be told. And I have my own vision for it that’s different from whatever fuckery my father and brother were up to with their shitty management, which I’m still unwinding.
I’ve created a stronger alliance with the Dragushas; we helped him and his brother get that meeting with Razvan, no circle cookies, no cops. If Lazarus is out there, Razvan Bektashi will find him. And he’ll kill him.
It’s almost sad. Lazarus is such a fucking psycho, such a force of nature. The seventh criminal wonder of the world.
“Next thing you know, you’re going to be hiring an HR manager,” she teases, slotting in another one of my business books.
I set a bowl of crackers next to the finished charcuterie board. “I don’t know if there are a lot of HR managers who’d be willing to deal with an untrustworthy employee by putting a bullet in their head.”
“Mr. Big Bad,” she teases.
“That’s right, princess.”
I fix us each a lemonade raki smash, a drink we invented together that involves fresh-squeezed lemonade, simple syrup, and mint, while she arranges the books on the shelves.
I catch sight of the book on forgiveness, which she puts next to the management books. It’s one she brought over here.
She bought the book thinking about her mother.
Mary had completely fallen out of touch with their mother, and Edie always did the bare minimum, showing up for quick, sad little holidays. The three of them are trying now, and it seems like their mother has mellowed a bit .
I haven’t met her yet. Edie says she’s not ready.
She confessed one night over dinner that she’s protective of our happiness, and her mom has a track record of wrecking things.
“I’ve always kept the precious parts of my life away from Mom.
My favorite people, my passion for history.
I want to change that, but she has to show me she’s ready. ”
I assured her that I was not going anywhere.
Mary has been doing great. She’s been keeping up with her sobriety and attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings religiously at a community center out by the seashore home.
She even has plans to start a little dessert bakery in the nearby town.
She’s identified a storefront that will be perfect and is rumored to be going on the market soon, and she’s been developing recipes and sourcing ingredients.
Orton, of all people, has expressed interest in being an investor.
“What’s the problem?” Orton protested when I roasted him about it. “I can try out a legit business sideline. It’s called diversification. You should look into it.”
Edie and I sometimes suspect it’s about more than simple diversification.
We’ve had dinner parties where Orton and Mary seem to get lost in their own little world of conversation.
They excitedly agree on the most random subjects, too.
Who knows what will happen, but with Orton as an investor, they definitely won’t be selling any ring-shaped cookies.
Edie is finishing up work on her degree, and she’s writing a proposal for her young adult nonfiction book on Anastasia Laskarina.
She wakes up some mornings bursting with new ideas for it.
Sometimes, we’ll be in the middle of a meal or sitting in the jacuzzi or walking somewhere, and she’ll get an idea and start scribbling furiously in the little notebook she carries around.
She stands back. “So far so good.”
I hand her a drink. “So good.”
We continue on, debating how the arrangement would work best. In the end, we decide to make distinctions between classic and contemporary works, genre fiction and literary fiction, business nonfiction and general nonfiction, and historical books.
It’s nice. It’s not about just looking better, though it does, but this place is mine. This life is mine. Edie is mine. I pull her into my arms for a kiss.
“What?” She’s laughing.
“You.”
She wriggles away, still laughing. “I was thinking about adding an ‘up next’ section where we identify books we might want to read next. For convenience. For grab and go.”
“When I’m in the mood to grab and go, I’m not thinking about books.”
“You are the worst,” she says. “They’re your shelves. You want a grab-and-go section right here?”
“Nearest to the door. I like that.”
There is a twinkle in her eye. She goes over and picks up the fake book shells. “And these? Where should we put these? I know they’re your favorite.”
I go to her and take them from her hand, tossing them aside. “You’re not going to let me ever forget about these, are you?”
“How could I? Of all your many horrible crimes—” She picks up her glass and takes a sip. “Mmm.”
“All my many horrible crimes.” I go to her. “Tell me again what you think about criminals.”
She gives me her mischievous smile.
“Tell me.”
She slams back her raki drink and hands me the glass. “I love one of them very much.”