Chapter Seven
Dante
I’d seen countless women come running out of those woods full of terror.
It never really bothered me.
Not until it was Hazel.
And there was blood on her face and hands.
I could tell from the look that Dom sent me as I said I would take Hazel home that he was questioning my choices. And later, when I made it back, I would insist it was simply a way to distract her, to prevent her from calling the cops and having them swarm all around an actual mob front.
I knew, though, that it was simply about wanting to take care of her, to wipe that blood off of her skin, to soften the shock and horror in her eyes.
Besides, Domenico might have been a mediocre manager, but he was a great fucking mobster. He would wait until the headlights were gone, then grab a flashlight, head into the woods, find the body, assess what happened, and call in the higher-ups to figure out our next moves.
By the time I made it back, I would not only have squashed the potential of Hazel calling the cops, but someone would have an idea of what we were dealing with.
Hazel had been stony silent the whole drive across town to her building, sitting there with her hands on her thighs, bloody palms up, almost looking like she was in deep meditation.
It was shock, of course. And it was going to take a bit for her to wrap her head around everything to, hopefully, compartmentalize it so she could move on.
I led her into the elevator, then down the hall toward her apartment before using the key from her chain to unlock the front door.
Considering she’d only been in town for a couple of months, the whole space was surprisingly cozy, done in that shabby-chic style that was featured in all my mom and sister’s favorite old rom-coms: chintz patterns on the curtains and throw pillows, perfectly mismatched accent table lamps all over the place, trinkets on any tables, art on the walls.
It made it effortlessly look like this place had been lived in and well-loved for decades, not mere weeks.
I moved around flicking on lights, then led her down the hallway to find the bathroom. Even in the small space, she managed to add personality with a blue and white striped linen shower curtain, wall art, and what looked like peel-and-stick tiles on the wall.
I sat her down on the toilet before rummaging around to find her very basic first aid kit. No packaged saline, no wound spray, no petroleum jelly—just bandages and antibiotic ointment. It would have to do.
I wet a washcloth, watered down some soap, then went to work on the scratch on her cheek before cleaning up her much dirtier hands.
She sat stoically, barely even flinching as I cleaned the blood and dirt out of her wounds before slathering on some antibiotic ointment and placing the bandages.
“Out of curiosity, when was your last tetanus booster?”
She slow-blinked at me for a moment. “Um… three months ago. I cut my foot open on a rusty nail inside my closet when I’d been cleaning it out to move.”
“You’re all set then. How about we make you some tea… hot chocolate? Whatever your chosen hot beverage is.”
“Tea sounds good. I can make—” she started, getting to her feet.
“Yourself comfortable while I make the tea? Yeah, you can do that.”
She shot me a soft smile at that, following me into her kitchen that also served as her dining space. She’d put a small metal bistro set in a buttery yellow under the only window in the room, giving her a view of a particularly colorful old oak tree in brilliant shades of yellow and red.
“Huh,” I said as I moved around, adding water to her electric kettle and turning it on.
“What?”
“You drink something like a gallon of coffee at work. But you don’t have a coffee machine at home?”
“Oh, well. As you can see, my kitchen is roughly the size of a large fish tank. So sacrifices had to be made. I opted to do pour-over coffee at home, so I can just have the electric kettle on the counter. It leaves me about eight inches of space to prepare food.”
“Yeah, this is a rough amount of workspace.”
“What’s your kitchen like?”
“Torn down to the studs and perpetually making the rest of the house dusty, despite the plastic door being up.”
“Redecorating?”
“Out of necessity. I had a leak we couldn’t find. Did so much tearing out that it just made sense to redo it all.”
“What’s the vision?”
“Rustic Italian kitchen. Warm stone or bricks, creamy colors, wood, maybe pops of green or copper. The kind of place that looks like where a family would gather.”
“Planning for the future?”
“Something like that.”
“Your mom must be loving it.”
“She said I gotta do the spare bedrooms next.”
“Did she pick out the names for the grand babies yet?” Hazel teased.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a baby name book with pages flagged.”
“Is the family still trying to hook her up?”
“They are. Now even some of the aunts are involved, claiming that the girls need the advice of older women to know what my mom might be looking for.”
“How do you think your mom is going to react?” she asked as the kettle clicked off and I found a mug and the teabags.
“I honestly have no idea. Maybe if she knows we’re all okay with it, she would be interested. She can be pretty traditional and is probably worried about how we kids feel about her ‘tarnishing’ the memory of our father or something.”
“Were they really in love?”
“That’s… complicated, I feel, with the older generations. There was love, but it was more the comfortable kind of love than anything wildly passionate. And my father got more difficult as the years passed.”
It was likely the stress of the Family business, though I couldn’t tell Hazel that. Things hadn’t been as stable then as they were now. Those were the ugly days when there were bodies falling every couple of months, lots of funerals for the family to attend.
And as much as I liked to preserve the happy memories of my father, I had to admit that he’d been tenser, angrier and more distracted toward the end of his life. As much as the kids felt it, I had to imagine my mom got even more of it.
“What do you think of her dating?”
“I think, if she wants to, it would be good for her. It’s hard to be alone. And as much as our family is huge and someone is always around, she’s still alone a lot of the time.”
Though her dating did come with its own complications when it came to the Family, our business, and our need for trust and secrecy.
But that was a bridge we’d cross when and if we came to it.
“How are your hands?” I asked when she mixed some sugar into her tea and carefully picked up the mug with her fingertips.
“They burn a little. But it will fade. I’ve skinned my palms countless times. I can’t believe that just happened.”
“I’m sorry you had to be the one to see it.”
“Better me than one of the kids, I guess.”
“What were you doing working alone?” I asked, bothered by that little fact. Not because I didn’t trust her, but because it just wasn’t safe.
“Ant told me that a guest had thrown up in the woods. I went out there to clean it up. And I guess by the time I was done everyone else had wrapped up their stuff. I’m usually working late alone, though. Kind of micro-managing things.”
I had no idea who Ant was. But she’d hired three new employees since the last time I’d seen her to help the place run more smoothly.
“You were on puke duty? As an operations manager?”
“Felt mean to make the kids do it. They seemed like they all had plans to go out after work. I was taking the shovelfuls deeper into the woods when I caught sight of something.”
“We don’t have to go into that again if you want to try to put it aside for now.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” she said, shoulders relaxing a bit. “I should probably prepare myself for giving a statement, though.”
“Let me worry about that for you, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I found the guy. It’s not like you saw who did it, right?”
“Right. But…”
“I’ve got it. Don’t worry about it. But on that note, I should probably get back to it.”
“Okay. Right. Of course.”
Did I worry she might have more questions when the fog of fear and shock fully cleared up?
Sure.
But I could deal with that when we got there.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.”
She wasn’t overly convincing. But I couldn’t exactly stay all night either. My phone had been blowing up in my pocket since I’d finished cleaning her up.
“Thanks, Dante. Really.”
“It’s nothing,” I assured her, reaching out to touch her cheek and pretending not to notice how she leaned into the touch ever so slightly.
That was a complication I really didn’t need. Things were fucked up enough as it was. It would be easier to keep her out of it if I kept her at a distance.
I said my goodbyes and texted one of my soldiers to give me a ride back to the garden center.
As soon as he dropped me off, though, I knew something had gone sideways.
Not only was our boss, Luca, there. But so were all my brothers. And cousins. Every capo of the Grassi Family was standing in a semicircle with serious looks on their faces.
“What is it?” I asked when I made my way up to them.
“Who is it is what you want to be asking,” Domenico said.
“Come on,” Luca said, handing me a flashlight. “We have to show you the body.”