Chapter 4—Bobby
I hold in my laughter, but my shoulders still shake as I watch the absolute horror on Marco’s face.
I don’t think he believes in dragons. Learning of their existence isn’t the shocking part.
It’s more that a child so pure would ask him to defend her from imaginary creatures, or anything else that might threaten her.
He looks to me for help, and I take pity on him.
“Marco is still learning how to take on dragons. He might not be able to fight them at the moment.”
Lily glances at me, then nods, seeming deep in thought before looking back at Marco. “I’ll write some training tips for you to study. It’ll help. I’ve been fighting them for years, so I know what I’m talking about.”
I look away to keep my smile of mirth away from the child. I don’t want her to think I’m laughing at her when she’s so serious about it.
I take in the building in front of us. A run-down apartment building with bars on the windows and a chipped glass panel near the front door.
The people around us aren’t the worst, and I have little doubt that my car will be fine.
People in places like this know who I am before I even step into the area.
They know who my family are. It’s the expectation.
But I’m surprised when a face I recognize, along with the name that goes with it, catches my eye. We hold each other’s gaze for only a second before Ivy pulls my attention away.
“Hi, Mr. Jimmy.” She waves kindly as her mother smiles at the same man. One I know isn’t known for his niceties. When he waves back, I’m almost shocked.
“Hello, ladies. How’s the weekend going?”
“Well enough,” Ms. Frazzer says as she unlocks the door and lets the girls inside, followed by me. Marco stays outside.
I don’t plan to stay long, just enough to help carry the science project inside. Ivy takes it quickly from me but doesn’t turn to go up the stairs like her sister, who’s already climbed three steps.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Ivy asks.
I should say no. I don’t.
Her words have baffled me into silence, and as I look at her mom, it’s clear they’ve done the same for her as well.
“Oh, yes, please stay. We’re having fancy pasta tonight,” Lily says with a bounce down the steps. She grabs my hand to pull me forward.
I’m stuck in my spot and only sway at her movements as I look at their mother to seek some guidance. I wouldn’t force an employee into something like this. While I know there’s zero chance of danger in it for them with me, I also know I won’t be harmed here.
Jimmy would have warned me.
“Um, I….”
“Please?” Ivy asks.
Ms. Frazzer’s mouth closes after the initial drop at her daughter’s first request, and she smiles softly. “It’s nothing special, but you are welcome to stay.”
Something shifts inside me. I’m not sure if it’s the little girl tugging on me, the plea in her older sister’s eyes, or that Ms. Frazzer is looking at her girls with pure joy on her face rather than at me that has me accepting.
“I’m sure it will be wonderful.”
Lily shouts in glee, and Ivy turns in triumph to march up the stairs.
Their mother chuckles. “Doubtful, but it’s your taste buds.”
I hesitate only for a second before following them. I pull out my phone for a moment to let Marco know the plan.
After several flights of stairs, we make it to their door, and with a quickness only a mother can have from dealing with kids and knowing that being slow to get the door open only causes trouble, Ms. Frazzer welcomes me inside her home.
Taking two steps in, I stop and school my expression. Their place is small for one person, but they all live here.
A small TV sits on a cubby that also holds their shoes as they put them inside a fabric box, along with the high heels Ms. Frazzer was wearing.
She puts on slippers, and I don’t miss her sigh of relief.
The girls do the same, and I wonder if it’s because they mimic their mom or if they don’t have any other shoes to wear.
The couch is only a futon and well-worn, but the blankets thrown over it make it homier rather than sad.
The kitchen isn’t grand, but decent for one in Brooklyn.
Stove and fridge and a conventional oven taking up half the counter space, which isn’t much space at all.
I see two other rooms, one a bathroom and the other a bedroom.
From this angle, it looks as if the bed takes up much of the space of the small room.
Small for a family, yet still somehow feels fuller than mine has in a very long time.
“Mommy, can we watch cartoons?” Lily asks as she sets down her bag and starts pulling out tons of coloring sheets.
“Just until dinner is ready, honey. Ivy, can you make sure the volume is kept low?”
Ivy nods and goes to turn the television on.
“They like to keep it loud?” I say it as a jest. I know my brothers preferred to hear it from across the house, as we did more than one thing at a time.
“More like our neighbors complain if it’s loud enough to hear it in here.” “Here” being the kitchen, which is only maybe four feet away.
I shake off the instant urge to argue about it being ridiculous and demanding Ivy turn it up as loud as she wants, but this isn’t my house. This isn’t my neighborhood, and I have zero claim to any of it. I’m a guest, simple as that. I should have already left.
“How can I help, Ms. Frazzer?”
“You can call her Mommy,” Lily supplies from her place on the floor as she recolors one page.
“He can’t call her Mommy. That’s what we call her,” Ivy says in a way only an annoyed sibling can.
Lily looks over her shoulder at her sister for a second and then nods. “Right.” Then she looks back at me, meeting my eyes, which haven’t left her since she told me to call someone Mommy. “You can call her Willow. That’s what friends do. And you are friends, right?”
“Yes, honey, we’re friends.” Willow says quickly, ending the discussion and bringing the focus back to just us two. “And no, I think I can manage, Mr. Leone.”
“Bobby.”
She stills as she fills a pot with water and looks over at me. I hold her beautiful eyes and embrace the full weight of them on me.
“After all, we’re friends.” I cock an eyebrow and give her a side smile. It’s meant to relax her, and her shoulder dips as she does.
“Bobby.” She nods and turns to put the pot of water on the stove. “This won’t take long. Can I get you a drink?”
Hard liquor on a day like today is my usual, but I’m not foolish enough to ask. “Water would be fine.”
She shakes her head, a small cringe crossing her face. “Sorry, but the water tastes horrible from the tap, and we’re out of bottled water. I have apple juice and milk, if that’s okay.”
“Milk, please.” Something I don’t recall having since before my father died.
She pulls down four glasses and evenly pours all the milk in her jug into the cups.
“Do you think your giant wants to come for dinner too?”
I turn back and look at Lily, who isn’t even looking at me but at the paper she’s working on in front of her.
“No, he’s already eaten.”
She hums in response as if that explains everything.
I glance back at Willow, who catches my eye with a look that reads straight through my bullshit.
It’s not even six. There’s no way he’s had dinner.
I usually don’t even eat until closer to eight myself.
I’m not keeping him outside to watch my car, or because I don’t think they have enough to feed him as well.
Though it is painfully obvious that Willow and her girls are scrimping by, yet have no problem sharing their meager blessings with someone who can buy this building without even putting a dent in my daily income.
No, it’s because I’m selfish. And I enjoy having their attention on me and me alone.
I’ve lived a very nice life. Sure, some of it was dark—death always is. Whether I’d sentenced someone to it or it occurred around me, it was always there, but I never wanted for anything. The darkness never overtook the light.
I grew up in a loving home with my parents until my father was killed when I was barely learning to drive, but I still grew up well.
My family and the famiglia made sure of that.
I was raised well, but not silver-spoon fed.
I worked, doing what needed to get done and making sure others did as well.
I didn’t look down on someone who had less, only thought less of someone who didn’t work but wanted more.
You make your own way in my opinion. Nothing should ever be handed to someone.
Something I’m sure not everyone believes in this day and age.
Being here with Willow and her girls has me appreciating what I have.
It’s humbling. And it’s the exact thing I needed.
Life has become predictable of late. No surprises.
Nothing to make me see humanity as anything but greedy bastards.
My job, both the legal one and the one Vinny and the famiglia deal more in, has me seeing men and women all for the grabbing and taking.
Being on top seems to bring out those types of people more than ever.
Tommy’s girl, Payton, isn’t like that, but he’s already called dibs on her. And other than a pretty face, nothing called me to her. I might like the cover of a woman, what society calls “pretty,” but it’s her mind that I fall for. It’s been a while since I’ve found my match.
But Willow has surprised me more than once today with how clever she is and how quickly she picked up on the issues at my company that apparently have been going on for half a decade and no one else noticed.
Or they just looked the other way because it required actual work, digging in by hand and not just letting an algorithm or some AI program do it for them.
“Dinner’s ready.”
I turn and smile wide at the “fancy pasta.” Ramen. It’s absolutely perfect.
The scrape of furniture has me turning to see the girls pull a coffee table, which was in the corner by the only window in the place with plants atop it a second ago, to in front of the television.
The plants are now on the ground by the window.
I move quickly, lift it, and set it down where Lily had moved her pictures.
“Lily, Ivy, let Mr. Leone have the couch. You two get the floor.”
“Oh, I don’t mind.” I grab the two bowls out of her hands and set them down, then go back and bring in the others while she and the girls carry the milk. “My brothers and I used to have fort dinners with our mama when we were kids. Some of my best memories were eating in them.”
I can tell from the look Willow gives me as she sits on the other side of me on the floor that she doesn’t believe me.
But that’s fine. I don’t need her to believe me for it to be true.
I’ll also do just about anything at this moment to keep the little girls smiling.
Something about each one loosens something inside me.
What I once thought was just a dark hole in my chest is slowly beginning to see sunlight.
“Boss,” Marco greets me as I exit the building with a nod. He’s standing right by the man I want to see.
I hold out my hand and shake Jimmy’s. “Jimmy.”
“Sir.” He gives me all the respect I earned from not only my family’s name but my own.
“What are you doing here?”
“Tommy told me to keep eyes on his property.”
I raise an eyebrow at that. “Property.” I let it out slowly. That one word can mean a lot of things in the famiglia.
“Yes, sir. He bought the apartment building a few weeks back. Gift to his girl or something. I’m to keep eyes on it and make sure it keeps standing.”
Interesting. I wonder if this is the same property Payton was staying in, or if it’s just a random one he bought for her.
I don’t recall seeing a deed come across my desk, so he must have bought it with his own funds and not the family’s.
We all have our own way to make income outside the famiglia.
It helps with taxes and keeps us from relying on a group fund.
I deal in investments, and Tommy gets his extra spending cash from underground fighting clubs.
He’s got several women who win enough to keep him living well.
“Want to double your payout?” I ask without a second thought.
“Sir?”
“The woman and girls I walked in with. I see you know them.”
He glances at Marco a second before looking at me and nodding. Good. He needs to be worried, at least a little. Makes me think he’s smart enough to do what I ask.
“Keep eyes on them too.” I don’t involve myself with things like this.
Then I walk away and enter the car without Marco holding the door. I know he’s ironing out the details with Jimmy. He does the minute tasks, while I focus on the big picture.
Willow is smart and sees things my business needs so we can stay on top and not lose out on any more money. Having her and her girls looked after is a financial investment to help me save money long-term if she finds any more files like the last two.
Sure, I could have someone else do it, but I trust her.
Willow isn’t after a payday. She didn’t seek me out to get my attention for something else that might win her some favor.
She only brought it up to save time for me when she thought I was behind on something.
Something I had no clue was an issue until she brought it to me.
No, having Jimmy look after her is a good business decision.
Nothing at all to do with the pure joy I felt in her home. At being entertained by two little girls as they told me stories and made up games all throughout one of the best meals I’ve had in weeks.
As Marco gets in and pulls away from the curb, I look out the window and imagine what they might be doing.
Probably getting ready for bed soon. I learned quickly that the girls share the full-size bed in the bedroom and Willow sleeps on the futon.
No one complained, and they just spoke about it as if it was normal.
How can three people teach me in such a short amount of time that while I might be a very wealthy man, I’m beyond poor compared to their relationship with one another?
“Sir, are you still able to meet Vinny? He wants to discuss the Maranzetti problem.”
I sigh. Bedtime isn’t coming for me like it is for them. “Of course. Let’s go.”