Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tre
As soon as we get in the house, Joaquin asks for a first aid kit.
“Why do you need it? Where are you hurt?”
He hasn’t said anything, so I don’t understand what’s wrong. I didn’t see him get hurt.
“When we were in the stairwell.”
I shift to look at him from each side, and that’s when I notice his suit coat sleeve is torn. I peel it off him and spot the hole in his shirt.
“You got shot?!”
“It’s a graze.”
“You got shot!”
How did I not notice?
What kind of Cartel girlfriend am I if I’m too self-involved to see when my boyfriend’s injured?
“Tre, it’s a graze. And if I’d wanted you to know while it was happening, I would’ve let you. But we needed to get you home.”
I stare at him, not at all pleased with that explanation.
But I don’t want to pick a fight, certainly not with any of my family within earshot.
Instead, I fetch the first aid kit and tend to the nasty abrasion across the outside of his left upper arm.
Compared to what happened to his back after the car bomb, I suppose I understand how he can call this no big deal.
I don’t agree, but I get it. While I tend to it, men debrief my dad about the gunshots we heard.
The first three were from the truck that followed us.
The rest were from my dad’s men. They broke the Charger’s side-view mirrors and shattered the truck’s rear window, but that was all.
Both vehicles drove off, and no one appeared injured.
If I hadn’t been next to him, Dad would’ve had more to say about it, but he kept himself in check.
I watched Joaquin while the guards explained the situation, and I could tell that he was even more pissed than my father, but he maintained an entirely neutral expression.
This isn’t his home, and they aren’t his men.
But the vein in his right temple was raised slightly.
It’s the smallest tell, but I’ve noticed it’s a giveaway when he’s angry.
He caught me watching him and cocked a brow.
I shifted my gaze to the floor which earned me a pinch to my ass the next time he stood next to me.
In the end, it was blessedly anticlimactic after everything else that happened today.
Mom gets home twenty minutes after Joaquin and I did. By the time she drives through our gate, everything’s as close to normal as it ever is. Salvatore arrives ten minutes after that. While Joaquin’s pleasant around my mom, his entire demeanor shifts when Salvatore walks through the door.
My boyfriend disappears and the experienced senior Cartel member emerges.
The arrogance I almost never see radiates from him, plus pure unbridled animosity.
My dad’s accusation appeared to roll off his back while my mom and I were around.
He hid it until my mom and I were walking toward the patio, but I turned back before we went through the French doors. The hatred pulsed off him.
“Sit with me, mo chuisle.”
My mom and I share the swinging seat. We’ve spent countless hours here.
I can remember all the way back to crawling on her lap for stories before falling asleep.
Then sitting beside her while she taught me to braid my hair.
I actually had my first glass of wine with her when I was seventeen.
Hated the taste but loved the time with her.
“Trish, what happened today will undoubtedly happen again. You’ve lived with this danger your entire life, but you’ve never been attacked before.
Being the don’s niece and the retired capo dei capi’s daughter protected you.
But you live in a different city now, and you’ll marry into a rival family.
You need to understand what this means. What it truly means, not what you think it does. ”
I stare at my mother. It’s been a long time since we sat out here for her to give me life advice. The last time was when Steven and I started getting serious. It was the most mortifying conversation of my life at the time. I remember exactly what she told me too.
If you want to remain a virgin, one of you needs to have underwear on at all times, or you won’t come home one.
Among the sagest advice ever given, but I wanted to melt into the tiles. While I eventually didn’t come home a virgin, I’ve remembered that when I’ve started dating a new guy and wanted to keep things from going too far too fast. Clearly, I threw that advice out the window when I met Joaquin.
“Trish, you won’t fill the role Aunt Stella does. That’ll be Florencia one day when Pablo becomes jefe de jefes. But you’ll be under scrutiny just like I was. It was hard for Stella when she moved here from Chicago, but she was already Cosa Nostra. It was fecking miserable for me.”
Remnants of her O’Rourke upbringing poke through from time to time.
She uses feck instead of fuck. Somehow, even though they mean the same thing, it’s not as shocking when she says it since she never swears in front of Tristano, my cousins, or me.
I know she swears up a blue streak when she thinks none of us can hear her.
Not only does she swear, her choices are…
colorful. I’ve learned words in three languages I never would’ve heard from anyone else.
“What did you do? Didn’t Dad shield you?”
“Of course, he did. But we couldn’t be together at all times.
The scrutiny was suffocating because it came from every direction.
There were times when I had to help Stella and Tori with families while the guys were away or there were responsibilities that fell to the women.
Misogynistic as that sounds, would you want your fathers or uncles consoling a grieving wife or kid? ”
It’s not like they’re incapable of being nice or compassionate. It just doesn’t come naturally directed at anyone outside our family. You can tell.
“So, what did you do?” She’s piqued my curiosity.
“I made sure no matter what happened, no one outside the family saw me cry. It was a good decade before I eased that cardinal rule. I made sure I was early to any event that required setup or cleanup. I did just as much as anyone else, but not too much more. I didn’t want to come across as showing off.
It’s a fine balance between a hard worker and coming across as approval-seeking—even if that’s exactly what you want.
I learned Italian and Sicilian as quickly as I could.
Part of it was a sign of respect, but mostly, I wanted to know what was going on around me.
People knew I was, so it lessened the gossip around me.
I was never, ever alone with a man who wasn’t your dad, especially not your uncles.
I would give no one fodder for that gossip.
There are a lot more men in the Diaz family than there were Vizzinis when I got married. ”
It’s not like we live in a Godfather or Goodfellas movie where Saturday nights are for the wives and Friday nights are for the girlfriends.
It’s not like a woman can’t have guy friends without it being a scandal.
But I get my mom’s point. Just like these families will tear each other down to build themselves up, the women will tear each other down to build their husbands, boyfriends, fathers, and brothers up.
“It’s hard not to be around them. If anything deviates from the normal schedule, one of them accompanies the woman if her husband can’t.”
I try not to sound frustrated because I know she speaks from experience I don’t have, but I don’t see how I can avoid being around the Diaz men without Joaquin.
A breeze cools the back of my neck, and I need it because my frustration’s overheating me. I want to crack my knuckles, but I know how much it irritates my mom.
“I know. It was the same when I was an O’Rourke.
Your sisters-in-law and cousins-in-law can get away with it, but you can’t.
In our world, outsiders are automatically suspects the moment anything goes wrong.
Men and women alike will look for excuses to name you a failure, a spy, a traitor.
Most won’t, but some will. It only takes one to sour the families.
The Diazes won’t fault you for it, and they’ll make sure it stops as fast as it started.
But damage will be done the moment an idea passes someone’s lips. ”
Everything my mom says makes sense, but it weighs heavily on me. I’m already feeling more emotional these days. Today was fucking insane. It’s almost too much, but I need to hear it. Considering who’s inside meeting with Dad, my uncles, my brother, and Joaquin, this conversation needs to happen.
“Trish, that’s just the Cartel families.
It doesn’t begin to cover the other ones.
The O’Rourkes won’t condone anyone mistreating you, and they won’t allow it among their families.
But neither will they rush to your defense.
Don’t trust the Mancinellis or Kutsenkos and their Andreyev cousins any farther than you can throw them.
Considering the men are all huge, that would be not at all.
You know Sylvia’s rule. If you can’t get to the Diazes, then go to a Mancinelli house.
They’ll give you safe haven until Joaquin can get to you.
But that’s only if you’ll die if you don’t. ”
She takes my hand in both of hers, and I cover hers with my other one. If I didn’t want to be with Joaquin with every fiber of my body and soul, this would be enough to make me come back to Boston. But home is with him now.
“I wish you could get to know the O’Rourke women more since we’re family, but it wouldn’t be easy. Maybe one day, but not today. It would endanger all of you and send the wrong message to both families’ enemies. It would only enlarge the target on all of you.”
“What about Sera?”