7. — pills and priorities. #2
“Where is your unofficial underboss on a day you’re sitting down to talk to a capo and the family’s fixer about a potential problem? As you put it,” Salvatore demanded.
Fire met calm when Giorgio lifted his head so the two could lock in all over again. The boss wasn’t very good at hiding his emotions because he never needed to. His opinion was the only one that mattered in the room. People reacted and behaved accordingly for the man’s entire life.
There were consequences to that type of thing, and Marco was a good example.
“What would be the plan for Nico?” Giorgio then asked Big Mike.
Again, the beefy capo shrugged. “Can’t he just freewheel? I think if he can make a million a year in his free time, he can do whatever the fuck he wants on mine.”
“Structure matters, trust me.”
Salvatore rolled his eyes. “You know what structure did for Nico while he’s been living on my estate because his father couldn’t bother to look at his face? The grout has never looked better. Give me a fucking break, Giorgio. Please.”
“You’re pushing it,” the boss warned.
Salvatore cocked an eyebrow in challenge.
“By telling the truth? Nico has partied, fucked, and fought his way out of that type of shit. He spent his entire teenaged life doing those three things in rotation, to the detriment of himself repeatedly. I know, I cleaned up after him every time you called for me to do it. He got just bored enough with a little bit of leeway in Miami to do something and look what came out of it.” Salvatore pointed a finger at Big Mike.
“Let him freewheel. Tell him to mind the territory.”
Giorgio’s jaw worked back and forth, teeth grinding. “That is the structure, Sal.”
“Perhaps it would benefit us all,” Salvatore replied calmly, “if you would also start structuring around others. That way I won’t have to, Big Mike won’t have to concern himself with why it’s needed in the first place, and Nico can go about his day without a care. Win, win, win. Hmm?”
Giorgio didn’t get to respond. The door opened and a waitress strolled in with her signature red and black uniform, and a platter full of sandwiches and drinks. A perfect distraction.
Salvatore immediately grabbed a steaming coffee, one of three in open to-go cups. “Thank you, I’ll take this for the road. You don’t mind, Mike, do you?”
“Uh...”
Giorgio tried to stare Salvatore down again. “We’re having a late lunch. Sit with us, eat.”
Salvatore shook his head and reached inside his jacket.
Pulling out the two rose-gold placards with black embossed writing on the front, he placed them on the table and slid the postcard-sized invitations down the wood top.
Frankie’s graduation-slash-eighteenth birthday party and dinner had a set date and time now, and with these two invitations, the first of many would soon hit mailboxes.
“Something else you asked me for,” Salvatore told the boss. “I’m sure you’ve been talking to Christiano about his side of things, which is still handled. If there isn’t anything else, anything at all, Giorgio, I have other priorities today.”
“Like what?” Big Mike asked around a bite of roast beef and sour bread.
“My daughter.”
“Shit, go, man,” the capo replied right away.
Giorgio wasn’t happy about it. Salvatore could see it written all over his face. Somehow, the boss still waved him off.
“Yeah, yeah, go. Good luck to her today.”
That cemented it for Salvatore.
Giorgio had known.
The bastard.
···
A chopper flight and short drive later, Salvatore took the open seat in the stadium stands with Sissy at his right, and Carina on his left. Neither of them noticed that he’d dropped in and he figured out why immediately.
Beyond where Nico stood bent against the field barrier, Frankie had the ball.
The crowd around and beyond in the stands roared with excitement while Sissy’s crossed knee bounced nervously on her leg.
She didn’t look away from the field, sitting back in her seat with arms crossed.
Carina, on the other hand, had her eyes closed, red-bottomed heels tapping against cement, while her fingers pressed against her lips.
“There you go, girl,” Sissy murmured suddenly, eyes lighting up.
The crowd hollered louder.
“There you go,” Sissy repeated.
Salvatore zoned in on his daughter heading beyond mid-field to beeline it for the opposition’s net.
Behind him, Larkin, his two closest employees and their four kids, stood and started shouting.
Even ahead, with the ball back in Frankie’s control, Nico stood straight at the barrier.
Arms crossed, he practically stomped his booted foot through the cement as he shouted his approval with a loud get it hollering across the field.
“She’s amazing,” Carina said beside Salvatore. He realized she’d been looking at him when he hadn’t been watching her. “But some of these girls are—”
“That’s part of sports,” Salvatore interrupted, unable to stop his spreading smile. “When you stand out from the rest, you make yourself a target. It’s worth it to take the penalty for some to take out the best, because then you have a real chance at winning. It’s dirty, but it’s sports.”
Carina scrunched her face up in the cutest way, squeaking out, “She spit blood at a ref.”
“What?”
Sissy filled in the details. “First quarter, they went right for the immediate answer. Try to take her out. Racked up five minutes in penalties before the ref called a time out because a Flyers girl pretty much body slammed the next one that tried it.”
“Oh, okay then,” Sal murmured, eyes back on the field. “And the ref got spit on because...?”
“Elbow to the face; the ref said she barely touched her.”
“Right.”
The tussle with the ball twenty to thirty meters from the net had Frankie breaking away and running closer to the goalie. This maneuver had been practiced by the team repeatedly. They only had to get the ball and move it to her.
Frankie looked back to catch the sight of a kick her way, and she immediately positioned her body for the oncoming ball. Everyone stood up when she caught that ball mid-air for the shot. A shot that cleared the net with inches to spare to tie the game with less than a minute on the clock.
Approving cheers reverberated within the stadium. Larkin grabbed Salvatore by the shoulders, shaking him in congratulations as if he’d just done that amazing fucking thing.
“That’s all yours, boss man,” Larkin praised.
In a way.
“There she is!” Nico shouted through cupped hands that he clapped after.
Salvatore used two fingers to whistle across the field, a sound that Frankie would’ve recognized could she hear it while the team celebrated on the field. It spilled into the outbound line, while those on the sidelines scrambled. Another, louder, horn blared.
“Timeout!”
The speakers around them crackled. Teenagers scrambled up in their grass-stained jerseys to head for their respective benches at the sides of the field. Francesca, the first up from the pack of tumbling, happy girls, didn’t seem to hear the call for a timeout as she headed their way.
The coach shouted for her, but she didn’t hear him, either.
Her run picked up speed as Nico, wide-armed, leaned further over the barrier.
The section brought them near field-side, but the border had some height to it.
Nico needed to lean out to catch Frankie’s outstretched arms. The exchange happened fast, but while everyone else continued to celebrate the shot, Salvatore watched his daughter.
She didn’t see him.
“Did you see that?” she practically cried to Nico.
“That was all you. I told you so.”
She pulled him in for a hug, and he one-armed it back with a laugh.
“You gotta clinch this up in less than a minute, do you get me?” he asked her. “You got this. We’re not running into overtime here.”
Her head bobbed in response.
“What’s the fuckin’ deal?” he asked when the two pulled away, gazes locked in a contest that rivaled Salvatore’s earlier moment with Giorgio. “What’s the job?”
“Get me the ball,” Frankie replied.
“There you go.”
“Are you in on this or not, Gallo?” the coach shouted. “How much time do you think we get for a timeout? Come on!”
His yell didn’t matter.
She already turned back.
Halfway to the team’s benches, Frankie looked over her shoulder at the section meant for her.
This time, she did see her father standing next to the two women sitting on either side.
Her smile brightened her entire face, instant and brilliant.
He made the heart she loved so much with his thumb and pointer finger, earning him one back.
The exchange drew Nico’s attention, as well.
“They’re going to win this,” he told Salvatore, who nodded back.
Totally oblivious.
But not Salvatore, he saw it. That moment between them that proved even an unlikely friendship could bring connection. He seriously considered, if not monitored or discouraged, whatever that had been between Nico and his daughter would quickly grow. Or rather, it could.
Salvatore felt a tug on his hand. Carina’s pointed fingernails scratched gently against the inside of his palm as his ass hit the seat.
He let her take his hand. It gave him time to think.
Her other hand patted the top of his before her fingernails drummed a beat.
It stung enough to get his attention given the way she found his newly healed scars without trying at all.
“What?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” she told him.
“You don’t.”
A cherry red nail poked him again. “It’s nothing.”
“Right now, maybe.”
Carina met his gaze, unflinching. “Tell her no and mean it, Sal. You’ve never done it in her entire life. Tell her no.”
“How about if we just don’t give it attention?” Sissy asked them both.
“Well—”
“Well, nothing,” returned Sissy. “She’s going to be eighteen in a couple of days, and a good drive away in an entirely different location a short while after that. Where’s the boy going to be? Hopefully busy. It’s nothing.”