25. — you’re mine, homicide.
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Staten Island, New York
Salvatore, Russo Estate
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“They’re young,” Giorgio mused.
Still standing at the boss’s side, where Salvatore would unfortunately remain unless and until dismissed, he took note of the man’s attention that continued lingering on the couple of the hour as time passed. A good three hours into the Christmas party, and Giorgio wouldn’t let it go.
A leg crossed over his knee; his thumb and finger pressed to his cheek as he observed Nico and Frankie dancing a room over from their current spot near the decorated fireplace crackling in the sitting room. Giorgio only moved to watch them.
“Too young, I think,” the boss continued. “Eighteen and nineteen, that’s too young.”
“Weren’t you barely twenty when you married your first wife?”
“We’re not discussing me,” Giorgio snarled under his breath. “I do what I want to do—I am the boss.”
He wasn’t when he married her.
Salvatore tried a different route. “No one said they’re rushing down the aisle. It’s just...a formal step.”
“To what end?”
“Hmm?”
Giorgio glanced up at him, dark eyes searching. “To what end would the next step be getting married at eighteen and nineteen? I can only think of a couple; none good.”
“He’ll be twenty in a couple of weeks or so.”
“Hmm.”
Salvatore tried not to roll his eyes, and seriously wished Giorgio would just let it go. But no, like a dog on the hunt, the man swore he found a bone. He would not be letting go until he dug the bone straight out of the body to which it belonged.
“I asked for them to wait until she turned twenty, anyway,” Salvatore lied, hoping it would end the issue.
Those two would be married before his grandchild came into the world. In no universe would someone feel permitted to call that baby a bastard because the parents lacked wedding rings and a legal document.
“Did you now?” Giorgio questioned.
“Well—”
“What does Carina think of...this business?” Giorgio cut in, unwilling to bend. Ever.
“She doesn’t have an opinion; she left before the engagement became official, anyway,” Salvatore lied easily.
He didn’t like liars; didn’t like being one. That’s what Giorgio made him, though. A liar.
“Yes, that does seem to be a cycle with the two of you, doesn’t it?”
Salvatore eyed the man in the chair; grateful he couldn’t be seen doing so. “What does that mean?”
“Don’t be daft,” the boss replied, “you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t.”
Giorgio sighed deeply, clearly annoyed if the way he glanced up at Salvatore with a warning in his eyes gave any indication.
“It’s been a decade of this bullshit between you and her.
Wouldn’t catch me dead letting my wife parade around the world doing whatever the fuck she pleased whenever she got mad at me.
No, I wouldn’t allow it. You thought I hadn’t noticed how you two only get a couple of good months before she’s on the warpath again? ”
“My wife can do as she pleases, because she is my wife,” Salvatore replied, carefully choosing his words knowing it could make or break Giorgio’s mood. “That was the deal you and I made, correct? You got the baby, and I got the problem.”
He wanted to say woman, not problem.
But alas. Careful words for a careless man.
“Well, that she is. Your problem, I mean. Why didn’t you pass this through me, Sal?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That,” Giorgio muttered heavily, his stare narrowing on the same spot his hand extended to gesture toward. Nico and Frankie now danced slower, but her back tucked against his chest as he slung both arms around her neck and spoke in her ear. Whatever he said, she smiled. “That is...”
Giorgio couldn’t seem to come up with appropriate words.
Salvatore cleared his throat and took a page from Carina’s book. “I think they’re in love.”
“You think?”
“Look at them and tell me what you see.”
“A boy that thinks with one head instead of two and a girl better suited to a man with higher standing.”
“Higher than a boss’s son, Giorgio?” Silence answered Salvatore’s question. He didn’t mind. He just posed another quieter. “Or does it just depend on the son?”
Giorgio’s head snapped as if on a swivel. “Excuse me?”
“If this were Marco, would we be having the conversation at all? Had he brought home a woman of his choosing, decent or one of ill repute, would we be having this conversation right now?”
“That one will be forced down the aisle, so the question is irrelevant.”
“No, it isn’t, you just don’t want to answer.”
“You are out of line, Salvatore. I feel like that’s been happening a lot lately with you.”
“Mmm, no. I think I’m right on the mark, actually.”
“I’m starting to believe you’ve forgotten your place.”
In fact, he couldn’t forget it and the barely hidden threats didn’t concern him. Salvatore decided right then to prove his point just because he could, and Giorgio needed a good kick off his high horse.
“Had the roles between those boys been reversed, and Marco got thrown on my doorstep as something to clean up for you, and months later he brought my daughter to your home to share the news of his engagement to her, you would have been ecstatic.”
Giorgio scowled.
Salvatore continued, “As if he might ever come close to deserving her. As if that, I would’ve given my blessing.” He scoffed. “Right.”
“And what, Nico does?”
Oh, he could hear the offense Giorgio took in his tone. God forbid someone put down the Golden Child of the family. One might think, from the outside looking in, said title belonged to Carmen. They would also be wrong.
“Here’s what Nico doesn’t do,” Salvatore countered, smirking a little.
“Nico doesn’t purposely seek out things his brother likes and is proud of to ruin and destroy.
Nico doesn’t intentionally hurt and humiliate his brother because he’s jealous, or because his father paid him more attention at any given time.
Nico doesn’t, as often as he can manage, make it his personal mission to be seen as better, or above, his brother. He doesn’t have to. He just is.”
Salvatore chuckled, knowing good and well Giorgio wouldn’t like what came next in the slightest. “One of those boys went to college, whether he got expelled is neither here nor there, given the choice he made that got him kicked out in the first place. One of those boys tattooed his body top to bottom just because he knew you hated it, and it would get your attention. One can sit at a table with men who are his betters and learn from them, and the other needed six abortions arranged for various girls, younger than him, and caught two STIs by the time he hit sixteen. Shall I continue?”
Again, Giorgio said nothing through clenched teeth.
“One knows the rules; the other doesn’t care.”
“Sal.”
“One will make millions of dollars this year and next.”
“Sal.”
“The other keeps burning out the properties of a man—”
“Okay, the point is made,” Giorgio hissed, glowering.
“Boss,” Salvatore replied, as respectfully as he could manage, “If you want to ignore what’s right in front of your face, then suffer for it.
Don’t expect everybody else to do the same.
If Marco doesn’t like to be behind his brother, then he should stop trying to compete with him.
He’s causing his own misery. Besides, he’ll never catch up because it’s not a race, and Nico isn’t trying to win.
He’s just happy. Ask yourself why that alone bothers Marco enough to behave the way he does.
Maybe then, we’ll get to the real root of the issue. ”
“What is it about, then? Between them,” he said, gesturing at a couple that had disappeared deeper into the room.
That relieved Salvatore. Giorgio didn’t make a move to get up and adjust his seating as he had for the last three hours just to keep watching, either.
Giorgio acted like he didn’t hear anything else his consigliere said. Or maybe, he just didn’t care. Both could also be true.
“They want each other, Giorgio. They’re a good match.”
It was true, even if a baby hid between them. That’s how the baby got there, after all.
“And he is a good man,” Sal added about Nico, “even if you can’t see it.”
“I see it.”
“No, you don’t. What you do is challenge and torture him for the smallest mistakes and then offer crumbs of approval and praise after he’s done the very most to make up for whatever you saw as wrong in the first place. Marco, on the other hand—”
“I’ve had about enough of your Marco tirades tonight,” the boss interjected darkly.
Salvatore clasped his hands at his middle and chose to have the last word.
Even if it meant he would pay for it later.
“I get it, Giorgio. Marco’s your favorite.
You look at him and see the life you wanted with the woman you chose, killed for, and then you killed her.
And he was all she ever gave you. You look him, and you see yourself.
He is the reflection you enjoy. And then there’s Nico.
And we both know who you see when you look at him, don’t we?
You know because he’s proof, and you tried to love him, you did for a while, but she wouldn’t come back to you, and he took the brunt.
But that’s not his fault, Giorgio. You did that to her, too. And you love to make him pay for it.”
“Okay, that’s quite enough.”
That subject did typically bring the end to any conversation with Giorgio. Even if the topic of his abuse of Carina as a girl, and later, woman, was only talked around.
“I agree,” Salvatore said. “This is getting tiring.”
Marco, and his unfortunate date, reappeared at the sitting room bar for another round of drinks. Despite the party winding down and guests beginning to leave, those two appeared to be just getting started.
“She’s not even legal age,” Salvatore pointed out.
“Who cares?”
And then Carmen skipped into the room, Vanna following close behind, to say goodnight to her father. He reached for the tiredly smiling girl as if to pick her up and put her in his lap.
“No thanks, Daddy,” Carmen said, not ashamed or scared to refuse Giorgio, “Mama says I shouldn’t sit in anyone’s lap anymore. Even yours.”