Chapter 5 #2
"You're welcome to join us on Sunday. Unfortunately, for security reasons, and I'm sure you understand, I cannot extend your father the same courtesy."
She nods slowly, staring at her coffee for a moment.
I use her silence to observe her features.
I can't help but wonder how she turned out this way.
Caroline survived a terrible ordeal as a young girl.
It cost her dearly, but she proved herself to be a fighter, choosing to live when an illness tried to claim her.
However, how much of what she's showing the world is her true self, and how much is she hiding beneath a carefully constructed mask?
Because I know she's wearing a mask. Caroline is very good at blurring the line between the role she plays and the woman she truly is. In my line of work, that can be a tremendous advantage or a game-changing danger. I'll have to prepare for both.
"I'm tired of all the fighting," she finally says.
"Our family business suffers every time we clash in the streets.
The distribution networks are thinning, and our operations take the heat.
It's a shame, considering the wealth of our suppliers and the profits we could make if we set our ancestral egos aside. Don't you think, Luca?"
"I wholeheartedly agree."
"Granted, this would've been much smoother if Stefano hadn't taken it upon himself to tear a big hole in my father's ego. You know he's not a forgiving man."
"I know."
But Stefano already paid the price for that, didn't he?
Caroline won't say it out loud. She shouldn't, not in this conversation, not in this setting.
She knows better. Which is why she'd make a much better head of the Mancuso family than her own father, but the old man is set in his old-fashioned ways and will only accept a male heir.
"I trust you will counsel him into a peaceful approach regarding my wedding with Valentina."
"I'll do my best. I can't make any promises. I will, however, attend the ceremony. Maybe not as a representative of the Mancuso syndicate, but definitely as a sister. Besides, I'm dying to meet my little nephew. What's he like?"
My heart softens when I see the boy. Something inside me melts and makes me dangerously vulnerable. I would burn the whole world down to see him and his mother safe, happy, and thriving. I've never felt this way about anyone before. It frightens me, in a sense.
"He's a happy boy," I tell Caroline. "Healthy. Takes a lot after his mother, but he carries plenty of Stefano's features, as well. You'll adore him."
She smiles, but it doesn't feel like the most genuine smile Caroline could muster. Perhaps she's tired of the entire situation. Or nervous about how it will progress. Her father's anger hangs like a shadow over everything, threatening to break it apart.
One way or another, I'll need to get Mauro Mancuso under some sort of control. I need to make him understand that he can never touch Valentina or Michael.
Victor Ellison has been my family's consigliere for so long, he's practically my blood. After our father passed away, Stefano and I turned to him. Victor taught us both everything our father couldn't, but even Victor wasn't prepared for the humongous mess Stefano left behind.
"It's worse than I thought," he says, after I'm done telling him about everything I've learned from the moment I brought Valentina and Michael home.
"You and me both," I say.
We sit in my home office while Valentina is out in the back gardens with Michael.
We can see them through the window—the boy chasing his mother around as the sun melts into an incandescent dance of pink and orange over the Chicago skyline.
He laughs and reaches for Valentina, and she scoops him up and showers him with kisses.
All that softness, that goodness in her heart, wasted it on a man who only wished to use her for her ability to reproduce.
Victor scratches his short white beard, shifting his gaze from the garden back to me.
I nurse a whiskey, my thoughts jumbled. I'll need another drink to take the edge off the anxiety I feel.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Luca?"
"What, marry her?"
"Yes."
"It's the only way to keep her and Michael out of Mancuso's reach. Even Caroline agrees," I say. "Except she wasn't too happy about it."
Victor smiles slightly. "She wasn't too sad either, right?"
"No, it would've been a marriage of convenience. Caroline was well aware of it. But I think marrying Valentina will be better for everyone, and it's a slap in the face to Mancuso."
"You know he won't take it sitting down," Victor warns me.
"Yes, I agree. He probably won't," I say.
There's a discernible weight hanging between us.
It's been there ever since Stefano's funeral.
Nothing's been said, but at times, Victor lingers in my presence, as if he's trying to find the courage to say something, but he never does.
Today, the tension between us feels heavier than usual, so I give him an opportunity to speak his mind.
"What's bothering you, Victor?"
"Where do I start?" he almost laughs, shaking his head slowly. "This is all just… insane, Luca. It's insane."
"You've said so already."
"I understand the urgency, the necessity, but your father would be furious. And your mother, rest her soul—"
"They're not here today; you are," I tell him. "So, whatever's on your mind, spit it out."
Victor runs a hand through his thinning silver hair. "I'm angry at the mess that Stefano left. I had higher hopes for him," he says after a long silence. "For years, I advised him; I tried to push him in the right direction. Had I known he'd give in to his whims…"
"Victor, he blindsided us both to so much. But it's too late now. We can't turn the clock back. What's done is done," I say. "The only thing we can do now is move forward. We can address the situation, and we turn it into an advantage."
"The others aren't too happy with this arrangement, by the way," he warns.
"The men, you mean?"
He nods once. "Our lieutenants are none too happy about the families merging.
I did explain, more than once, that Valentina isn't a Mancuso, technically speaking.
I doubt it made much of a difference. The trouble between us and the Mancusos is almost as old as the Camorra itself.
Whatever peace we managed to establish between us has never lasted long. "