“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been taking his phone calls. He started calling about a month after you left. He told me he’d like to get the chance to see his daughters, the chance to make things up to us. I think he wants forgiveness.”
Now my own ire rose. “How could he do this? Ask for forgiveness? He’s gone all this time without asking for it.”
“He’s dying,” she yelled at me, and I gaped at her, freezing in place. Now she was the one with watery eyes and a tremulous tone. “He’s dying and regrets what he’s done. I could hear it in his voice. And if we don’t see him now, we’ll never get the chance again.”
Without waiting for my reply, Tara ran out of the apartment, leaving me behind.
27
Luca
I had the driver pull over by the place Molly now called home, scrutinizing the windows to see if I could detect her inside. It reminded me of her, with its clean lines and light brown exterior. The color matched her whiskey eyes and contrasted with the white trim.
Molly Greene had always been a study in contrasts.
The residence had been structured as a modern take on a cottage, with two sections shaped like pyramids, arrowing up into the sky. Unlike the mansion, it had next to no landscaping along the front, showing it to be a new construction.
I hated it. Hated how it kept her separate from me. From Anna. From my life.
Which was pointless. Not to mention foolish.
I hadn’t seen her in six long days. She hadn’t contacted me in any way, not even to leave a text or voicemail. I told myself not to let it bother me, but I couldn’t listen to that voice, even if it was the voice of reason.
I missed her too goddamn much.
My own fault. And yet, the only choice I had. It’d be better to be separated by degrees like this then to have her taken away from me altogether by something more permanent. I knew that and even believed it. But it didn’t stop the pain of her absence from knifing through me at regular intervals.
Like when I looked up at Sunday dinner, and she wasn’t there. Like when I walked by her old room.
Like when I breathed.
Christ.
I’d seen an upsurge in minor inconveniences this week. Petty annoyances. Things like runners being late and missing meeting times. Things like a delivery being confiscated not due to drug sniffing dogs at the border, but because some asinine truck driver had overloaded his trailer. The weigh station had held him back, investigated, and found several kilos of heroin, our most expensive commodity.
When it rained, it poured.
Nonetheless, we hadn’t become one of the most successful mafia families in Philadelphia by being complacent. Addresses and delivery points were never static, and we switched them up frequently, rotating which ones we used at random.
These locations also amounted to nothing more than holding stations, benign-looking warehouses where the product would be shipped in, checked, and carried back out. We had dozens upon dozens of them, and when any became compromised as that one had, we merely closed it down for a certain period until it was safe to return again.
These issues were typically under Molly’s purview. She’d handled them without complaint and had dealt with them instantly, not requiring my involvement at all. She’d excelled at problem-solving and on maintaining calendars, timetables, and constant communication. It’d kept issues like this to a bare minimum.
No wonder everyone had started to refer to her as the queen.
I stayed there at her curb for several more minutes, gazing into the house. I saw no sign of her, no indication that she dwelled within those walls. I wondered what she might be doing. I’d checked her accounts to see what she’d purchased so far. A living room set. A bedroom set. Linens. Some throw rugs. Toiletries. Non-perishable groceries.
According to the original listing, the place had already come with kitchen appliances, so she hadn’t ordered any of those. I took in the area. These homes were outside of our estate, but we had ties to each one of them. The neighborhood was run by one of those homeowners’ associations we had control over.
I’d contacted Sandro within moments of her giving me the address.
“1624 Magnolia Tree Lane,” I said, “I want it protected at all times. Make it a top priority.”
Molly hadn’t known this, but the phone I’d given her had a hidden app running perpetually in the background that allowed me to track her location at all times. No matter where she went, as long as she had her phone, I’d know where she was.
I’d put a security detail on her, as well. Sandro had equipped them with an invention of his, a modified panic button. It worked similarly to the LifeAlert buttons the elderly and infirmed wore. If for some reason her security guards couldn’t contact us through regular channels, or if either of them went down, those buttons would set off an alarm here at the mansion.