My stomach twisted into a knot. I’d blocked that out. I’d blocked everything that happened after Alessandro snapped. Luca and I rushed to California after Luca went rogue. Some of the Binachis were threatening Marco’s family and had to be dealt with. Luca shoved a gun into my hands and told me it was time to show my true Varasso colors. In the end, I could only cower outside, protecting Willow and Ricky, when in truth, they were the ones looking out for me.
“Possibly the darkest of them all is the youngest, Gabriel Varasso.” I let out an audible scoff. How was I, in any way, shape, or form, the darkest? “Always keeping his head down, the youngest Varasso is always by his brothers’ sides, no doubt the slyest and the one most likely getting away with everything.”
I held my arms out wide, briefly forgetting where I was. “I’m not getting away with anything. I’m not doing anything.”
The sneak peek trailer ended, and Stacy finally looked at me. “Gabriel.”
My eyes snapped to her. “Yeah?”
There were already a few tears wettening the corners of her eyes. “Tell me this stuff isn't true. It’s just scripted. Right? Please tell me that.”
I stuttered and stammered for a minute to try and find the right words. I started a couple of times and stopped short before I finally started stringing words together. “The way they make it sound isn’t true.”
Stacy’s face went from desperate shock to white rage in a second. “Don’t mince words with me. You know I’m not asking if their account of it is true. Unless you’re saying that they’ve somehow confused your family’s woodworking business for being in the mafia.”
I sighed. “No. That part is true.”
Stacy’s hands cupped over her mouth. She slid back from me on the couch, and it killed me. The first woman to ever make me feel the way she does, and she’s staring at me like I’m a cold-blooded killer. “But listen, they’re stretching the truth. Like really stretching it. I’m not the darkest one of my brothers. All that stuff he talked about. The fire, the restaurant, the shootout—yes, my brothers were involved in all of that stuff, but I wasn’t, and even the stories around them are totally different.”
“He said you’re always by their side,” Stacy said.
“I mean, I am as much as I can be. I wasn’t there for any of that except the shootout, though, and even that I was all the way across the street trying not to piss my pants.” I knew Luca would strangle me if he heard me demean myself so badly. Not because he cared about me, but because he cared about the Varasso name. It felt worth it to me, though. If I could get Stacy to believe me, it was worth it. “I’ve never killed anyone. I’ve never even beat anyone up. There are mules working for us that have done worse shit than me. I swear.”
I clapped my hands out of frustration, and Stacy jumped. It was awful. She was afraid of me. I reached out for her hand, but she recoiled, so I returned my hand to my lap.
“Stacy. I don’t even like what my family stands for. I swear. I’ve never wanted this life.”
A glint of hope flickered into Stacy’s eyes. “So, you don’t really have anything to do with them? You’re not part of all of that.”
It would have been so easy. I could have just told her that I wasn’t. I was my own man. I didn’t even work for my brother. We were trying to find our way out of it anyway. If I could just keep the facade up until then, I’d be golden. Bu
t my brothers’ smiles flashed across my mind, and that stupid, Varasso, family-first trait kicked off in me. The one thing I’d always found commendable about my family was about to cost me such an amazing woman.
“I didn’t do that stuff,” I explained quietly, “but they’re my family. I love them, and I’d do anything for them.”
“Anything?” Stacy pointed at the screen. “Even that?”
I thought about the shit my brothers had been through. I thought about the rage I felt when my dad was killed or the way I was compelled to do whatever necessary when the Binachis were threatening Marco’s family. Even when Alessandro ran off, and Luca told me it was time to step up. I was afraid, but if for a second, I thought that Luca and Marco didn’t have things under control, I would have swallowed that fear and did what it took to protect my family. That’s what this life meant. That’s why my dad snatched me from my mother’s hands and brought me to his house and beat his older sons until they at least pretended to love me the way he did. That’s what it meant to be a Varasso.
“Gabriel.” Stacy still had her arm outstretched, still waiting for an answer.
I settled for just repeating myself. “I’d do anything for them.”
Stacy’s arm shakily felt to her side as she turned her beautiful, green eyes away from me. “Then I need you to leave.”
9
Stacy
I was in my parents’ bedroom, trying to carefully arrange their various trinkets on a shelf when I heard my phone ringing in my purse from the living room. I didn’t even flinch in its direction. I already knew who it was, and I wasn’t interested. I was just trying to power my way through my mom’s OCD as she decided if her tiny, wooden hippo looked better on the left or right side of her tiny, wooden giraffe so that I could go and see my childhood best friend, Mira.
“Hmm,” my mom said, her left hand petting her chin. “When it comes right down to it, is the aesthetic more important than the wildlife accuracy? You know? Would a hippo stand behind a giraffe? That’s the question, Stace.”
I shook my head. This back-and-forth had been going on for the better part of two hours. Each individual item had to have a place that contributed positively to my parents’ qi, and I was cursing myself for not taking a picture of their shelves before they moved out of our old home so I could just mimic the design.
“I don’t know, mom,” I responded. “I don’t think the animal kingdom is going to take offense. If they do, they’ll tell you.”
My mom giggled. “I suppose that’s true.”