Luca smiled at me, and it was oddly warm. “It’s okay, Gabe. You focus on—”
“Last year, you handed me a gun and told me it was time to prove I was a Varasso.” Luca opened his mouth to respond, but I kept talking before he could get anything out. “I didn’t do it then, but I want to do it now. I want to prove that I’m a Varasso. I want to prove you can trust me with this shit. You’re…” I sighed, trying my best not to get too emotional. “You’re not on your own. Let me help.”
“It’s a biggie,” Luca replied. “Anthony Carducci.”
I tried not to show the way my world tilted around me. Anthony Carducci was the nation’s most notorious crime boss. He hailed out of Chicago, but he had operations in every state and even a few overseas. I’d heard his name mentioned a couple of times by my dad before he died, but never again after that. Luca had been careful not to pull on any of the strings my dad left dangling—there was no telling which ones had balloons at the top and which ones had anvils—but if we needed backup and Carducci was willing to honor what my dad had started, it could be a game-changer.
“I can do it.” Even though I was at least half certain I might get my hand chopped off, I reached onto Luca’s desk and helped myself to the folder. He watched me with piqued curiosity but ultimately left the clever commentary out of it. “When’s the meeting?”
Luca still looked unsure, but still took a breath and said, “At two. A place downtown called Surento’s.”
I peeked at the watch on my wrist. I’d inherited it from my dad, and this was probably the first time I was looking at it practically and not just to try and remember the man who’d left it to me. It was a quarter after one, just enough time to finish up with Luca and get to the meeting. Though I’d volunteered, it did make me wonder if it was better suited to the family. I’d already opened my mouth, so too late to take it back now.
“You sure you got it?” Luca asked.
I was reviewing the notes in the folder. Doesn’t like being challenged. A stickler for time. A control freak. “What do I offer him?” I asked.
“Whatever he wants,” Luca said. “There’s no price too high.”
I nodded. “I got it.”
“Then go. Time is a huge deal for him.”
I did exactly as I was told. I was still cutting it close when I was pulling up in front of the restaurant, but I
had five minutes to spare. I could go in, get a table, and start focusing on breathing, preparing myself for the most important task I’d been given by my brother, ever. I scurried from my car, and as I rushed towards the restaurant door, I barely caught a glimpse of a couple of bodies leaving. I pulled the door open and held it, and the next thing that happened screeched my world to a halt. A familiar scent filled my nose, followed by the flick of golden blond hair in my face.
“Stacy,” I murmured, not even having told my brain to say the word.
Stacy looked back at me and the woman at her side, a slightly shorter woman with a bob haircut, raised an eyebrow and said, “He is beautiful.”
Stacy continued down the sidewalk, and I damn near tripped over myself trying to get to her. I grabbed her arm, but she yanked it from me. I hated that she looked at me like some demon now.
“You haven’t answered my calls.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she replied.
“Please, just give me a chance to prove myself to you,” I begged. “I don’t want you to be mad at me anymore.”
Stacy shook her head. “I have nothing to be mad at, Gabriel.”
The woman at Stacy’s side squeezed her arm and continued off down the sidewalk. Stacy waited until the woman was climbing into her car to continue. She looked back at me, her expression telling me that she felt as strained as I did to be apart.
“I’m just disappointed in you,” she said, at last. “I thought you were a better person than that.”
“I am.”
Stacy shook her head. “No good person could ever do that stuff, or even think about it.”
That time, when I reached out for Stacy, she relented. I took her hand in mine and kissed the back of it gently. “Family is—”
“Family would never ask that of you.” She stared at her hand in mine. It went slack, at first, and I could tell she didn’t want to pull it away, but she finally did. She looked up at me with pain in her eyes. “Goodbye, Gabriel.”
I couldn’t get any words out as she turned around and walked away.
I didn’t want to say goodbye.
11