I failed the test. She frowns and nods before going into the pantry. As I sit, I gasp at the pain I managed to forget. I expect a smile or satisfaction from Tony, he doesn’t even look up from the iPad he’s reading the newspaper on. I don’t know why I thought he would be more old school. I’m almost done with my food when a coffee cup is set down in front of me, along with small containers of sugar and cream. I use both liberally, which also gains me another frown from the woman.
The moment I set the cup down, Tony glances at the coffee. “You drink coffee?”
I nod.
He says something to Carmella in Italian. Her eyes go wide as she looks at me. She nods, though, and doesn’t say a word.
“Time to go. Vito is here.”
His hand is at my back as he guides me toward the large, black Cadillac Escalade. He opens the back door for me and waits until he sees me fastening my seatbelt before he closes the door and goes around to the other side and gets in beside me. I feel the guy in the front seat staring at me. He’s the one who didn’t say anything from last night. His eyes narrow on me but he doesn’t say a word to me, just greets Tony.
It only takes about ten minutes to get to where we are going. As the vehicle comes to a stop, Tony presses his hand on mine to keep me where I am. He’s out and opens my door for me again. His hand goes around mine to help me down. Once again, his hand goes to my back, guiding me toward the building.
I want to look around the bookstore but keep going as Tony’s long legs move us down a
long hallway toward a door marked Storage and then down a long set of stairs. As we enter, everyone seems to stop and stare at us. I find myself pressing against Tony. No one is mean or threatening; it’s simply unnerving. A few men have their suit jackets off and are wearing holsters holding guns.
It’s a large open room with four desks, and men in suits sitting at them. At first glance, it looks like an insurance office or something except there are television screens lining the walls like a sports bar. Everything from soccer to basketball games are playing. Something is streaming along the bottom, a closer look and I figure out it’s the odds on the games.
We’re in a corner office where Tony closes the door. “Have a seat wherever. You’re about to be bored.”
There’s a wall of bookcases overflowing with books behind his desk. I’m curious about the books he wants this close to him. Scanning the shelves, the Shakespeare doesn’t surprise me, all the Jane Austen does. I take out a well-worn copy of Pride and Prejudice. “Jane Austen?”
The dimple flashes in his cheek. “My mother loved her. I didn’t get children’s books. I got Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility.”
“Wow, I like your mom. Is she the influence of Shakespeare too or...”
“All her. I pleaded for something other than ‘girl’ books and got the Merchant of Venice. I didn’t understand half of it when she started reading it to me. I was eight years old. Over time, I came to like the whole different way you get lost in an old language that helps sucks you even more into the story.”
“She didn’t start the bookstore, though, right?” I could have sworn he started it.
“No, she probably would have if my father thought to ask her. Then again, it’s a good thing he didn’t. She wouldn’t have left the place. Growing up with asthma can be bad in even the best months of the weather in Chicago and hers was bad pretty much all the time. From a young age, books were the only way she got out of the house. Her mother was very protective of her.” He runs a finger down the spine of a book causing me to shiver at the way it’s a caress as much as when he ran his finger down me.
“Where did you catch the book bug? You’re holding that book like you’re afraid I’m going to take it away from you.”
Blushing, I hand it to him. I’ve already read it several times. I want to start reading again, but new books I haven’t read. “Danny. He had books from that one lawyer turned writer who pumped out a dozen in a few years. He was a low-level grifter and thought law was the best damn white-collar grift game there was. A few times, he daydreamed about getting a law degree even though he didn’t even have a high school diploma or GED. I was only seven when we moved in with him, and there were these books all over the house. Picking one up was almost by accident. Then when I started reading them, I couldn’t stop.”
Soft blue eyes run over me. “Why couldn’t you stop?”
“Because while I was reading I was in that world. And believed I could be the people I was reading, strong, brave...all the things I couldn’t be outside of them.” I admit. Our eyes meet, and my stomach flips at what I see. A different kind of fear fills me, stealing the air from my lungs. It’s the moment in the shower again when we were in tune at the loss of him inside me. Tearing away my eyes from his, I spot another book and take it off the shelf. “You speak Latin?”
“Yes, before I spoke Italian.” A lift of his shoulders. “It’s a family thing. Something about the basics of language, the basics of being a Sabatini.”
“Your son, you taught him Latin as well?”
He nods. “Of course. I had hoped my brother would do the same with his sons but no. At least he raised them speaking Italian. If nothing else, a Sabatini’s first language should be Italian.”
Something flickers in his eyes when he mentions his brother. I wonder if it’s the murder-suicide the man committed against his wife then himself. Or was it how the man was a lawyer in the district attorney’s office? “Your brother, you really weren’t close?” In researching Tony, I had come across not just the murder-suicide articles, there were interviews he’d given about why he became a lawyer. Those interviews mentioned his family.
The flicker happens again, anger—different than the anger from the moment in the closet. “No, the bastard broke our mother’s heart. He was too good to be mafia. Not too good to take our father’s money for school, though. Said our father owed him, he cashed the check then never spoke to my mother again. Despite living less than ten miles from her for the rest of her life.”
“What happened?” It’s clear the pain of his mother affected him deeply. I’m jealous of the relationship he had with his mother. A mother who read to him, who gave him the love of books, who gave him love.
“My uncle, her brother, was a bad guy and the Don ordered his death. The hit man thing is a myth, a hit happens by whoever can get close to the hit. For my uncle, the person closest to him was my father. For many years, my mother didn’t know who did it. When she found out it was my father even though she knew her brother was a bad guy, it messed with her. It was their first and only real fight after they were settled into marriage and was big enough she tried to leave him. She said she needed space, she’d be back. My father wasn’t having it. You stay and you fight it through. She wanted to sleep in the guest bedroom fine, but she wasn’t going anywhere.” His hand runs through his hair.
“Pop carried her kicking and screaming into the house. My brother heard what they were fighting about. Our father had told him, raised us this is the life we would lead. There were things we would do others couldn’t. Salvatore knew that. I think it freaked him out though one day he might be called upon to kill family. One of the basic tenets of the mafia is it comes before all else, even your own family.”
He sighs and glances to the closed door of his office. “The thing was, for Sabatinis we say fuck that rule. We mouth the words, but a Sabatini family member comes before the mafia. There are plans in place, going back to my grandfather, if we ever need to, that we’ll cut and run rather than put the family first. I don’t know how Salvatore didn’t get it. Both my grandfather and father were clear on the importance of our family before the family. My father killed his brother-in-law because he was a woman-raping, piece of shit who got caught skimming. Not because his Don ordered it.”