“Okay,” she said, the returning sound of heaving following it.
Grimacing, I went into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of water bottles. Brett was at the dining room table, setting out places, and Al was at the sink, dumping out a pot of pasta into a colander. I avoided speaking to either of them just yet as I brought the water back into the bedroom and setting them outside of the door. I knocked lightly on the wooden frame.
“Water’s outside the door,” I said. “Anything else you need?”
“No, thank you. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll go help the guys set up dinner. Take your time. Come join us when you feel like you can.”
Leaving her in the bathroom, I made my way back to the dining room where Brett made eye contact with me.
“Where’s Desiree?” he asked.
“She’s not feeling well,” I said. “All this is doing a number on her stomach.”
“Ah, well, I hope she feels better soon,” Al said, beginning to plate dishes. “I made her favorite meal from when she was little. Her father and I used to make it for our families.”
“I helped,” Brett said proudly.
“You are no Nico Giannotti, but you aren’t bad for a medigan.”
Laughing, Al went back to plating, and I shook my head.
“Thank you again for coming out here and bringing backup,” I said to Al as he opened a suitcase that he had brought with him and produced a bottle of wine from somewhere in its recesses.
“Of course,” he said. “I would do anything for Desiree. As Nico would have done for Sammi. We were paisans, Nico and I. From many years back. Before he joined the business. It was my father that employed him first, actually.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Sì,” he said. “The Giannottis were good people, honorable. But old man Tommasso, he was a tailor. Quiet man. Never interested in anything other than his family and his work. My father befriended him because he made his suits. That’s how I met Nico. We would play while his father made my father’s suits.
“Then, when we were young boys, my father would hire us both to run errands. Stupid little things he didn’t want to go do. We gained trust in the families, and eventually he got brought in for other work. It took longer for them to bring me in, actually. I was too busy chasing girls and making pasta.”
“You seem to make a mean pasta,” I said, looking at the plates filling the table.
“Grazie,” he said. “He was a good man, Nico. Looked after people. Smart too. He was helping to change the way we do business. We were going legit. It was wonderful. Then, what happened to poor Talia.”
“Talia?” Brett asked.
“Desiree’s mother,” Al said. “Wonderful woman. So full of light and laughter. She was good for Nico. They were in love the second they saw each other at church. She was so young when they killed her. I wanted to find those sons of bitches right then. Take out that entire crew. I knew who it was, but there was no concrete evidence.”
“Desiree told me the man who is leading these people, he called her. Told her he killed both her parents,” I said.
“Sammi told me,” he said, shaking his head. I could feel the anger radiating off him. He was carrying years of pent-up rage in his heart.
“Couldn’t you have called the cops?” Brett asked.
“No. We have police who are sympathetic, but we also know there are those who would want to see us in prison too. These mooks, these cani, they would escalate. It would become a war. Us, them, and the police, all blowing each other up like in the old days. The families would split. There would be no union anymore. That’s what they want. The families to be fractured. Easier to take control that way.”
“Who are they? The people after Desiree?” Brett asked.
“I don’t speak their name,” Al said. “I spit on their name. It is worthless to me. But they call themselves the Burlones. It means Jokers. Fools. Because that’s what they are. Fools. Petty thieves and thugs. They don’t want people to rise up, they want to stamp them down. Control them. They want to revel in shit like pigs. They would rather burn the world to reign over ashes.”
“But why go after Desiree? She isn’t involved, right?”
“She isn’t. Not ever. But her father was a powerful man. Her name carries weight. Should she ever come back home, whoever she gave blessing to, they would be positioned for great power in the families. I never wanted that for her, and neither did Nico. She was supposed to be free of this.”
“Is that why you want to bring her home?” I asked. “To give her blessing to you?”
Al’s demeanor changed. For a moment, he looked every bit as intimidating as I was sure he seemed to most people. He had been letting his soft, fatherly self show since arriving, but there was no doubt a cold, calculating man beneath all that. One capable of doing things that required having an army of men at his side. He stared at me, looking deep in my eyes, seemingly deciding something, then smirked.