Sweetest Sorrow

by J. M. Darhower

  After a moment, Gavin frowned. Pity. Dante could see it in his eyes. "When's the last time you ate, man? You're wasting away."

  "Don't do that." Dante shook his head. "You pity me and I'll never fucking speak to you again."

  "I don't pity you."

  "Don't want your sympathy, either. I'm not a charity case. I'm not your responsibility. You don't have to look out for me, nor do you have to worry about me."

  "You make it so easy, though," Gavin said. "Christ, just, why don't we go grab a bite to eat?"

  "It sounds a lot like you're asking me on a date, G, and that's bunny boiling territory again."

  "It's a friend buying a friend a slice. That's it."

  "Friend? Is that what you are to me?"

  "Always thought so," Gavin said, "but then again, I'm not one to judge people by their name. Barsanti, Galante, Brazzi… doesn't matter. I've met a couple of each I wouldn't mind seeing dead, but a few others I'd be happy to call my friend."

  Dante considered that until his phone vibrated in his pocket. Pulling it out, he glanced at the screen. Bert.

  He answered it, buying himself a moment. "Yeah?"

  "Got something to do," Umberto said. "Where are you?"

  "Little Italy. Across the street from the bar."

  "Pulling onto Mulberry now," Umberto said. "Pick you up in thirty seconds."

  The line went dead.

  Dante waved the phone toward Gavin. "Seems duty calls, so maybe some other time."

  A black BMW screeched to a stop in the middle of the street beside where they stood. Dante nodded to Gavin before heading to the waiting car.

  "Don't get yourself killed," Gavin said.

  Dante stepped out into the street, looking back as he grabbed the door handle on the passenger side. "Don't lose any sleep over me."

  He climbed in the car, barely getting the door closed before Umberto hit the gas, the tires squealing. Dante shot him a look, not bothering to put on his seatbelt despite the constant dinging from the dashboard warning him.

  "Was that Amaro you were with?" Umberto asked incredulously. "Did you forget that jackass punched you last night?"

  "That was nothing." Dante rubbed his jaw. "You gotta admire the guy. Took balls to swing on me like that. Besides, it was my fault."

  "How was it your fault?"

  "Long story," Dante said. "So, where are we going?"

  "Jersey."

  Jersey.

  That hadn't been the answer Dante expected. "What's going on in Jersey?"

  "We figured out where Matteo had been living before he showed up," Umberto said. "Your father wants us to go check the place out."

  "Why?"

  "What do you mean, 'why'?"

  "What's the point? What's he hoping to find?"

  "Anything," Umberto said. "We're talking about Barsanti's kid… who the hell knows what we might find."

  Dante shook his head, looking out the window as Umberto sped through the city. If they thought they'd find anything about the Barsanti family, they'd be sorely mistaken. If Matteo had possessed anything important—and Dante doubted it—Barsanti would've retrieved it long before then.

  He didn't say that, though.

  Who was he to argue?

  No matter how senseless…

  "Where'd you go last night?" Umberto asked, giving him a brief once-over when traffic slowed them near the tunnel leading out of the city. "I know you never made it home."

  "Hung around," he said. "Stayed in the city."

  "With Amaro?"

  Suspicion laced Umberto's voice. If Dante didn't know any better, he'd say his old friend was phishing for information. "Yeah, Amaro and I made pottery and watched the fucking sunrise."

  Umberto looked at him like he actually believed that.

  It was beneath him, but Dante rolled his eyes. "With a girl, Bert. I stayed with a girl."

  "Making pottery?"

  "You can call it that if you want."

  Umberto whistled. "Look at you, back in the game! Was it that curvy broad, you know, the one with the big tits that you used to mess with around there? What was her name? Leslie?"

  "Lisa, but no… I haven't seen her."

  Not since what happened to him. He'd seen none of them, none of the women he used to occupy himself with on the weekends. Dante had never been a relationship kind of guy… it was never his style. Relationships took too much time, and he'd never met a woman he felt compelled to put in that kind of work for. Love was fleeting, a feeling akin to the sensation that rushed through his body whenever he was buried balls-deep inside a pussy. He loved women. He couldn't deny that fact. But he'd never been in love with a woman, not the kind of love others talked about. That kind of love was a myth, an urban legend. That kind of love didn't exist for him.

  He'd always been glad for that.

  Because that was the kind of love that had taken down Romeo and Juliet.

  It was the kind of love that destroyed lives.

  He'd watched his father grieve that kind of love, refusing to step foot in his bedroom or sleep in his bed again after losing his wife. He'd watched his sister lose herself in guys until one took her down. 'It's like my insides are too big for my body and I'm going to burst.' Genna had told him that, how she'd described it to him sitting in the café in Little Italy. He thought she was fucking crazy.

  Until last night.

  Dante knew what his sister had meant, because maybe he wasn't in love, yet, but goddamn if it wasn't happening to him. If he wasn't careful, Gabriella would claw her way beneath his skin and she'd stay there.

  "So who was it? Who'd you nail last night?"

  "None of your business."

  "Come on…"

  "Ask me again and next time it'll be your sister."

  "Ah, man, that's foul."

  Umberto's sister was young, barely legal. He was protective over her, wouldn't even let Dante talk to her because of his hit-it-and-quit-it reputation. The threat worked, because Umberto dropped the subject, rambling about how he'd spent his night with the woman he met at the bar, filling the air with his incessant chatter.

  They drove to a small suburb down near the city of Elizabeth, deep in the heart of Brazzi territory. They'd entered their terrain the second they crossed the state line, something they didn't do often, being as they never had reason. Brazzi stayed out of their affairs as much as possible, choosing to stay out of New York as long as New York respected their territory. You needed something there—you called, you asked, you negotiated, and they made it happen.

  But as Umberto pulled the car into a small neighborhood after nightfall, blacking out the headlights, visibly nervous, Dante realized that hadn't gone down this time. "I'm guessing the Brazzis don't know we're here."

  "Primo didn't want to risk letting them in on it," he replied, parking the car along the curb in the first spot he came to. "Since Matteo was living out here, you know, they must've been protecting the kid. Can't trust nobody these days."

  Tell me about it.

  The house was in a cul-de-sac just down the street, tucked in between similar cookie-cutter houses, a typical suburban neighborhood. The place was dark with blinds covering the windows. The grass hadn't been mowed in weeks. A sprinkler ran on the lawn across the street, a few lights peeking out from neighboring houses. Dante was on edge, his gaze darting around for signs of trouble, as Umberto fiddled with the front door, attempting to break into the house. He was dressed in all black, carrying a black bag, while Dante hadn't been prepared for this kind of work, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt that glowed under the moonlight.

  Dante grew impatient, shoving him out of the way to take over before the guy resorted to violently kicking the door in. "How many times do I have to show you how to do this?"

  Sighing, Umberto stood back, watching as Dante picked the lock on the front door. When Dante got it open, he held his breath, expecting an alarm to go off.

  Nothing.

  Umberto slipped around him, heading inside
. Dante followed, closing the front door. A beam of light cut through the front room as Umberto retrieved a flash light from his bag, handing it to Dante, before pulling out one for himself.

  "Are you sure this is the right place?" Dante asked, his flashlight glossing over the furniture. Plain. There was no other way to describe it. No pictures hung on the walls, nothing personal around the room.

  Dust tickled Dante's nose.

  "Positive," Umberto said.

  "How'd you find it?"

  They'd sought Matteo for years. While they suspected he could've been in New Jersey, suspicion was far from having an actual address.

  "Tracked it down using GPS," he answered. "These new phones, you know, they have that feature enabled, in case you ever lose it or someone steals it, so you can track it down, see where it went. I told your father about it a while back, told him that's why I use burners. I don't want anything linked to me that can be monitored."

  "So, what, he found a way to track Matteo's phone?"

  "No, he tracked your sister's."

  Dante pointed the flashlight at Umberto, illuminating him.

  "She came here a couple times," Umberto continued. "She mostly frequented that place you went to in Soho, you know… The Place. Guess they hung out at the bar. But we saw some hits in Jersey and figured it had to be something for her to come into Brazzi territory, so we put the pieces together, and here we are."

  Dante lowered the beam of his flashlight. "Matteo was staying in Soho, in the apartment above that bar."

  "How do you know?"

  "I just do."

  Dante didn't elaborate. He didn't owe anybody an explanation.

  Looking away, he strolled into the kitchen, glancing around the quiet house. Umberto set off in the opposite direction, disappearing down a hallway. The place was stocked with essentials, but nothing personal could be found. Nothing more than a safe house, Dante gathered, as he checked cabinets and drawers. It wasn't really anybody's home. He moved to the dining room, finding a table with a few chairs, and plopped down in one as he shined his flashlight around.

  "There's nothing here," Dante called out. "This is a waste of time."

  Not worth the trouble, either. They had enough problems. Why risk enraging the Brazzis for crossing borders and invading territory?

  "You're right." Umberto appeared from the hallway, heading straight to the front door. "Let's get out of here."

  Dante followed him, pausing in the living room when the slight scent of something infiltrated his nose. It smelled rotten. "Do you smell that?"

  "I smell nothing," Umberto said, "but we've got to get out of here before somebody catches us."

  A car pulled onto the cul-de-sac then, headlights flashing toward the window, making Umberto freeze. He cut his flashlight out at once, while Dante pointed his at the floor. Strolling to the window, he pushed two slats apart to peek through the blinds. A black car pulled into the driveway across the street, cutting the engine after parking in the garage. As the garage door came down, the man strolled toward the front porch of the house, swinging his keys around his fingers, in no rush to get inside. He was too far away for Dante to get a good look at him.

  "You seriously don't smell anything?" Dante asked, shining the flashlight at Umberto. It wasn't a strong odor, but it was distinct.

  Umberto shook his head, but under the glow of the light, Dante saw his nose twitch. Damn right he smelled it. Dante shined his flashlight down the hall, about to make his way there when another car sped into the cul-de-sac, whipping into the driveway of the house right next door. Dante turned off the flashlight, glancing out the window.

  "Hey, yo!" a voice called out, way too close for comfort, as a shadowy figure cut across the front lawn, heading toward the street. "Russo!"

  Russo.

  Son of a bitch.

  It couldn't be, could it?

  Dante parted the blind again, watching as the man across the street paused at the sound of that name. He waited for the other guy to join him, the two of them chatting before going their separate ways.

  They needed to get out of there.

  As soon as both men went inside, Dante slipped out of the house, Umberto right on his heels. Panic wafted from him, his eyes darting around, his steps hurried, while Dante took the time to lock the house up again.

  "Don't bother," Umberto hissed back at him. "We've gotta go. This neighborhood is full of Brazzis. I'm talking top-level Brazzis. We can't be caught here."

  Dante said nothing, his gaze sweeping along the numbers affixed to the front of the house before trekking back to the car. He slid into the passenger seat, barely getting the door closed before they sped away from the neighborhood. Umberto was uncharacteristically quiet on the drive back into the city, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel as he kept glancing in the rearview mirror, like he expected something. Silence grew into something more, that suffocating cloud of distrust forming. Something was off about it. Something was rotten.

  "What did you do?" Dante asked, his voice serious.

  "Nothing."

  His answer was immediate.

  "What did you do, Bert?" Before he could once again spout out with 'nothing', Dante said, "You lie to me again and I swear to God, I'll run this car off the fucking bridge with both of us in it."

  Umberto hesitated.

  "Nothing," he said as he settled back into his seat. "Just a little gas leak."

  Dante closed his eyes. A gas leak. The house was uninhabited. The gas would build and build, undisturbed. It was like setting a bomb dead center of Brazzi territory. All it needed was a spark and boom.

  Dante said nothing more as they drove straight into the city, turning north after the bridge, heading up to Westchester County. Dante's car was still parked somewhere down in Little Italy, but he didn't say a word about it, staying silent as they made the trip to the Galante house. Umberto pulled his car beside Genna's BMW, still parked along the driveway like some sort of morbid lawn ornament.

  Dante headed straight inside, leaving the door open for Umberto. Primo met them in the foyer. "Any problems?"

  "None," Umberto said, shutting the front door behind him. "There was nothing there. No sign of anyone. And nobody noticed us that I could tell. We were in and out."

  "Good." Primo's gaze turned to Dante. "Where have you been?"

  "Around," Dante said.

  "He was with a girl," Umberto said as he smacked Dante on the back. "You know how he is."

  "Ah, yes." Primo's expression softened, something akin to pride shining from his eyes for the first time since Dante had returned, like finally something felt familiar to him. Finally something reminded him of his Dante. "It's good to see you."

  Dante didn't respond, and his father didn't wait for him to, heading back into his office. Umberto lingered in the foyer, looking like he wanted to join Primo but was hesitant to leave Dante.

  "I should head back to the city," Dante said. "Get back to what I was doing."

  Umberto laughed. "Or who you were doing, right?"

  "Right." Dante hesitated, staring at his father's open office door when Umberto strolled that way. "Can I ask you something, Bert?"

  Umberto turned. "What's up?"

  "You said you tracked Genna's phone. You ever track mine?"

  "Of course not."

  "Never?"

  "Never."

  "Not even when I was missing? You didn't think, you know, you might've been able to track it to find me?"

  "Didn't really think about it."

  Dante nodded as he left, not having much else to say. He took the subway back into the city, in a daze, lost in thought, stepping out of the station in Little Italy, down the street from Casato. He pulled out his phone as he strolled along, his eyes on the screen as he sought out a number, dialing it.

  "New Jersey Natural Gas."

  "I need to report a leak," Dante said, stalling on the street corner not far from Gabriella's apartment. "It's at a house in a suburb outside of Eliza
beth."

  Dante rattled off the address, hoping he remember the numbers right and was sending them to the correct place.

  "We'll send a crew out right away," the woman said. "Can I get your name?"

  Dante hung up when she asked that, staring at his phone for a second before dropping it to the sidewalk, stomping on it, crushing it.

  Picking up the remnants, he tossed it in the closest trash bin before continuing on, heading to the bar.

  He needed a damn drink.

  The first cell phone Genna ever had was a hot pink Motorola Razr. A flip phone. She remembered talking on it all hours of the night, not having to worry about her father picking up the line from somewhere else in the house. Her ringtone had perpetually stayed Hollaback Girl, a fact that drove everyone around her insane.

  After that came smartphones and new ringtones every week.

  Always a song. Always music.

  Never the obnoxious generic beeping.

  So why the hell did she hear it?

  "What the fuck is that noise?" she asked, scrunching up her nose as she glanced around the kitchen, sitting on the counter beside the stove. Matty was cooking burgers in a pan. Nothing special, just some frozen patties, but she was so hungry she wouldn't complain. Compared to what she'd scrounged up for lunch, it was practically a gourmet meal.

  "Banjos," Matty said, pointing at the dingy little AM/FM radio on the other side of the counter, one he'd dug out of a closet in an attempt to fill the silence. "It was all I could get to come in."

  "No, I'm not talking about the freaky Deliverance bullshit," she said. "That beep-bee-bee-boop noise."

  He reached into his pocket and pulled his phone out far enough to see it. "Not coming from me."

  Shit.

  Genna dropped down from the counter and ran out of the kitchen, skidding to a stop in the foyer. Her cheap flip phone lay on the stand, glowing bright, steadily ringing. She snatched it up, flipping it open, pressing buttons in a panic, not sure which one would answer it. "Hello?"

  "Hey, it's Chris down at Jerry's. Can I speak to—?"

  "This is her," Genna said, walking back into the kitchen. "How are you?"

  "Oh, I'm great! Just calling to let you know those parts you ordered are in, so you can pick them up any time."