by Bethany-Kris
“Nothing I don’t already know.” Evelina glanced in the direction Damian had gone. “He watches you a lot, Lily.”
“Does he?”
Lily didn’t notice. She’d been so busy the last week trying to keep Evelina entertained and working on details for the wedding that her focus was spread thin enough as it was. She figured she might as well enjoy her wedding day—it would be the only one she got in her lifetime—and decided to have what she wanted instead of letting someone else pick for her.
Evelina and Abriella helped a great deal. Even with this whole … mess. Lily appreciated them more than she could adequately explain.
“A lot,” Evelina repeated quieter. “I know you’re not agreeable to marrying him and all that.”
“I’m okay with him,” Lily admitted. “But I don’t like the rest or not knowing why.”
Evelina nodded. “Makes sense.”
“I got lucky.”
“Because he likes you?”
“Because my brother cared enough to pick someone I wouldn’t be able to hate,” Lily said, finally starting to figure it out.
“Dino always was sneaky like that.”
Lily laughed but sobered quickly. “Enough of this, huh? Let’s talk about something different.”
Evelina shook her head. “No, this is good. I don’t want to keep crying.”
Lily snagged her friend’s hand with her own and held tight. It was the best thing she could offer Eve. “I’m here.”
“I know—”
“You!”
The angry, vicious shout came from inside the hall. Lily flinched at the vitriol and violence in the one word. She released Evelina’s hand and peeked out of the entryway to see men and women flooding out from the church’s main doors.
Terrance Trentini stood with Lily’s uncle and other men she didn’t recognize. His hands were high in the air and his head bowed low. The Outfit boss was dressed fit for the funeral in all black along with his grandchildren. Abriella, Alessa, and Joel said nothing, but it was clear they were uncomfortable when they took a step back from the yelling. Riley Conti stood ten feet away, his face red and his hands balled into tight fists. His entire body shook with tremors. The grief he must have felt wafted off him heavily.
“You,” Riley hissed again.
Evelina stood beside Lily in the doorway, a crease marring her brow. “See, he’s so angry.”
Lily didn’t say a word.
Adriano took a step toward his father with a hand outstretched. Riley jerked away from his son, pointing a finger at his boss with hatred coating his next words.
“You bastard! I don’t want you here. We don’t want you here. I never—”
“Riley, come on,” Tommas said.
“Shut up,” Riley barked, turning back on Terrance. “I asked you for one thing, Terrance. One!”
“I don’t know if it was the Poletti boy’s family or not,” the boss said quietly. “And this is not the time or place for this discussion, Riley.”
“One thing, Terrance, and you couldn’t do it.”
“I will not start a war when the facts are unclear!”
Riley scoffed, dark and broken. “Was it worth it?”
“Dad,” Adriano said, grabbing his father’s arm. “Stop.”
“Don’t, Adriano,” Riley mumbled, pulling away.
Lily couldn’t help but notice how the people seemed divided. The DeLucas stood on the sidelines closer to the boss. The Conti family gathered behind a hurting Riley. Most of the Rossi family was scattered between the two.
Her air lodged in her throat as she recognized what was happening. What little bond there actually was between these people were being ripped apart because of one murder. How many other murders had they experienced? How many other people had lost their lives and they barely blinked about it?
What was so different about this one?
“Was it worth it?” Riley asked again. “Just to teach that useless piece of shit you call a grandson a lesson? Was it worth my wife’s life, Terrance?”
A disgusting grin curved Joel Trentini’s mouth as he regarded Riley. “Oh, don’t worry. I learned my lesson well.”
Terrance scowled. “Joel, enough.”
Lily stilled, coldness washing over her.
“Retribution,” Evelina said lowly.
It made a hell of a lot more sense, now.
Riley waved at the church doors leading out to the front steps. “Get out. Leave. You’re not welcome here; not to grieve with my family or give your false remorse and apologies. They mean nothing—nothing. Leave!”
“Riley, just listen to me and think about this,” Terrance started to say, sadness clouding his features.
“Leave!”
The funeral lasted longer than Lily thought possible. Through the entire service, she stayed beside Evelina to give her friend what comfort and support she could. Damian sat at Lily’s other side in the pew, quiet as usual. Once the final blessings had been said and the casket was free to move to make its way to the cemetery, Evelina and Lily separated for the first time all day.
Lily made sure to keep an eye on her grieving friend. Damian leaned against the brick wall of the church, still and stoic. Without realizing it throughout the day, Lily was only now coming to understand that while she had been Evelina’s cornerstone, Damian had been hers.
“Sad day,” Damian said.
“It’s always sad when someone dies for nothing, Damian.”
“It’s never for nothing. It always means something to someone.”
He had a point. Even still, Lily had a hard time correlating Mia Conti’s unfortunate end to something worthy or honorable.
“That was quite a show earlier,” Lily said, nodding subtly at Riley Conti as he passed with his son and daughter at his side.
“They’ve been best friends for years,” Damian said.
Lily watched the crowd of mourners separate for the pallbearers as they walked the casket to the hearse. “Who?”
“The boss and Riley. Hell, as far as I understand, Riley was the first person Terrance moved higher in the Outfit after he took his seat.”
“Huh.”
“It’s strange,” Damian said. “Seeing them fight like that, I mean.”
“He’s angry,” Lily replied. “Maybe he’ll calm down.”
“But maybe he won’t.”
“People are picking sides,” she whispered, still gazing over the crowd. “I noticed that.”
“It’s inevitable.”
“You didn’t.”
“No,” Damian murmured. “It’s not good to pick sides when you don’t know which one will win, Lily.”
“Win?” She tossed him a look, hoping it voiced her confusion without needing to ask.
“Little things like these have a way of becoming much bigger problems.”
“What does it mean, though?” Lily asked.
Damian’s arm found her waist before he pulled her closer to his side. Lily didn’t mind the closeness. It reminded her that for the moment, she did have someone who cared. “Means I need to keep you close, sweetheart.”
“Close?”
“Very close.”
Lily shivered. “Maybe I should like the sound of that, but for some reason, I don’t think you mean for me to.”
Damian shrugged. “Bad things happen when angry people grieve.”
“Sometimes.”
“But nothing will happen to you.”
Evelina passed Lily another pack of colors to flip through.
“How many different shades of peach can there be?” Lily asked, exasperated.
“A lot,” Evelina said, laughing quietly.
Lily smiled. It was the first time in a week since Evelina’s mother had been buried that the girl actually laughed or anything of that nature.
“I’ll find the right shade,” Lily said, tossing two awful swatches into the pile. “Not those, though.”
“What did you do this week?” Evelina asked. “When you
weren’t here, I mean.”
Lily grinned. “I wanted to be here, Eve.”
“Thanks.”
She missed so much time with her friend when she spent those years touring Europe that Lily was trying to make up for what they’d lost. Never once did their friendship feel out of place or like it had grown stale. Some didn’t. Some friendships—the very best kind—picked up where they last left off without ever missing a beat.
That was the kind of friend Evelina was.
“Where’s Damian?” Evelina asked, leaning back on the couch and glancing over her magazine.
Lily frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Really?”
“Nope. He’s been MIA for the last week.”
Which was completely odd. Especially if Lily considered what Damian had told her at Mia’s funeral. He planned on keeping her close, yet Lily rarely saw him all week. He showed up for dinner at her brother’s place yesterday, but that was it.
“I’ve been doing a lot, too,” Lily said in explanation. “Maybe I’m just passing him by.”
“Maybe,” Evelina echoed.
Between Evelina’s place and Abriella’s, Lily had spent more time out of her home the last week than she had inside it. It didn’t make things any easier that Evelina didn’t seem to want to be anywhere near the Trentini family for whatever reason. Evelina and Abriella had always been good friends, too, but the divide separating the men in their families had pushed the girls to separate corners, too.
“She’s in my wedding, too,” Lily said softly. “You do know that, right?”
“Hmm, who?” Evelina asked, looking over the top of the magazine.
“Abriella.”
Evelina’s face darkened. “What is your point?”
Lily pointed at her friend’s angry expression. “That’s my point right there. What is going on?”
“It’s not Ella that I’m pissed off about, Lily.”
“What is?”
“Her family. Her grandfather might as well have held the gun. Pointed it, pulled the trigger; whatever you want to call it. He’s responsible.”
“She’s not them, though,” Lily said.
Evelina lifted her shoulders like it didn’t make a damned difference. “I know, but I can’t get involved or take sides right now. Not with my father being like he is. Better I stay to my side of Chicago and she stays on hers. Maybe it’ll work itself out.”
“Sounds like you’ve already taken a side.”
“I haven’t.”
Evelina’s actions spoke differently.
Lily chose not to push her friend on that front. “Is your father going to come to the wedding?”
“Yes, I’m in it. He doesn’t miss a chance to show me off when I’m dressed up. Unlike you, I’m still on the market, Lily.” Evelina’s voice didn’t hold a hint of sadness about the fact her hand was still for sale in the marriage market, technically. “So yeah, I imagine he’ll be there.”
“Terrance will be there, too. It’s a big thing, remember? Two families inside the Outfit joining or whatever. As much as this whole wedding thing irks me, I would like to have a nice day. One that isn’t full of people screaming at one another.”
Evelina didn’t blink a lash. “I’m sure it will all be settled by then.”
“How—”
Evelina’s father walked into the living room with a cell phone pressed to his ear. Adriano followed right behind.
“But, Dad—”
“Enough, Adriano.”
Evelina tensed and quickly averted her gaze from her brother and father.
“Yeah, is everything good?” Riley asked, his attention back on his phone call. “Perfect, give me thirty.”
Riley ended the call and slipped his phone back into his pocket. Like Evelina and Lily weren’t even in the room, he turned on his frustrated son and waved his hands wide.
“The answer is no, Adriano,” Riley said. “Stay out of it and keep an eye on your sister for me like you’ve been doing.”
“Aren’t you worried about what the boss is going to do?” Adriano asked his father.
“I don’t care. He should have done it right the first time or settled it for me like I asked.”
Lily’s brow furrowed as she watched the confusing exchange between father and son.
“They deny it, Dad,” Adriano said, his voice desperate.
Riley sighed harshly, his teeth gritting. “Why are you doing this, son?”
“What?”
“This,” Riley barked, flicking his wrist in Adriano’s direction in the most dismissive way Lily had ever seen. “Fighting with me and refusing my wishes. I raised you better than this. You know what is important—blood, the family, us. She was your mother. When someone spills your blood, you answer that by spilling theirs.”
“The Lazzari family denies retaliating for the hit on James Poletti,” Adriano said firmly. “Other people are talking, too. This might have come from the—”
“No one in the Outfit was looking to kill your mother.”
Adriano’s gaze narrowed. “You keep saying that shit like someone was pointing the gun at her directly. Laurent took a bullet, too. Terrance was sitting at that table along with members of the Rossi and DeLuca families. Mom was an acc—”
“If you call her death anything less than a disgrace needing retribution, I will cut your fucking tongue out.”
Lily gasped quietly, disbelief filling her to the brim.
Adriano sneered. “And this? Disobeying and disrespecting Terrance like this? How will that go over, Dad?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Riley replied. “It came from somewhere, and the Lazarri family is the only one Terrance has had issues with. He can clean up the mess when I’m done. The hit is going through.”
More blood. More blood was going to spill. More useless, unneeded deaths. More funerals, sadness, and grief.
Lily could already taste it and feel it.
“What the fuck are you going to do, huh?” Adriano demanded.
“Excuse me?” Riley asked.
“What are you going to do, paint Chicago red before you finally feel better? It’s not going to bring her back or fix what happened, Dad. She’s still going to be dead!”
“Your motives are showing,” Riley said.
“What?”
“This is about her again, isn’t it? You’re worried about her. I am so sick of this bullshit, Adriano. It’s not going to happen, not after everything.”
“It has nothing to do with her.”
“I think it does. Fighting with me isn’t going to get you any closer to Alessa Trentini.”
Oh. Well, then.
Lily followed Evelina’s lead and decided to ignore the two men as their fight spilled into the joining hallway.
“Alessa?” Lily asked quietly.
Abriella’s younger sister tended to stick to herself and was a quiet thing. Lily hadn’t gotten the chance to talk much to Alessa since returning home.
Evelina didn’t look away from her magazine. “Apparently.”
“Didn’t see that one coming.”
“Star-crossed,” Evelina said under her breath with a hint of bitterness. “Fucking romantic, huh?”
Lily fingered the swatches of fabric before asking, “Is he going after the Lazarri family?”
“Seems like it,” Evelina replied, calm and unbothered.
The Lazzari family was a small criminal family with Italian roots and little connection to the Outfit. Lily didn’t know a great deal about them except for some of the things she’d heard in passing between Dino and Theo over the last week as her brothers discussed the divide separating the Outfit between the Conti and Trentini families.
Theo didn’t believe the Lazarri family had a hand in the hit.
Dino didn’t give an opinion at all.
“Somebody else might bury their mother,” Lily said, wanting her friend to understand what her father’s actions meant.
Evelina flipped
a page in her magazine. “So be it.”
“Eve!”
“Don’t be so surprised,” Evelina said coolly. “Tell me in all your years that you’ve never once wished someone had paid for the life of your mother and father. I know what your dad did—we all fucking know, Lily. But you still loved them, right? It still hurt.”
“It did,” Lily replied.
“Look me in my eyes and tell me it’s okay with you that nobody ever answered for doing that to you and your brothers.”
Lily couldn’t.
Lily turned her new Maserati off to the side of the quiet street, threw the gears into park and cut the engine, frustrated and overwhelmed. She’d cut her evening short with Evelina after the show between Riley and Adriano. Lily didn’t know what to think about her friend’s response or how Evelina acted like retaliation for her mother’s killing could be in any way justified.
Lily understood pain. She got Evelina was still in the midst of grieving and maybe her anger was finally catching up with her. At the same time, Lily didn’t get it at all. Maybe the lingering pain from losing her own mother and father way back when prevented Lily from accepting the mafia way of taking a life for a life, but no matter how hard she tried … she couldn’t do it.
The Outfit had taken people away from Lily once—her view had long been tainted. She knew that. She also knew the people she did care about, her brothers, Evelina, and even Damian, were all involved in a life that hurt her once. They fully engrained their own worlds and rules to fit the mafia.
Lily couldn’t help but wonder if she had ever been able to get the retribution deserved for her parents’ death, would she be like them, too? Accepting. Tolerant. Unaffected. Would she? If her parents’ death had been answered with more blood, would the ache in her heart be mended?
She had always believed that spilling blood did nothing but stain the ground and the hands of the person making the calls.
Her father’s death had always been considered justified. Her mother’s, a by-product.
A fucking afterthought.
Dismissed.
Someone took away Lily’s mother without even thinking or caring about it. They buried her and pretended like it didn’t happen. Like that woman wasn’t important to three little people who she helped create and who needed her.