The Promise (The 'Burg Series)

by Kristen Ashley

  I was, so I said, “Yep.”

  His eyes changed again, they grew warm with concern, and he went on quietly, “You got pain?”

  I absolutely did.

  I didn’t answer verbally. I nodded.

  The skin around his mouth tightened momentarily before he muttered, “Right.”

  Then he moved. Carefully extricating his arm from under me, he rolled off the bed and immediately shoved his hand in his back pocket. He pulled his phone out, then nabbed the remote from the nightstand and shoved it in his pocket, taking away any further opportunities of TV revenge.

  Since he did this, he clearly didn’t know I considered the first try spectacularly unsuccessful. I wasn’t all that smart, but I was smart enough not to repeat an ineffective maneuver.

  He started walking toward the door with his thumb moving over the screen of his phone.

  He was out the door when I heard him say, “Man? That pie I made? Put it in the oven and have someone bring it over when it’s done. Breadsticks. Salad. Yeah?”

  I heard no more as I figured either Manny agreed to what his big brother ordered and/or Benny was going down the stairs.

  I moved a hand to rest just above the bandages at my midriff and stared at the ceiling.

  I wanted to think about the fact that I was soon going to experience a pizza pie created at the hands of Benny Bianchi. This thought was too titillating, so I couldn’t think of it and opened my mind to find something else to think about.

  Seeing as I was lying in Benny’s bed, where my mind took me was to the fact that, growing up, the Bianchis went to the same church as my family. I used to watch them, even as a little girl. All six of them.

  I watched them because I liked what I saw.

  Ma, being a crazy, rowdy, trouble-making, fun-loving, adventure-seeking slut (the last part was not nice, but it was true and she’d say the same damn thing with crazy, rowdy, fun-loving, pride), weirdly did not miss church on Sunday.

  “Gotta wash away the sin, my precious girl, so you can sin again,” she’d tell me frequently on a flashy smile.

  Watching the Bianchis, and having years to do it, truth be told I’d had my eye on Ben way before I even thought about Vinnie. Vinnie was five years older than me, so back in the day, he was out of my league.

  Ben was not. He was one year older than me. I went to school with him and every girl in school had their eye on Benito Bianchi.

  Way back then, Ma had her eye on Benny too. For me. She used to don a tube top and a pair of short shorts, put hot rollers in her hair, tease it out to extremes, spray it so it barely moved (in other words, her normal routine), and then drag my ass to his baseball games.

  Even though Benny was not hard to look at, and back then (and now) he had that thing—that thing the cool boys had which set them apart and made you want them so much it was like an ache—I avoided Ma’s many and varied plans to throw me in his path.

  This was because he played the field, even in high school, and I wasn’t talking about baseball. Stealing bases in all the ways that could be implied was definitely a specialty of Benny’s. By his junior year, he’d gone through all the available, easy girls in our school and had started to concentrate on casting lures more widely.

  Even in high school, I knew I didn’t want to get involved with a boy like that, no matter how cute he was. No matter that he had that thing. No matter that I’d secretly watch him and wish so hard he had that thing in a one-girl type of way (instead of an any-girl-who-would-give-it-up type of way) and ache for him to be mine.

  And even in high school, I knew why the unbeatable lure of Benny Bianchi was beatable for me.

  My half-Italian, half-Irish father had a kid—my brother, Dino—from some chick he knocked up before he knocked up my mother with me.

  Enzo Concetti, my dad, was hot (still). He was rough. He was crazy. He was adventure-seeking. And he got a kick out of my ma. So after he knocked her up, he took her ball and chain and they enjoyed themselves immensely for the next five years. I knew this because Ma squeezed out both my sisters, Catarina and Natalia, and my baby brother, Enzo Junior, in that time.

  Unfortunately, as time went by with marriage and family in the mix, neither Dad nor Ma stopped being crazy or thinking life was about having a really fucking great time as often as you could get it, and if life didn’t give it to you, you made it. The drag of a family and a spouse was just that: a drag.

  So things went as they were bound to go when my parents were faced with something like responsibility, which, no getting away from it (though they tried), kids were. It got ugly and my parents weren’t about ugly. They also weren’t about fixing things that were broken, even if those things were important. And, being how they were, they didn’t let it stay ugly for long before they bailed.

  Dad never got remarried. Dad spent the next decades doing what he liked most: having a great time. Dad was currently fifty-six and living with his latest piece, who was four years older than me.

  Ma did get remarried, three more times. All of them had been to good guys that I liked. All of them had failed because those guys were good guys who eventually wanted to settle down, or who were settled and thought they could have fun with Ma for a while and then settle her down. When they failed, they bailed. Or, more to the point, she bailed or made it so they had no choice but to do the same. She was currently living in Florida and had a rock on her finger, setting up plans to get hitched to number five.

  This was obviously not conducive to a stable childhood home. Ma and Dad got along, yucked it up when they were together, and it was not unusual in times when they both were unattached (or even times when they were) when we woke up to Ma at Dad’s house or Dad at Ma’s, seeing as they frequently hooked up for a trip down memory lane.

  During all this, they did not have a formal custody agreement.

  Well, actually, they did. They just didn’t adhere to it. They went with their flow. Therefore, we were bounced from one to the other, to aunts, uncles, grandparents, boyfriends, girlfriends, wherever they were or whenever they needed to be quit of us, all of this at random. When we got older, we just went wherever we wanted. They didn’t really care, as long as we eventually came home breathing.

  Through this, I’d developed a deep jealousy I never told a single soul about toward my brother Dino. His mom got her shit together, got married to a stand-up guy, gave Dino a brother and sister, a lot of love, a solid family, and a good home.

  So by the time I hit high school, I knew that was what I wanted. I didn’t want a guy out for a good time with the mission to get laid and drunk as often as he could, participating in the parking lot fist fights and bar brawls that came along the way.

  I wanted a solid family. I wanted to be part of building a good home. After that, I wanted to spend my energy making it stay good.

  How that led me to Vinnie, I had no idea, except for the fact that Ma’s eye eventually turned to him for me.

  And Vinnie was a Bianchi.

  Vinnie was good-looking. Vinnie was loud. Vinnie was the life of any party. Vinnie never met anyone he didn’t like. That was, unless you rubbed him the wrong way. Then he didn’t have any problem letting you know you did and acting on it if he felt that kind of attention was deserved.

  Vinnie had one life plan: to live large. He just didn’t know how to get that.

  So he saw a good thing—the thriving success of his father’s restaurant—and tried to convince Vinnie Senior into franchising the pizzeria, telling his father it would make them millionaires.

  That didn’t go over too good. Vinnie Senior was vehemently against it, feeling Vinnie’s Pizzeria was about quality and tradition, both of which would no doubt get lost in an attempt at nationwide franchising. Vinnie Senior went so far as to be disappointed (openly) that his son didn’t get that and would even suggest franchising.

  In order to show his father, Vinnie Junior washed his hands of the pizzeria and opened his own sandwich business. He had no idea what he was doing, even
though I told him he should learn before he dumped his time and limited money into that kind of thing. In the end, unsurprisingly, it failed.

  A dozen other schemes, all half-baked, either died an ugly death or never left the starting gate.

  Enter Sal and his business, something that Vinnie took to with scary ease, something I should have read as what it was when it happened.

  Through all this, the Bianchis cast their eyes to me as the woman behind the man pushing Vinnie to do stupid shit in order to hand her the world. They didn’t judge outright. They didn’t say shit. But as time went on, I felt the blame I didn’t deserve.

  I didn’t say a word.

  I didn’t say a word because I loved their pizzeria. I loved what it represented. The solidity of their family. Their history. Their loyalty. Their teasing. Their warmth with each other. Their spice when one of them would get pissed, but it was okay because it was based in love and loyalty and it felt good to be around, rather than shaky and dysfunctional.

  So I held on when I knew I should’ve let go. I held on thinking that Vinnie would eventually get his head out of his ass and give me what I wanted. I held on because I loved being a part of the Bianchis, something I always wanted.

  And I held on because I loved Vinnie. He was loud and loved life and I understood that. I’d lived it with my parents. I felt comfortable there, even though I knew it was dangerous.

  I held on.

  Then there was nothing to hold on to.

  I was too young to recognize I’d found my father.

  I also had no clue at the time that I’d picked the wrong brother. I had no clue I’d be forced to watch from up close, and then afar, as Benny started to settle down.

  First, he quit his job in construction and went to work at the pizzeria. This meant he stopped carousing at night because he was working at night.

  Then he bought that house.

  A row house in the middle of the row, built up from the sidewalk. Front stoop. Back stoop. Nonexistent front yard. Backyard big enough to play catch in and house a two-car garage and another spot for family parking. There were four bedrooms in all the other houses, but Benny’s was three, with a converted master bath. Living room/dining room up front. Kitchen, den, utility room in the back. Small powder room downstairs. Family bathroom upstairs.

  It was settled—had been there over a century and the surrounding inhabitants were mostly Italian American families whose relatives had lived in that ’hood for generations and weren’t going to give it up.

  Once he got the house, he got rid of his muscle car and bought an SUV.

  And he eventually took over the pizzeria from his old man.

  He still fucked everything that moved, but I paid attention to the talk. I knew some of the women he took to his bed. I knew exactly when it went from being about getting off to being about finding the right one.

  Sure, he would have his times that were just about getting laid.

  But Benny started to move down the path that I knew was leading him to find someone who would help him build a solid family and create a good home.

  Vinnie never did that. Vinnie had no interest in that path. He only was interested in his path, however murky, and he dragged me along with him.

  The problem was, I let him.

  On this thought, I sensed movement and cast my eyes down my body to see Ben walking in. He was carrying a pint glass filled with ice and purple liquid in one hand, a little pharmacy pill bottle in the other.

  I pushed up to sitting as Benny hit my side of the bed. He put the stuff on the nightstand and leaned into me in order to arrange pillows behind my back. When he was done, I scooted up the bed to rest on the pillows and Ben went to the bottle.

  I had the glass by the time he handed me the pill.

  I took the medicine and decided not to argue when Ben sat his ass, hip to mine, on the bed.

  “Pizza’s comin’,” he stated.

  “Okay,” I replied, putting the glass on the nightstand.

  “Read your doctor’s notes,” he told me and I looked his way.

  That was none of his business and he knew it.

  I decided not to share that that irked me, and just how much, and stayed silent.

  “Wants you to make a checkup appointment next week. I’ll get Ma on that.”

  I did not want Theresa “on that.” I was quite capable of making a phone call to set an appointment with my own freaking doctor.

  I decided not to give him that information either.

  “He wants you movin’ around. Not much at first, but he wants you active.”

  “Okay,” I repeated.

  “And he says for a few days you can’t shower without someone close.”

  Again, we were in dangerous territory. Dangerous for Benny because he was not going to go there. He could kidnap me (because he did). He could put me in his bed (because he did).

  But he wasn’t getting anywhere near me in a shower.

  “If you think—” I started.

  “I don’t,” he cut me off. “But I want Ma around when you do it. I have a friend whose woman had surgery. They weren’t livin’ together then and she’s independent, thinks she can do it all, she decided to take a shower by herself. But when she took off the bandage and saw that shit, she freaked and passed out. Hit her head on the tub. Gave herself a concussion and another hospital stay. So you let Ma help you out and you let her dress your wound. You don’t want that, you got a girl, I’ll let you call her. You don’t let Ma do it or make a call, not fuckin’ with you, Francesca, you’ll shower with me in this room, the door open, and I’ll dress your wound.”

  I was about to serve the attitude when it hit me this was an excellent idea.

  If I called one of my friends, I could enlist her in helping me escape.

  “I’ll phone a friend,” I told him, but I forced it to sound annoyed so he wouldn’t cotton on to my game.

  “Good,” he muttered.

  “Did you buy my tapioca?” I asked.

  His eyes lit with humor, and when they did, I remembered how very much I liked that in a way that made me wonder, if I had a different kind of life—in other words, I’d made smarter decisions in the life I had—if I would ever get used to that. Watching Benny Bianchi’s eyes light with humor. Feeling that light shine on me, making me warm all over, even on the inside. If that would ever become commonplace.

  But I’d never have that life.

  Still, I knew if I had it, if Ben and I had a year together or fifty of them, I’d go for that light. I’d work for it. I’d do it every day for fifty years.

  And I’d never get used to the warmth it would give me.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “A trashy novel?” I pushed.

  More humor in his eyes and a, “Fuck no.”

  “Benny, TV and magazines aren’t gonna get me very far.”

  “Seein’ as you got my company tonight, Ma and me tomorrow, not to mention one of your girls comin’ over to help you shower, you’ll be good. After tomorrow, I’ll send Ma out to buy you some smut. That’ll mean she’ll do it after goin’ to church and lightin’ a candle in aid of your soul, but she’ll do it.”

  She would. There was a breach to heal. She’d frown on my smut, but she’d buy it for me.

  “I was kinda hopin’ that tonight you’d bring me pizza, leave me alone, and go watch the game downstairs,” I noted.

  “You’d be hopin’ wrong since your ass is walkin’ down the stairs to have dinner with me at the kitchen table so you can get some exercise in. After that, we’re watchin’ whatever we watch up here together, in my bed, ’cause I know you. I know you’re fuckin’ crazy. I know a bullet to the belly will not stop you from crawlin’ out the window. So my ass isn’t on that couch downstairs until you fall asleep.”

  He intended to sleep on the couch.

  This made me feel relief.

  It also made me feel a niggle of gloom.

  I’d been alone a long time. Living alone
. Sleeping alone. Keeping myself to myself.

  I knew Ben was dangerous and I knew prolonged exposure to him would increase that danger significantly.

  That didn’t change the fact that he was not hard to look at, it was not a hardship to watch him move, I got a kick out of squabbling with him, and it far from sucked waking up with my cheek to his chest, his arm wrapped around me, the feel and smell of him everywhere.

  Obviously, I not only didn’t share this, I didn’t let these thoughts show.

  Instead, I mumbled, “Whatever. Until you release me from captivity, I’ll go through the motions to avoid the hassle.”

  “You’ve never gone through the motions to avoid hassle,” he returned. “You’ve gone through the motions to deflect attention so you can carry out whatever scheme you’re hatchin’.”

  I focused on him. I did it intently and with some annoyance I didn’t bother to hide because it was annoying that he knew I was plotting.

  He grinned at my reaction and kept talking.

  “Like I said, bein’ straight up, Frankie. You should know I’m not fallin’ for your shit. So whatever girl you got lined up to help you make your getaway, get that shit out of your head. Old lady Zambino saw what you did on TV. She knows you took one for family and she’s all over keepin’ you safe and settled, recuperatin’ at my house. Probably half a second after my chat with her enlisting her officially in the cause, she was on her phone with that bowlin’ posse of hers and, swear to God, I saw one of those women in her Chrysler, cruisin’ the alley when I got home. You’re stuck. Give in to that and this’ll go a whole lot smoother.”

  Old lady Zambino lived across the street from Benny. Old lady Zambino was Italian. Old lady Zambino was nosy. And if she knew anyone referred to her as “old lady Zambino,” she would hire a hit on them.

  She was in her eighties, but she looked like she was in her fifties. She had peachy-red hair she wore up in a puffy ’do fastened at the back through curls. She was trim and fit. She wore jeans, nice blouses, and high heels. She had weekly manicures done to her talons and was never without one of her signature nail polishes: gold or wine red in the winter (scarlet red for the Christmas season); silver or fuchsia in the summer (pale pink for Easter). Her face was always made up perfectly, and she was the poster child for a good skincare regime because she had wrinkles, just not many of them.