“My question before yours,” he says slowly, fisting the flash drive and leaning back on the polished leather. “Here it is: Bari Bellano, what’s the succession plan for the Bellano Family?”
I frown and swallow hard. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, since you made the bold move of strutting your butt into my chambers, who takes over the Bellano Family?”
“Well, so long as I’m alive, I’m technically the Head of the Family,” I say, closing one eye and looking suspiciously at the coffee cup as I wonder again what’s on that flash drive.
“And what if you’re dead?” Brusco says softly. “What if your gamble didn’t pay off, if your instincts weren’t right, if we weren’t right? What if nobody ever saw you again after you walked through my gates?”
I exhale slowly, the caffeine now making me a bit jittery. “Well, for now Uncle Joe is in charge of day-to-day affairs. There are distant relatives, all of whom have their own domains and territories across the state. There’s a detailed plan for transfer of territory to prevent infighting. Uncle Joe would manage the transition if anything happened to me.”
“And how long would a complex, detailed transition of wealth, power, and territory take, you think?” Brusco says, slowly getting up and walking over to a recessed flatscreen up against the far wall. He slides the flash-drive into the slot and turns back to me, eyebrows raised.
“A year. Maybe more,” I say, frowning as I see what he’s suggesting.
“A year. Maybe more. Time during which Uncle Joe would be in power.” Brusco’s face is tight, his green eyes serious. “Men don’t give up power easily, Bari. Your sweet Uncle Joe would have control over the most powerful part of the Bellano empire. None of the relatives would be able to muscle in on him if he chose to simply shrug and say fuck you, I’m not giving up power.”
“That’s ridiculous, Brusco,” I say. “No, Uncle Joe isn’t a sweet old uncle by any means. He’s a hard, brutal man. But he was loyal to the death. Disregarding Mama and Papa’s will would be like blasphemy to him. He’d been with them since he was a boy. And he’s like a father to almost every man in the Bellano mob!”
“Precisely,” says Brusco in silent victory. “He’s a general who commands the loyalty of the army. Every heard of a military coup, Bari? Where the head of the army takes over, tossing tradition, law, and rules to the wind by sheer force?”
“I know what a fucking military coup is,” I growl, clenching my fists at the mere suggestion that Uncle Joe had anything to do with killing Mama and Papa. But somewhere at the bottom of my heart I can feel dread welling like thick black oil, as if maybe I was too foolish or too damned scared to face the possibility that a man with both motive and opportunity to kill my parents might be the one who actually did it!
That dreads rises up until I feel sick, and when the LED screen lights up and I see the familiar hallway of the East Wing of the Bellano Mansion captured via security camera footage, I stare in shock—first at the screen and then at Brusco.
“Where did you get this?” I mutter. “Uncle Joe said the security system was off.”
“The alarm may have been off. The cameras clearly weren’t,” Brusco says. “You said it yourself: Your parents weren’t particularly tech savvy. Well, neither was Uncle Joe, it seems. He switched off the alarms, but didn’t get all the cameras to shut off.”
“How did you—”
Brusco turns with an amused look that reminds me of how damned arrogant he is—and maybe for good reason. “I could snap my fingers and get the classified footage from the JFK assassination if I wanted,” he snaps, turning back to the screen and gesturing with his head. “Watch, Bari. Watch.”
12
BRUSCO
I watch Bari as she watches her Uncle Joe captured on high-definition video. Thankfully there were no cameras in her Mama and Papa’s bedroom—if there were, I wouldn’t have shown her the footage.
But what did get caught on camera is clear as the blue sky outside on this crisp Christmas morning, I think with a tinge of melancholy as I see Bari’s expression change while Uncle Joe quietly opens the door to her parents’ bedroom, carefully aims the silenced handgun, and fires four shots into the room.
Two for Mama.
Two for Papa.
“I’m sorry, Bari,” I whisper to her, my heart almost breaking when I see her face fall like a little girl who just found coal in her stocking. “I’m so fucking sorry. My men are looking for him right now. I’m going to bring him before you—before us—to answer for this. No one—not the Five Families, not your relatives, not even the soldiers and mobsters loyal to Uncle Joe—will be able to deny what has to happen next. Bari, I’m sorry. Oh, hell, Bari. Come here. Come here, baby.”
I rush over to my girl as I see her lower lip tremble while she fights back tears. In a moment I’m on my knees on the floor, pulling her into my arms as she sobs once. Just one sob. A deep, heart-wrenching sob that I know carries both grief and anger in it, the pain of betrayal along with the trauma of seeing what she saw. What she had to see.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she says firmly, her voice wavering as she looks at me gratefully but still pulls away so she can see the screen. “If Uncle Joe wanted to take over, why would he leave me alive?”
“Because if he killed all three of you, he’d been an obvious suspect,” I say softly. “Along with me, of course—but I’d be a suspect either way. This way you’re as much of a suspect as he would be, in a fucked up way. Not to mention that with you alive, the Bellano Territory doesn’t get split up between the distant relatives. Or maybe his plan was to eventually take you out too, once the focus died down. We'll find out once my men bring him in.”
“Uncle Joe doesn’t think like that,” she snaps, narrowing her eyes and glaring at me. “He’d die before hurting Mama and Papa. And he’d die before he even considered hurting me.” She shakes her head and turns back to the screen, frowning as if she sees something strange in the footage of Uncle Joe leaving the scene. “Wait. Go back a few seconds.”
I reach for the remote and do what she says. Then my expression changes too when I see what Bari saw.
It’s Uncle Joe turning away from the murder, glancing down at himself, smoking gun still in his hand. He shakes his head and mutters something, and when he looks up the camera catches his expression.
“Huh,” I grunt, rubbing my jaw and leaning in to take a closer look.
“I told you something isn’t right,” Bari says.
“It’s hard to tell anything from the footage and camera angle,” I say, folding my arms across my chest. I want this to be over. I want to solve the mystery hanging over our heads, solve it neat and clean, no crumbs left over. I want to fucking marry her, join our two families, and move into the future. I glance down at my phone, cursing that my men haven’t already found Uncle Joe and dragged his treacherous old ass here so we can end this drama.
“Those are . . . those are tears!” Bari shrieks, shaking her head furiously and grabbing the remote from me so she can go back to the image of Uncle Joe fucking crying after he murdered the man and woman who were as much his family as they were Bari’s.
Just then my phone buzzes, and I snatch it up and nod my head as my men tell me what I’ve been waiting all morning to hear. So what if Uncle Joe was crying. Doesn’t mean shit. Bari needs to toughen up, recognize that ambition is ruthless, that some men can wait a lifetime, biding their time before making a move, like a snake in the grass. That’s not my style—I take what I want when I want—but whatever works for the soon-to-be-dead Uncle fucking Joe.
“OK, bring him in, boys,” I call out after making sure Bari is covered up first. I turn and stand up straight as three of my men push Uncle Joe into the room. “That was pretty quick, I will admit. His soldiers give you any trouble?”
My men glance at one another like they’re scared—or maybe embarrass
ed.
“Actually, Boss,” says one of them slowly. “He came alone. Unarmed.”
I blink as the words register slowly. “What do you mean he came alone? Came alone where?”
“Here,” says the other man. “We caught him . . . um . . . we found him on . . . on the . . .”
Bari suddenly stands up, the blankets still around her. She was staring at Uncle Joe, but now she’s looking at something one of my men is holding. Something red and white and fluffy. It’s a fucking . . . what?!
“We found him on the roof, Boss,” my man finally blurts out. He holds up the red-white-and-fluffy thing, his eyes going wide like he’s not sure if this is a joke or just sheer insanity. “He was about to drop this down . . . down the chimney!”
Bari squeals in delight, and before I can stop her she’s rushed across the room and is hugging her Uncle Joe like a little girl. I stare at my beefy goon of a henchman who’s holding a fucking Christmas stocking in his hand like an idiot, and all I can do is rub my eyes to make sure this isn’t a Christmas Hallucination.
“We checked it, Boss,” says the man hurriedly, just as Bari grabs the stocking and peeks into it like a kid on Christmas morning. “There’s nothing in it but . . . well, nothing but that.”
I watch as Bari gasps and pulls out a folded piece of paper. It’s wrapped around something, and when Bari unwraps it I can’t help but gasp too.
Because it’s a ring.
A diamond ring.
Beaming like the moon on Christmas Eve.
Shining like the sun on Christmas morning.
“Mama’s wedding ring,” Bari whispers, her voice wavering as she stares at it, then at the paper it came wrapped in. There’s something scrawled on the paper, and when Bari reads it she bursts into tears, looking at me, then at Uncle Joe, finally down at the ring until I think she doesn’t know where to look.
“Get out,” I mutter to my men, nodding at them and gesturing to the door with my head. “Now.”
13
BARI
“Now you know everything,” says Uncle Joe as he puts down the steaming cup and smacks his scarred lips. “Fuck, this is some solid coffee, Barzini! What is it, Dunkin Donuts?”
“I should have you shot just for saying that,” Brusco growls from across the coffee table.
We all laugh, and I shake my head as I replay the events of the past hour. Just when I thought nothing could top the madness of Christmas Eve, Uncle Joe shows up like Santa on the roof, with a Christmas stocking containing my Mama’s wedding ring and a note that says just one small thing but somehow says it all:
Dearest Bari,
May this ring bind you two together while setting you both free.
Merry Christmas for the last time.
Yours forever,
Mama and Papa.
“Trust me, I tried to convince them it was lunacy, insanity in the first fucking degree,” Uncle Joe says in his gruff way. “They always wanted you two to get together, and yes, they wanted an arrangement when you were a child. But as they grew older and watched you become the woman you are, they decided it needed to be your choice, not theirs. They also decided you two would never be free to make your own choices until both sets of parents were gone. So they waited for years for Brusco’s parents to die, even though I told them I could fucking hasten that death anytime they asked.” He shrugs at Brusco like he’s kinda apologizing but not really. “But they said that Brusco was a fucking hothead and he’d just start a war and kill everyone. They said we had to wait. And so they waited for years, and when the Barzinis died earlier this year, they said it was time. It was your time, Bari.”
“All you’ve done so far is explain that Bari’s parents had lost their fucking minds,” Brusco says, turning to me with an apologetic look. “Sorry, honey. But there’s no other explanation. No shame in it. My folks were losing it too at that age.”
“Except Mama and Papa weren’t losing it,” I mutter, looking down at the ring and shaking my head as I feel the answer hovering out there, just beyond my reach. “Their bodies were broken with age, but their minds were still sharp and healthy. And yes, they sometimes talked about being ready to move on to the next world or whatever. But they weren’t fucking senile, you know? Which is why I simply don’t get why they had to orchestrate this elaborate, twisted scheme just to . . . to . . .”
But my voice fades as I feel a gentle breeze in the room, and I cock my head as the answer slowly drifts to me like it’s coming from just past the threshold of life and death, like maybe what happened between me and Brusco last night prepared me to understand my parents’ last Christmas gift to me.
And suddenly I understand.
The gift wasn’t the ring.
The gift wasn’t even Brusco Barzini.
The gift was me.
My freedom.
My freedom to choose not just who I wanted to be with, but also choose who I wanted to be!
I glance dreamily at Brusco, wondering how this whole thing would have played out if we’d had a formal meeting like it was in the days of kings and queens, with me demurely sitting on a couch, marriage and children being discussed like a transaction. Would Brusco and I have felt what we felt when we saw each other?
Maybe.
Probably.
Definitely.
But would Brusco and I have agreed to that transaction if it’d been presented in a traditional, old-fashioned way?
Perhaps.
Possibly.
No fucking way.
And now the tears come as I close my palm over the ring and shake my head, cursing my parents and blessing them at the same time, loving them and hating them at the same time, wishing they were here with me and wishing them farewell at the same time.
“They knew who we were, Brusco,” I whisper to him as the tears roll down my cheeks. “They knew the life we were born into, the mix of darkness and light that flows in our blood, will always flow in our blood. They forced me into a position where I had to rise up and face who I was, face what I was. They took the chance I might get so angry that I’d recklessly start a war with the Barzini Family—a war the Bellanos couldn’t possibly win. They took the chance because they had faith that I was smarter than that. Stronger than that. That fate was stronger than that. Love was stronger than that. Forever was stronger than that. They took the chance that putting me in this position would eventually put me in a room with you, and after that it was our choices, our free will, our feelings and desires that would decide the future, so help us God.”
“The reason you walked into this room was because you wanted to kill me, remember?” Brusco says with a raised eyebrow. “And what if you'd done just that? Maybe they’d figured you weren’t dumb enough to start a full-on war against a family that outnumbers, outguns, and outfinances you. But what if you had put a fucking knife in my back, Bari? Then Mama and Papa’s crazy plan ends in war anyway. Defeat and destruction. The Bellanos wiped out in revenge, with the Five Families simply shrugging and looking the other way because it would be over so damned quick. There’s no way your parents could’ve known for sure what would happen, Bari. No fucking way.”
“You’re right,” I say, my eyes shining like that diamond in my palm. “And that was why they did it! That’s why I think their gift was freedom from captivity . . . freedom to battle the darkness and light that lives inside me, freedom to see if I can balance them out or if one will win out and send the entire thing spiraling into chaos.” I shake my head excitedly as the understanding of my parents’ crazy but subtly brilliant scheme lights me up like a Christmas tree. “And there was a mad sanity to it too. You can see the ambition in their scheme too, Brusco! They knew that your family was vastly more powerful. So a formal arranged marriage would mean them coming to you with heads bowed meekly like fucking peasants appearing before a lord. It would never have been a balanced
union. The Bellano name would have eventually been wiped out. It would have been a surrender without a war. And my parents were not going to surrender. They were fucking ambitious too. They always eyed the Barzini empire, always looked to expand their power. And this way . . .” I say, trailing off again as I look at Mama’s ring and realize how powerful the symbolism really is: A mother passing on her ring to her daughter? Traditionally the ring comes from the man’s family, doesn’t it?
Ohmygod, I think as electricity surges through my body. It’s Mama’s way of adding one last twist, one last turn, one last . . . test?
Yes, a test.
A test to see if this man will take their daughter as not just his wife, but his equal. If he’ll bow his head to her, submit to her in a beautifully subtle way, break from tradition for her, for me, for us, for our always, for our forever.
I look at Brusco, wondering if he gets it, if he understands what it means if he takes my family ring and places it on my finger, asking the question that I know was already answered last night but still needs to be formally asked.
“Those crafty old bastards,” Brusco mutters, shaking his head as the realization shows on his face. “They’re making me choose what I want to be, too, aren’t they? Making me fucking submit in a way I never would have if they’d come to me with a traditional arranged marriage proposal—no matter how much I wanted you.” Then those green eyes narrow, and he clenches his jaw, grits his teeth, and shakes his head. “Fuck it. I already chose last night, Bari. I chose you. I chose you.”
And before I know it he grabs the ring from my hand and is on his bended knee before me, asking the question that doesn’t need to be asked but has to be asked, doesn’t need to be answered but I answer it anyway:
“Yes,” I say. “Yes.”
And as the scent of cinnamon and spice and Christmas swirls through the air around me, a scarred old Santa watching with a twinkle in his eye, I shake my head and say the word once more, this time just to myself, to remind myself that Christmas miracles are still a thing.
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