After interminable seconds, Nick sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Nobody told me. We saw it happening last night. When you were late this morning, we put the obvious pieces together.”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
Now Donnie laughed, with a hint of actual amusement. “Ange, the way you looked at her all night—that was no act. You’re into her.”
“I was supposed to be flirting with her.” He didn’t know why he was arguing the point; they were right. He’d liked her right away as they’d started talking, and he’d liked her more as the night progressed. But he didn’t like the idea that he’d been so obvious. He was the observer, not the observed.
“You took her to your room, Ange,” Nick said. “You fucked her. After I told you not to. You were interested enough to go against me. And that’s the real problem.” He leaned on the table. “That’s a serious problem.”
Angie’s heart turned cold and sluggish. “No, wait. Nick—I didn’t bring her to my room. She came to me. Later.”
Nick and Donnie exchanged a glance.
“I know I should have sent her away, but she had an idea,” Angie continued. “She says it’s better if Tommy thinks we’re a serious couple.”
“Please?” Donnie said. “How?”
Nick’s aggressive stance eased, and he sat back a little. “Yes. Enlighten us.”
“She says in the Sacco Family, married women can’t work.”
“That’s true.”
Angie frowned at Nick. “You knew that?”
“Sure I did. It’s not so unusual, and their traditions are not my concern. What does it have to do with our problem? Or our plans?”
“Giada thinks Tommy is too stupid and arrogant to think of her allying with us. He’ll see her finally getting serious with a guy and maybe getting out of his way so he can have the legit side of their business, too. And she thinks he’ll see it as a chance for him to exploit an alliance with us.”
The table was quiet as Nick considered. The don glanced at Donnie, who cocked his head thoughtfully.
“It makes sense,” Donnie said. “Who knows Tommy better than his sister? And what we know of him, I could see him doing mental cartwheels to see himself the smart one here. He’s got no respect for women, we know that.”
Nick nodded, and Angie took his first deep breath since he’d seen who’d called and woken him up.
“It’s not that easy, though, Ange,” Donnie said.
“Why?”
“Because while you were making heart eyes at Giada all night, we read the room. The other families definitely noticed you two. You had a lot of eyes on you. We’re not the only ones trying to figure out what it means this morning, no doubt.”
Nick nodded in agreement.
“That’s what we wanted, though, right?” Angie asked.
“We wanted to stir up talk last night, yes,” Nick answered. “And we did. Now everybody’s looking. So what we do—what you do—next will be noticed. If you do appear to be truly serious with Giada, it changes the board. Instead of people wondering about a tight alliance between the Paganos and the Saccos, there could be questions of the tightness of your alliances.” He leaned in again. His expression lost the rigid edge of anger, but not its solemn disappointment. “Angie, I’m not comfortable here. I know the pull of real love. I know where my love for my wife and children weakens me, and where it strengthens me. I know the mistakes I’ve made because of it. I saw you with Giada last night. I know the feeling that puts that look on a man’s face. If it were almost any other woman, I’d clap my arms around you and say it was about fucking time. I’d tell you the risks were worth it. You are dear to me, and I want you happy. But if Giada gets what she wants—the thing we’ve vowed to help her get—she will be another don. How can I let a man so close to me, who knows so much, get even closer to someone who could use it against me?”
Angie knew this was the crux of Nick’s misgivings. He’d known back when he’d sat in his office and first heard the plan to flirt with Giada at the wedding.
Divided loyalties. Shaken trust. Obviously those were real, reasonable worries. Angie had said as much to Giada last night. Nick would be a fool to discount them, and he was no fool.
And yet to hear his don—his friend—put the doubt into actual words sliced Angie’s chest wide open. “I would never betray you, Nick.”
“You’ve never been asked by the woman you love.”
God, was he bleeding? He felt like he was bleeding. “Nick. Jesus.”
Donnie intervened. “Okay, okay. Let’s take a beat here. Maybe we’re jumping ahead of ourselves. Last night was one night. It’s over.”
“Is it?” Nick asked Angie.
“Yeah,” Angie answered immediately, knowing he couldn’t hesitate. “Yeah, it’s over.”
He thought of waking up alone, the pretty red silk gone and no sign of Giada but the scent of her in the air and on his body, and told himself that of course it was over.
~oOo~
Angie sat in the driveway of the old family home. The day had been overcast and cold, threatening snow, and the sun had never really broken through. It wasn’t even five o’clock yet, but dark had nearly fallen, and the sensor lights were on at the corners of the old red beast of a house.
He sat there in his car, with Axl Rose wailing ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine,’ and stared at the house he’d grown up in.
Why was he here? He’d been by on Friday to collect the junk mail. The place was entirely empty; Tina and Matt’s little scheme had paid off. Once all the rooms had been boxed up, the house had been just a husk of the life it had held. They’d convinced him to give it all away and put the house up for sale when spring got a foothold on the year. The glassy eyes of the windows, stripped of their curtains, were black. Empty. Blind.
He didn’t want to go in, there was no reason to go in, so why was he parked here?
He didn’t know.
The talk with Nick and Donnie that morning echoed between his ears.
He’d never said he didn’t love Giada. That awful talk, the accusations about the limits of his loyalty, the way he’d been torn apart, and he’d never said one simple truth: he didn’t love Giada. The question of his loyalty was moot because he didn’t love her. How could he? He’d only started to get to know her.
More to the point, he’d never been in love in his life. Not even close to it. He’d never even felt a particularly strong affection for a woman.
Why hadn’t he said so? It was his best defense, the best assurance he could offer Nick: there was no chance he’d ever betray Nick’s secrets to a woman he loved, not only because his loyalty was invulnerable but also because he’d never love a woman.
He didn’t want it. He wanted the life he’d made. He had everything he needed already.
Angie sat in the driveway of the home he’d grown up in, empty now, full of nothing but memories and ghosts, and wondered why he was here, why he couldn’t move.
~ 10 ~
Giada was afraid she’d made a terrible mistake.
Whether it was going to Angie’s room in the first place, or leaving that room while he’d slept, she wasn’t sure. But here in the watery light of an overcast day, the night felt like a dire miscalculation.
She sat in the car beside her uncle, on their way to JFK to catch their flight back to Boston, and stared out the window at the indifferent urban landscape. The gloomy, heavy sky washed everything but the bright Day-Glo of graffiti paint to an indiscriminate grey.
Last night had been her call. She’d gotten what she wanted. She’d coaxed Angie’s room number from a desk clerk. Then she’d gone to him, convinced him, fucked him.
But she hadn’t expected to like him.
She’d woken in his arms, curled with him like lovers, listening to his calm, deep breaths, his slow, steady heartbeat, and every moment of the night before had swirled through her mind like a caress. He’d been a standout among her lovers. Not for his prowess, which was significant
, but she’d slept with enough professional lovemakers not to be unduly impressed by a man who knew what to do with a clitoris. He’d been unique because he was so good a lover, so attentive and giving, and he wasn’t a professional. In fact, his reputation had not suggested he’d take such care. She’d never been with a man who’d been so invested in her pleasure simply because he wanted it.
Giada had been eight, and Tommy twelve, the first time he’d pushed his fingers inside her. He’d invented a game he called ‘tickle doctor,’ and she’d thought, at first, that her big brother was finally being nice. Even as his fingers had probed inside her, ‘tickling,’ she hadn’t understood. It wasn’t until she’d told him he was hurting her and he’d said he was the doctor, and doctors had to hurt to make things better—then had hurt her more, on purpose—that she’d understood he’d merely found a new way to be mean.
He’d told her that their father would kill her for a rat if she told anybody, and she’d believed him. She’d been only eight, but she’d seen enough of their father’s world to know what happened to rats. So she never said. To this day, she’d never said.
And to this day, she couldn’t say for sure their father wouldn’t have killed her for a rat.
Tommy used her as his practice doll for all his sexual exploration for three years, sneaking into her room in the middle of the night two or three times a week, until he was fifteen and got his first girlfriend. Giada was eleven and hadn’t had a period yet. She hadn’t even begun to grow breasts. Tommy had been full-on fucking her for a year.
Once he’d tasted the pleasures of girlfriends, girls who liked him and what he did to them, he left Giada alone.
Except he hadn’t. What he’d done had marked her indelibly, and she’d never be without him in her bed again. He’d never made a lasting visible mark on her, but she was changed nonetheless. She couldn’t close her eyes and just get into sex—unless she was paying her partner, and well, to be and do what she needed. She couldn’t come unless she was in control. And if she wasn’t, she freaked out.
Last night, Angie had asked her to trust him. And, somehow, she had.
And then he’d rocked her world.
It was difficult not to read emotional connection into such physical attention. It had been difficult in the moment, and had been even harder since. She’d woken in his arms and felt content. She’d felt safe.
And that had frightened her badly. So badly she’d run.
Giada had never run from anything in her life, yet this morning, as dawn was first breaking, she’d slid from Angie’s arms, slipped quietly back into her skimpy clothes, turned the room lights off, hoping the dark would keep him asleep, and fled from his room.
Three Pagano guards, the same ones who’d seen her go to Angie’s room, saw her leave it in a rumpled rush.
Now, maybe she’d fucked up the whole plan.
But more to the point, even if Angie was still on board, even if Nick could be persuaded that a continuing relationship between her and Angie was a good idea as they set up their moves, now she couldn’t risk it.
She wanted the alliance with the Paganos. She needed it. Without Nick’s backing, she’d never marshal the support she needed to take a seat at the Council. And she still thought she could lock Nick in if she were involved with one of his closest men.
But she needed to stay away from Angelo Corti.
“You’re quiet this morning, piccolina.” Enzo said, patting her hand where it rested on the seat between them.
She turned to see him watching her, his soft face full of compassionate curiosity. “Sorry, Zio. A lot on my mind.”
He smiled and squeezed her fingers. “Sì. You take on so much, and soon you’ll face more. We must talk when we’re home safe.”
Giada nodded and turned to stare out the window again.
~oOo~
Giada let Enzo into her apartment and keyed the code into her alarm as he closed the door. She’d checked the app on her phone frequently while she was away and knew no one had been inside her home. They were safe here, and they could speak freely.
“I’m going to put my bags in my room and get some comfortable clothes on. Then I’ll make some food for us.”
The flight from JFK to Logan was barely more than an hour, but with all the other attendant time-sucks and hassles of travel, it was past three in the afternoon, and they hadn’t had a real meal since breakfast at the Ritz that morning before checking out.
Tommy hated to fly, so he and Fallon, and the rest of the Sacco Family, were driving home in a convoy of black SUVs. Giada enjoyed the thought that, for the next couple of hours at least, Boston was a no-Tommy zone.
“I’ll make us some drinks while you do,” her uncle said as he hung his topcoat in her coat closet and took hers to do the same. “Negroni?”
“Sounds perfect.”
Enzo went to her kitchen, and Giada went back to her bedroom.
Tori had taken her evening gown and all its trappings back in her Volvo, so Giada had only her overnighter, the garment bag with the suit she’d worn to the wedding, and her black Birkin. She hung the garment bag in her closet and left the suitcase and handbag on the floor in there to be dealt with later. To travel, she’d worn skinny jeans and suede over-the-knee boots with a slouchy burgundy sweater; now she sat on the velvet ottoman in the middle of her closet and shed the boots and the jeans. She pulled a pair of black leggings from a drawer and slipped them on beneath the sweater.
She wouldn’t mind ridding herself of the bra, too—it was Sunday afternoon, she was home, and she was exhausted—but Uncle Enzo might be scandalized.
As she shimmied her hips into the leggings, a warm pang fired between her legs. A remnant from last night—Angie in her, on her, his wet fingers giving her clit exactly the attention she wanted. Like he could hear her thoughts. Like he could read her body. Like he knew it.
Fuck.
She shook those thoughts away. What she and Enzo had to talk about would bring Angie and his family front and center in her mind, but that was strategy. She needed to stay focused on strategy. What the Paganos could do for her. Only that.
In the kitchen, Enzo was putting the finishing touches on two identical Negronis. Giada picked up the nearest and took a sip. Her uncle was an excellent mixologist and took pride in his concoctions, whether classic, like this, or something he’d invented himself. He was also a good cook. Enzo had never married, so he’d learned to do for himself and to keep himself well.
“Mmm. Delizioso.” With the glass in her hand, she opened a door of her double fridge. “I’ve got a couple of rib-eyes thawed. Steak and pasta?”
“Perfetto.” He made a chef’s kiss. “If you have basil, I’ll cut some tomatoes and mozzarella.”
“I do have basil—a bundle in the basket there, probably fresh enough still.” Giada laid out the ingredients of a simple Italian meal, and they began to cook together.
Giada knew what no one else in their family did: Enzo was gay. He’d only had one relationship in his life, however, and that long ago in his youth. He’d valued his place at his brother’s side, and his standing in their family, too much to risk discovery for this integral part of who he was. Giada’s father would never have accepted it. He would have been disgusted, and he would have turned Enzo aside. At least.
There had been only one way he could be sure he’d never be discovered, sure that though he’d never had a steady woman or really even a date with one, though he had what the men in their world generally considered to be ‘feminine’ tastes, no one would ever have more than rumor to hurl at him: he’d denied himself this part of his life.
Giada knew because she’d asked him outright, back when she was in college. He’d trusted her enough to tell her the truth. Their bond had been forged in iron on that day.
Now, since Tommy had set him aside anyway, he could have come out of the closet. But, he said, he was an old man, and it was too late. He was too set in his solitary life and too close to death to open his hear
t to the dangers of love.
She understood why he’d deny himself for something he wanted more; she had done the same thing. Though she’d once dreamed of a prince to rescue her from her brother, she’d quickly understood that there was only one way she’d ever be free of Tommy: she had to defeat him. Once she’d seen that, she’d let nothing get in her way. She’d been patient, taken small victories, let them accumulate, and waited until her strength was enough to finally overpower him.
Love was a worthy sacrifice to that ambition.
“What did you see last night at the reception?” she asked Enzo as she filled a pot with water and put it on the stove.
He smirked. “You mean besides Angie Corti twirling you around the dance floor half the night?”
One of the many surprises Angie had hit her with last night: he was an amazing dancer. “Don’t make so much of that, Zio. You know what that was about.”
“I do. I wonder if you do.”
She lit the burner under the pot, and under the stovetop grill, and turned to face her uncle. “What do you mean?”
“Only that you both enjoyed your ruse more than necessary.”
Ignoring that unhelpful, if accurate, observation, she began to season the meat. “What I want to know is, how did the others react?”
“You know how your brother reacted. I saw him show you.”
“Yes.”
“Too strongly, Giada. If he’s angry, he’s dangerous. And unpredictable.”
“I know. But I think I can turn his thinking around.” She wasn’t sure about that anymore. Certainly, she could manipulate him into seeing a relationship between her and Angie to his advantage, but she no longer knew if she could do what she’d need to do to make it convincing.
“What do you mean?” it was Enzo’s turn to ask.
Giada shook her head. “Nothing I’m ready to explain, yet. I’m working it out. But for now, I like where Tommy is on this.”
“Bene. Se lo dici tu.”
“What about the others?”
Enzo scooped into a glass bowl the mound of tomatoes he’d diced and began to pluck and tear fresh basil leaves. “You saw what our family made of it. Marconi’s man, Lovatelli, he paid close attention, so I guarantee Vio knows and has thought about what it means. But the other families? Gianni Abbatontuono is senile. I don’t think he even noticed he was at a wedding. His nephew Leo, and Russo and Valeri, who are really running things now while they wait for him to finally die, they noticed. They paid close attention. So that’s something to consider, but they’ll be at odds when Gianni finally goes. The Conti Family still doesn’t have a don, since Vito passed, and that’s nearly a year of his capos jockeying with each other for position. I think they were all too focused on each other, watching who was trying to curry favor with Nick and Vio to give a shit about what was going on with the Saccos.” He brushed his hands. “You can use that, piccolina.”
The Name of Honor Page 12