The Woman at the Docks (Grassi Framily)

"Yeah."

"Have I met him yet?"

"No. And you likely won't. We don't see him around often."

"He's not in the... family business?" I asked, surprised. "Aren't you, you know, born into this lifestyle?"

"No. It's always a choice. When we get older, we make that choice."

"No familial guilt?"

"No. If anything, most of our parents don't want this life for us. My father wanted me to be a doctor," he admitted, chuckling.

"Is that so far-fetched?" I asked, getting the mental image of him in a white jacket. Maybe it wasn't a good idea. He'd likely send all the little old ladies in his care into arrhythmia.

"Considering the fact that I never once showed any interest in it, yes."

"Did you always know you wanted to be like your father?"

"I always revered my father. But it wasn't until I was seven that I knew I was going to grow up to be like him."

"You knew what he did for a living then?" I asked, my heart aching for the little boy he'd once been, someone who should have been innocent to the ugly of the world. Then again, I hadn't exactly been untouched by the nasty things that life had to offer sometimes.

"He tried to protect us from it. Even after our mom died. But I was a nosy kid. I figured it out myself one night. And ever since, then, I knew this life was my legacy."

"Have you ever resented that? Having a life mapped out from the beginning?

"No."

"That's it? No?" I asked, reaching for my slice of pizza, already starting to feel more human with a little food working its way into my system.

"I am good at what I do. I like being in charge. I am a fair boss. This was a good position for me."

"Does your brother resent it? Is that why he is never around?"

"Matteo is too busy chasing skirts and dropping cash to care much about how that money is made. He was never meant for the higher up positions in this world. He has always known that. He does what he needs to do, and he is happy to leave the rest to my father and me."

"What does he do if he's not... doing family business?"

"He operates a small string of party venues. It gives his life a little purpose. We get a cut. It all shakes out. Speaking of work, are you still going to have a job when all of this is done?"

"I don't know," I admitted, "but it doesn't matter. I will figure something out. There are always jobs for interpreters. And I really never planned to stay there forever."

"Do you miss your family? I'm assuming they are in Venezuela if that was where your sister was taken from."

"I do miss them. My mom is gone now, and I didn't know my other relatives until I was an adult. But I do miss them. The way you miss a friend who moves away, I guess."

"That is hard for me to imagine," Luca admitted.

"Missing your family? Don't you ever miss yours?"

"I'd have to go more than a week without seeing them to miss them," he told me, giving me a small smile. "We're close in the way that you couldn't get a new watch without everyone stopping over to see it," he told me.

I honestly couldn't imagine that kind of closeness. At least not anymore. Not since I was little and my mom was around all the time, when our world was much smaller, much tighter.

For a long while now, I had been as alone as a person could be, with my only family several countries away, and not making any new friendships because doing so as an adult was a lot harder than anyone ever talked about.

No one noticed when I got a new piece of jewelry. Or brought me soup when I was sick. Or spent holidays or my birthday with me.