The guys laugh out loud, slapping their knees.
“Ah, Maurice,” I say from the back. “Don’t sell yourself short, brother. You’ve got two hands and a tongue, too.”
The laughter dies as the guys look back at me, their eyes wide with fear.
And then it begins. First one stands and feigns a yawn and heads off in the other direction toward staff headquarters. Then another, then another, until it’s only me and Maurice left. Like I’m a goddamn leper.
Fuck it, maybe I am. Some diseases are invisible.
“Santo,” he says warmly. “That hot, you take your shirt off?”
“Yeah, sweatin’ like a pig out there.” In here, it’s much cooler. I head to the laundry room off the kitchen where the house cleaner does our laundry and grab a clean tee. I pull it on, wondering what’s taking Tavi so long. I won’t invade his privacy, so I’ll wait until he comes in.
“They scatter like ants when you come,” Maurice says with a laugh. “They don’t know the Santo I do. I remember when you were just a boy, ten years old, the first one who ate everything. So thin I could see your bones.”
I turn my back to him and close my eyes. I remember, too. The sleepless nights when hunger clawed at my belly until I cried. The way the boys at school made fun of me for my skinny legs and thin, emaciated body.
I remember how I eventually beat the shit out of every one of them in high school, too, and how no one made fun of me then, not after Tavi showed me how to lift and Orlando showed me how to fight.
“Yeah, you could say I’ve filled out,” I say with a laugh. I pat my belly. “Maybe even need to lose a few pounds, eh?” I’ve put on weight in Tuscany, but still work out, so I’ve bulked up.
“You don’t need to lose weight, Santo,” Maurice says. “Extra weight looks good on you.”
It’s extra muscle that looks good on me, I think to myself.
“Santo,” he says softly. I turn to look at him. He’s laying a hand towel across a ceramic bowl, probably covering the dough so it rises overnight. “Does it make you sad that they leave when you come?”
“Sad?” I laugh. “I don’t give a fuck if they like me. I want them to do what they’re told.”
Maurice waves a wooden spoon at me. “And that’s one thing that hasn’t changed. You still have the same trashy mouth you did when you were ten.”
I laugh. “Only now you don’t smack me with that spoon like you did back then.”
He rolls his eyes heavenward. “Didn’t do any good anyway, did it?”
He’d whack me good for my foul language, and Romeo tried to clean up my mouth a time or two, but it didn’t work. The men of my brotherhood swore like sailors, and I always wanted to be just like them.
Always.
It never quite worked.
He takes the spoon, lifts the heavy lid on a pot on the back of the stove, and stirs. “They leave because they’re scared of you, Santo.”
I know. I know they do.
“Yeah.”
“You should try… well, to be a little gentler with them.”
“Maurice,” I say dryly, turning away from him when I hear the side door swing open. “I don’t fucking care.”
And I don’t. I’d rather they fear me.
I leave the kitchen to greet Tavi in the living room.
“Hey, brother,” he says with a grim smile.
Shit.
Something’s wrong.
“Hey. You okay?”
Tavi brushes a hand through his short brown hair and heaves a sigh. He’s got the Rossi family blue-gray eyes and strong, muscled physique. “Campanelle’s calling foul, man.”
Shit.
The Campanelles, one of the many rival families that give us shit, have been crying wolf for years. We never listened to them. Romeo assured us that he’d settled outstanding accounts and they had no claim on us anymore, but right after Tavi’s wedding and my subsequent exile, the Campanelles provided evidence that the Rossi family owed them several million dollars, thanks to a deal their father made back in the day.
I sit down on one of the heavy sofas and cross one leg over the other. Tavi walks over to the sideboard and pours himself a glass of house Chianti, the very same that’s won awards throughout Tuscany.
“What happened?”
He takes a sip of wine and exhales in contentment. “Fuckin’ missed this. Haven’t touched it at home because Elise can’t have it.”
Tavi’s wife Elise is pregnant and can’t have wine for a while.
“How much longer you got? Like six months?”
“Nah, man,” he says with a grin. “She’s already in the third trimester. Got like a month left.”
“Jesus,” I mutter to myself. I’m missing goddamn everything being exiled over here. It’s been longer than I thought.
I miss Boston. I miss The Family. Romeo knew for a guy like me, no punishment’s greater than isolation.