Marco blinked slowly, obviously remembering the ordeal.
“Bambi came out, started screaming and called 911. I black out pretty quick.”
“You didn’t get a look at the guy?” Dante pressed.
“He was wearing a helmet and leather. Not an inch of his skin to be seen, no recognizable marks or tattoos.” Marco sighed, sinking back into the pillows like he was suddenly exhausted. “Gotta assume it’s the di Carlos, though I’m shocked they’d come at me like that unprovoked.”
“They got Roberto outside a MacDonald’s drive through,” Dante informed him. “They’re coming for our clan whether we earned it or not. You wonder how they knew you’d be there?”
Marco flushed slightly, his eyes darting to me and back to Dante. I moved to the far corner of the room and took a seat, pretending to look at my phone.
“Bambi likes the pizza at Santa Lucia’s,” he muttered finally.
“And your wife hates it,” Dante added drily. “Che cavolo, Marco, what were you thinking? An affair with Bambi?”
“Didn’t mean for it to happen, Boss. It just…it did. Angie was chewing me out for one thing or another one morning and when I showed up at your place, Bambi noticed I was looking rough. She made me an espresso and we talked it out. Happened a few more times and then…” He shrugged, but his eyes were bright with affection for the woman. “She’s a good woman.”
“She is,” Dante agreed. “She deserves a man who isn’t married.”
Marco sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face even though it made him wince. “She told me for months she didn’t want me to leave Angie. She fucking insisted. Ang doesn’t have anyone else in this world, D. She ain’t right for me and she’s a la volpe sometimes, but I’d be devastating her if I left. Seemed like I was doing the right thing at the time.”
Dante pinned him to the bed with the weight of his dark stare, the gaze so heavy Marco seemed to sink even farther into the bed beneath the scrutiny.
“You treat her right, fratello?” Dante asked quietly.
Dangerously.
Marco blinked, his brow screwed up in the middle with bewilderment. “You ever known me to treat a woman anything, but?”
“No, but things change.”
“Not that. Bambi…I know you’re mad I didn’t tell you, but I love her, Dante. She makes me feel like a good man, maybe even the best.”
I smiled slightly as I looked at my lap. It seemed love had the capacity to turn even the most hardened villains into heroes for the ones they cared about.
“There are no secrets from me in this family or in this borgata, capisci?” Dante said after a moment, his words as final as a Judge’s gavel strike. “You keep something from me again, you won’t like the consequences.”
I watched Marco swallow thickly then nod. “Capisco, Capo.”
Jacopo cleared his throat, pushing off from the wall beside the door to clap Dante on the shoulder. “Not to change the topic, but I hear congratulations are in order, cugino.”
Like sun breaking through the crust of clouds after a storm, a brilliant smile overtook Dante’s previously surly expression. He shifted to open an arm for me. I went to him, sliding into his side like two clicking magnets.
“Si, miei Fratelli, vi present mia moglie,” he announced proudly.
Yes, my brothers, meet my wife.
Marco gasped so hard he winced in pain then laughed softly before hooting, “Auguri!”
Best wishes.
“Thank you, Marco,” I said as Jaco stepped forward to shake hands with Dante then kiss my cheeks again. “Thanks, Jaco.”
“Happened quick,” Jaco noted.
Dante shot him a look, but I didn’t take umbrage. “It did.”
“When you know, you know,” Marco said in a dramatically wise voice.
I laughed, filled with contentment despite the unknown, because it felt good to be back with men who felt like family.
Twenty-Three
Elena
We entered the Smith Jameson Building through a locked door in a subway station three blocks away from Dante’s apartment. Apparently, there was a series of tunnels beneath the city made by abandoned metro stops and defunct railways and somehow, Dante knew the system inside and out. We didn’t want to be seen by the cops or anyone who might be watching the building before Dante got a chance to talk to his crew.
The apartment was the same way we’d left it, clean and tidy because Bambi wouldn’t allow it to get dusty or stale even while we were away.
Yara, Chen, Addie, Tore, and Frankie all waited in the living room. We greeted each other like long lost family, kissing and hugging, before we took seats around the coffee table. Dante and I sat on the long couch beside Addie, who was still recovering from broken ribs, his bumpy nose even more crooked after the beating he’d taken from the Irish mob when they abducted me.
“You surprised me,” Yara said as she greeted me. “You should be proud, it takes a lot to do that.”