Back in my seat, I was overcome with worry. I couldn’t stop wondering. What if I was pregnant? The last time Luca and I had discussed the matter he had been very adamant about not wanting children in the near future. Things were too dangerous to bring a baby into this world. But when would that ever change, especially now that Dante had declared war on us? This war was ridiculous.
It didn’t make sense to work myself up over nothing. Nausea didn’t mean I was pregnant. Once I returned to New York, I could take a pregnancy test and then I’d know more. Until then I needed to focus on the task at hand. I had to get in contact with Val, talk her into arranging a meeting with Fabiano and try to convince him to come with me to New York. The last thing I wouldn’t mention to Val, though.It was strange to be back in Chicago. The city I’d grown up in felt no longer like my home, and not because there was war between the Famiglia and the Outfit. I wasn’t the same person I’d been more than four years ago when I’d left for New York.
Yet, despite the war, the city didn’t feel any different than it had during any other visit. Everything was peaceful. People were looking forward to the Christmas holidays.
My hair was hidden beneath my wig and a scarf was wrapped around the lower half of my face. Luckily the Chicago winter warranted that kind of outfit, so I wouldn’t catch attention. Even my thick wool coat didn’t keep the cold from biting at my skin.
I walked the streets freely, as I hadn’t in a long time. It was exhilarating to be this free. I’d gotten used to the golden cage that was my life. I loved Luca. I couldn’t live without him, but sometimes I wished I had more freedoms. I knew there were limits to what he could allow me. He had helped me go to college for a while, something very few men in his position had done, but ultimately he and I would always be limited by the rules of mob life.
This was the first time in forever that I didn’t have a bodyguard trailing after me. I watched the passersby, wondering how they spent their days, how it felt to be free of the confines of the mafia I’d never been truly free, nor had my sisters, not even Gianna when she was on the run because it had always been that: running.
I’d never resented mob life as much as Gianna did, but sometimes I longed for moments of freedom. College had given me a taste, but it would always only be that—a short taste. I would never leave my world, not because Luca wouldn’t allow it, though that was true as well, but because it was the only place I truly belonged. It was the world I knew.
I hoped Val hadn’t changed her routine since the last time we talked on the phone. I had timed my entire plan around it.
I waited across from the restaurant where she met with Bibiana for brunch every Wednesday, cradling a coffee-to-go cup in my gloved hands in an attempt to stay warm despite the freezing temperatures. Relief washed over me when a black Mercedes limousine with tinted windows finally pulled up in front of the restaurant and Val got out, as tall and regal as always, her baby bump straining against her coat. She must have been in her ninth month. Would I look like that in eight months? I pushed the thought aside. This wasn’t the time for daydreaming.
Val wasn’t alone. She held the hand of a little girl, her three-year-old daughter, Anna. I couldn’t help but smile, but it died when I realized that I wouldn’t see her grow up despite being her godmother. Two bodyguards followed them into the restaurant. I knew their faces but not their names.
Checking the street for traffic, I quickly crossed over to the other side and headed inside the bistro-like restaurant. I didn’t have a reservation but I hoped they’d be able to squeeze me in. I approached the waiter, taking my wool cap off and hoping my wig would hide my identity, but I had to lower my scarf. I kept my back to the seating area. I knew Val’s bodyguards would be watching me, because I had entered after them.
“For two?” the waiter asked, a good-looking man in his late twenties.
“Just me,” I said then took off my coat, revealing a pair of dark denim jeans and a white blouse, so Val’s bodyguards would see I was a small female nobody without weapons and mark me down as unimportant.
The waiter smiled. “Don’t tell me you don’t have someone who would take you out for brunch? A pretty lady like you shouldn’t have to eat alone.”