Chapter 8: Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King: Chapter 8

When I take meetings, I take them on my terms. No one else gets to dictate them—not even Salvatore Mori. We meet on neutral ground on Long Island, armed with four men each, in the rundown front of a so-called restaurant. The kitchen has a freezer and a microwave and a single brand of frozen meals packed in the back. The wallpaper is peeling and the tables are clean and cheap. It has a distinct money-laundering aesthetic you don’t find very often these days.

Mori is the head of one of the oldest mob families still left in New York. One of the few families that survived into the modern century. Most of us sprung up into the power vacuum that was left when the old powers that be finally crumbled under the pressure of the Feds and regulations and the digital age. That was how my father came to power, anyway.

The mafia is a new beast for a new age. It doesn’t play by the same old-school rules that it used to. At least, not when it comes to money. When it comes to blood, everything is exactly the same.

Mori arrives second. We shake hands— cordial —but I see disapproval in his eyes.

“Caruso,” he says curtly and gestures for us to sit.

Mori likes to pretend he has some say in how the Italians conduct themselves. He likes even more to pretend that it’s because of his family’s long legacy and the respect they are due. In reality, everybody knows it’s because Mori has big enough connections to play peacekeeper and a big enough war chest to back up his threats if anyone steps out of line.

“It’s been a long time,” he says.

“Not long enough.”

The first time Mori sat down across a table from me, I’d just become don. I was young. Vengeful. Mori had tried to relate to me, back then. Said he had been forced to take over his family at a similar age. He tried to give me advice. I had just lost my father; I wasn’t looking for another one. It hadn’t gone well.

“Did Dellucci send you or is this a courtesy call?” I ask.

“No one sends me anywhere,” Mori answers, leaning back comfortably. “But when three bodies turn up overnight, left on the street still warm, I know who to look to. I’ve warned you before, Ren. The way you do things—”

“The way I do things is none of your business.”

“Oh, and you best pray it stays that way,” he says, with the first flash of threat in those dark eyes. I ignore his anger, look instead at the scar on his cheek. “If you start causing problems and draw the wrong kind of attention, the families will either unite for you or against you. We both know I’ve gotten leniency for you before, whether you asked for it or not. But eventually, the excuse of being young and not knowing better wears thin, Ren. I don’t want to be your enemy.”

“Then don’t be,” I say, “and keep out of it.”

Mori scoffs.

“What a goddamn luxury that would be.”

We silently size each other up. Salvatore sighs under his breath. “This is my warning to you, Ren. If you think I’m having a similar sit-down with Jon to stop him from retaliating, I’m not. He’s owed blood. I have no right to ask him to stand down. But if there’s any chance you’d be willing to try making peace with him—”

“What Jon wants, I’m not going to give him.”

Mori’s frustration is just as visible as his resignation. He can tell I won’t be swayed.

“I had a feeling this was a waste of time, but for the sake of my conscience, I had to try.” He takes another moment, staring at me hard. I wait for him to decide that he’s done with me, that it’s fruitless—because it is, and it has been from the very start. The men lined up along either wall shift in place under the deafening silence.

“…Did you have a good reason, at least?” Sal finally asks.

It sets my teeth on edge.

For a brief moment, I picture Nadia. I see her in that white wedding dress from yesterday. I feel the throbbing pain strobing up my arm to the rhythm of my own heartbeat. I hear screams.

“I don’t have a good reason. Just a lot of bad ones.”

***

Nadia hasn’t spoken to me since I made her pick out the wedding dress. I’m not surprised. Today I sent her out shopping for her and her daughter to keep her busy, get her settled. While she’s still gone, I lie on the couch in my office and finally rest .

For years, I’d lain awake at night, wondering where she was. Trying to picture it. The stars passed overhead while I worked the puzzle of how she was still slipping through my aching fingers like smoke. When I finally did sleep, I hunted Nadia in my dreams. Sometimes, I’d chase after her through the city streets—right on her heels, the girl just out of reach of my bare hands as she laughed and yelled and cried, “Catch me!” Other times, I hunted her like a deer through the woods, holding a rifle in my grip.

She wasn’t laughing then.

Six years, and I finally have her under my roof, and I still can’t fucking sleep. I pace the house at night. I stand on the threshold of her bedroom door like a goddamn vampire, wanting to cross the barrier. But I don’t. I just stand and watch her sleep curled up around her daughter.

The sound of a child laughing pulls me from the first, feeble layer of dreams.

I peel open my eyes to the sight of two plastic, lopsided eyes looking back at me. I sit up with a lurch. Harper snatches away her stuffed animal with a giggle.

“What are you doing?” I grumble. When did they get back?

“Applesauce is a doctor. He was giving you a checkup to make sure you were still breathing!”

I lean back against the arm of the couch again, running a hand over my face.

“Where’s your mother?”

“Downstairs. She’s putting up a bunch of clothes. I got dresses and shirts and hair ties and new shoes and, uhm, some other stuff,” she prattles on, tripping over her own words in her rush to say it all. “Come look!”

She takes me by the hand, her fingers curling around the glove with a firm squeeze. Pain bolts through the tips of my fingers, up to my elbow. I yank my hand away with a hiss. She turns to look at me, startled, frozen as if she did something wrong. I grit my teeth.

“Not that one,” I force myself to say calmly, keeping the words even. I hold out my right hand, which she takes instead.

“What’s wrong with that one?” she asks, eyeing my hand as we walk side by side down the stairs.

“…It’s no good.”

She gasps. “Maybe Applesauce can fix it!”

I have my doubts.

I’m led down to the bedroom Nadia is using. I refuse to think of it as her bedroom. The only bedroom she belongs in is mine.

“Ren wants to see my clothes!” Harper announces as we enter.

Immediately, Nadia spins around to face me in the doorway. She crushes a receipt behind her back as she stares at me. Not nearly as slick as she thinks she is. “Why?” she asks, immediately, as if I’m trying to back her into a corner.

“I was brought to see her clothes,” I correct, holding up our joined hands like it’s a shackle. Nadia watches me, her glare distrustful as I’m shown the closet and an impromptu showcase of their shopping haul.

“I’ve never had so many clothes before,” Harper says.

Nadia frowns, arms crossed and expression closed off.

“What’s this?” I ask, gesturing to the other half of the closet, where Nadia has hung up her own clothes.

“Just…a few things for me,” she says. “I thought you said we should both get some—”

“I did. Why are they in here?” Only her confused silence answers. “When you’re done, you’ll take everything that’s yours up to my bedroom. You’ll be sleeping there from now on. Harper can have this room.”

“I get a room all by myself?” the little girl yells, oblivious to the tension in her mother’s stance, the cold expression in her eyes.

“Husband and wife sleep together, Nadia.” When she doesn’t answer, I draw my finger under her chin, force that burning gaze to meet mine. “I don’t think I heard you.”

“Yes, sir,” she grits out.

“Better. We’ll talk more about what’s expected of you up there.” I turn to Harper, who is still looking through the clothes that have been hung up in the big walk-in closet, skimming through them over and over with a look of utter fascination.

“…Do you like your new clothes, Harper?” I ask.

She turns with a big toothy grin. “Yeah, I love them!”

I glance toward Nadia, second-guessing my own instructions. Maybe sleeping next to her isn’t the smartest move. By the look on her face, she might want to kill me.