by Paula Cox
“Aedan?” Bruno says, using my first name as though it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Yeah?” I shake my head, focus, dislodging the thoughts.
“Would you like a drink? Whisky?”
“Sure.”
He nods at the bottle which sits on the desk, beside two glasses. I pour myself a glass and then arch an eyebrow at him. He nods and I pour him a glass. For a few moments, we drink in near-silence, the only noises coming from the street outside and the bar, honking and shouting, clattering, the jukebox, the occasional laugh.
“You must understand that this allegiance—this proposed allegiance—is very difficult for the family to swallow. I had a son, once. Luca. Luca Russo. He was next in line; he was going to be the don one day. He was strong...No, that’s a lie. The truth is, I wanted him to be stronger than he was. Anyway, I’m sure you know, or maybe you don’t...” He sighs, takes a sip of whisky. “He was gunned down in a battle over a scrap of concrete by an Irishman. So, you see, the Russos are not exactly predisposed to trust the Irish. It’s doubly bad for Livia. Luca is—was—is her twin.” He winces as he struggles to decide if his son should be past or present tense.
I just nod.
“A man of few words.”
“Not usually,” I mutter. But what am I supposed to say to that?
“Well, let’s get down to business. How much did your boss tell you?”
My boss. Not my dad. My boss. Because as far as the city is concerned, I’m just some guy.
“A little,” I say. “But he didn’t need to say much. The Mexicans have been hitting our stores, just like yours. They’ve been stealing our product, busting into our clubs, hassling our women. I managed to get a few of ’em the other day—”
“You did?” Bruno sounds impressed. “So far, our men have been rather unlucky.”
“I happened to be in the back of one of our department stores—a front, you know—when they hit. Three of the bastards, all tattooed and with skull bandanas over their mouths, you know how they are, like the pricks think they’re in Juarez and this is bandit country.”
“What kind of weapons?” Bruno asks.
I think back. “A couple of sub-machine guns, and a shotgun, sawn-off.”
“And you had?”
“Just my revolver.”
“And you came off the better for it?” Bruno looks at me like he’s just seen me for the first time.
“It wasn’t so hard,” I say. “I just hid in one of the boxes the couches come in off the docks. I climbed in and hid until they’d ‘searched’ the back, and then I just popped up and shot all three of them in the head, pop, pop, pop. Stupid, really. I should’ve winged one and questioned him, but I was just so damn angry that they’d storm in like that.”
“Hmm.” Bruno nods. Both our glasses are empty. I lean forward, meaning to refill them, but Bruno snatches the bottle and does the honors. He slides my glass across the desk to me. “I have to say, Aedan, I am impressed. None of our men would’ve played it like that. Hiding, I mean. Italian pride would’ve forbidden it.”
I laugh tightly. “Maybe Irish pride would have, too, but I’ve never had much use for pride when it comes to killing. The way I see it, it’s the proud men who end up in the ground.”
Bruno nods, a small smile on his lips. “Was he there?” he asks.
Immediately, we both grow more serious. I know the he Bruno’s referring to. Carlos Rio, a Cartel leader, and rumored to be absolutely bat-shit crazy. And maybe rumored is a nice way to put it because, if the mutilated corpses he’s been leaving all over the city are anything to go by, it isn’t a rumor.
“No,” I say. “He wasn’t. Just his goons.”
“You know the reason I agreed to this—and the reason your boss agreed to it, most likely—is Carlos. Neither of us can afford a crazed Mexican charging around, killing with impunity, taking what he likes and doing as he likes.”
“I agree,” I say. “One-hundred percent.” I drain my whisky, hardly feeling it. It seems some clichés are closer to truth than us Irishmen would like to admit. “The man’s like the fuckin’ wind. Every damn time we get close to him, he’s gone, and then the next day we find out he’s hit one of our places on the other side of town.”
“It’s the same with us,” Bruno says. “So, this truce, do you have the authority to broker it?”
He sounds uncertain, but he doesn’t know that Patty is my sweet old papa, doesn’t know I wouldn’t be here if the desire to please at least one parent before they died was a fire in my belly, constantly fueling me, pushing me. He doesn’t know that often I lie awake at night staring at the ceiling thinking about Mom, about the way she died when she was still miserable and there was nothing I could do to help her. He doesn’t know that when she died, I was out working, and I wasn’t there to hear her last words; he doesn’t know that the idea of that happening with Dad just as it happened with Mom scares the piss out of me.
“I have been given authority,” I say, unable to say more. Patty doesn’t need the world at large knowing he has a bastard, after all.
Bruno interlocks his fingers and rests his chin on them, leaning forward. “He gives a hitter so much power?” he says curiously. “That is most interesting. But then, the Irish have always been more flexible than us, haven’t they?”
“You could say that,” I mutter, not wanting to comment on the Italian way of doing things. They can be damn prickly about that.
“Okay, you can tell your boss that a truce will be made for as long as it takes for this Mexican problem to be dealt with—for as long as it takes for this fica to be dealt with. We will not hit your stores; we will split our corners equally; we will share product, as a gesture of goodwill, and our men will stop their squabbling in the street. And if the Mexicans hit, both of us will respond. If an Italian store is attacked, the Irish will help, and if an Irish store is attacked, we will help.”
“Sounds good. Patty will be pleased.”
“This is historic, Aedan,” Bruno says, rising to his feet. I stand up. He offers me his hand. “Historic.”
I grip his hand firmly, matching the strength of his hand, and we shake. “Beware,” he says. “Agreements like this tend not to sit too well with the troops.”
“That’s not a problem,” I say.
“Really?” He tilts his head at me. “Why’s that?”
“The men seem to like me,” I say, suddenly uncomfortable, worried I might be bragging. I hate those assholes who swagger around the city thinking they’re the best thing since a willing woman. “Anyway, we have bullets if our tongues don’t work, eh?”
Bruno openly grins now. “We do,” he agrees. We stare at each other across the desk for a few moments, and then Bruno clicks his fingers. “I have an idea, Aedan, a way for our families to get a little closer, and, also, a way for you to learn the nitty-gritty logistics of my side of the business.”
“Yeah?”
“You like my daughter, Livia, do you not?”
I flinch, feeling the phantom of an Italian hitter behind me.
“I didn’t know it was her,” I say stiffly.
Bruno chuckles. “Don’t worry, Aedan. We have shook hands; you are safe. But you like her, yes?”
“She is...she seems like a nice lady, yeah, sure. Why?”
“Livia is my secretary and she knows everything about the business. Or, at least, most of it.”
“Okay...”
I’m still waiting for the shoe to drop—just hopefully not a shoe filled with cement dropped into the sea, with me glued right into it.
Bruno shakes his head. “I have an idea,” he says. “An idea which will make this whole enterprise run along more smoothly.”
Chapter Three
Livia
I press my ear against the door, listening. Maybe it’s bad manners, but I never claimed to be the mannered lady Mom so desperately wants me to be. I never claimed to be anything other than a Russo. As I listen—eavesdrop, if you want
to be technical about it—I get more and more angry. They’re making a deal; we’re making a deal with the people responsible for Luca’s death. Then they stand up, and I run to the desk quickly before they catch me. But, dimly, I hear them talking more, but I can’t make out the words. Maybe I should go back to the door, I think, but then the desk phone begins to whine.
“Ciao,” Mom says, voice chirpy. “I have some brilliant news for you, sweet, lovely daughter of mine.”
“Really?” I reply, wishing I could slam down the phone and return to the door. What are they discussing? That Irish brute! That animal! He repulses me, but those arms, that beard, his ruggedness...No, no, no, he disgusts me. Why aren’t they out yet? They’ve already discussed the deal. What else could they possible be talking about? I need to—
“Livia!” Mom cries, voice pitched high. The receiver crackles in my ear
“What?” I snap, not meaning to, but unable to stop myself. Sometimes, Mom’s voice is like a siren.
“I said I have some brilliant news.”
“Fine. What is it?”
I realize I’m squeezing the phone hard in my hand, furious with Dad. I want to barge into the office and slap him—and the Irish animal—across the face and demand to know what the hell they think they’re doing. An Irish-Italian truce. What next? A wolf-sheep truce. A lion-gazelle truce. An eagle-mouse truce. It’s madness! I squeeze the phone so hard the plastic actually makes a creaking sound.
“I’ve arranged a date for you, with a nice, handsome Italian man, a son of Adriana’s friend’s cousin’s mother.”
“Right...But I never said I wanted to go on a date, Mom.”
She breathes heavily and shakily down the phone like a teapot seconds before the lid is blown through the roof. “You have to go on dates sometimes, you silly girl! How do you expect to find a husband otherwise?”
I’m about to respond—telling her for the zillionth time that I don’t need a husband at this precise moment—when the office door opens and Dad and Aedan walk out. They’re smiling, both of them, as though they’re friends, and when Aedan turns his smile on me, it’s still cocky—if a tad more respectful now he knows who I am. Looking at those muscles, my body gives an unwanted and reflexive twinge, my breasts and my clit ganging up on me and getting warm at the sight, and then I start imagining...
No! Nothing! He’s a red-haired Irish beast, that’s all.
“Livia, I’m talking to you...Hello!”
“Livia,” Dad says, “I want to discuss something with you.”
“Livia!”
“Is that your mother?”
“Are you ignoring me, girl?”
“What does she want?”
“Livia! Livia!”
“Is she hassling you?” Dad asks, with an ironic smile. He walks to the desk and takes the phone from my hand. “No, no, that won’t be necessary. Not today. I already have something arranged for her.”
I’m reeling, head spinning. Sometimes being caught between Mom and Dad is like being a ball in a game of soccer, kicked here and there with little to no time for recovery. I end up looking past Dad to Aedan, who watches me with a sympathetic smile. Strange—and wrong—and revolting—but that sympathetic smile prompts a swelling in my chest, a warmth, a tingling that isn’t there when any other man smiles at me. It’s a smile that says he knows exactly what I’m going through, a rare thing in this world. Stop it, silly girl...
Dad slams down the receiver and returns to Aedan’s side. “Your mother can be a bull sometimes, Livia,” he says, but he’s smiling cheerfully. “A real bull, rushing, charging. An animal. Especially in the—”
“No!” I interrupt, jumping to my feet and inadvertently causing my boobs to jiggle, which immediately draws Aedan’s dark eyes. I focus on Dad, ignoring the way those eyes dance across me, not entirely unpleasant. “Dad, do not say what you were about to say.”
He shrugs. “Fair enough. Anyway, Livia, I had to let your mother down because you and Aedan are going to go on a business dinner this afternoon.”
He says this as though it’s already been decided, as though my thoughts on it don’t matter in the least.
“What if I say no?” I snap.
Dad looks me levelly in the face. “Then you will put the future of this family in grave danger.”
I sigh, puffing out my (dimpled) cheeks, as Dad returns to his office. Aedan comes and stands near me, eyes now on my face, now on my breasts and my bare legs. The way he looks at my legs, I get the sense he’d like to do way more than look at them. But the truth is, I don’t know what to do with a look like that. I may be the daughter of dangerous people, but I’ll be the first to admit my upbringing has been sheltered. I’m not overly experienced with men, hence Mom’s constant pushing and prodding. But, when his hands twitch and his eyes linger on my legs, my body, inexperienced as it is, responds enthusiastically. A shiver runs down my spine and I start imagining what those twitching hands might be capable of.
“Just so you know,” I say, keeping my voice as hard as I can, “I have absolutely no desire to do this.”
He shrugs. “Alright, then.” I can tell he doesn’t believe me, the infuriating, rugged wolf.
I grab my coat and we walk through the bar, which only serves to highlight how utterly non-Italian Aedan is. His skin is snowy, whiter than that, even, and his red hair stands out like a red-sore thumb in the bar. Italians sit everywhere, slicked-back black hair, flashy suits, jewelry on display. One of them, sitting in the corner—his name is Antonio and he’s a round-bellied, drunken man—calls over to Aedan: “Hey, check out Peter Pan over there!”
Aedan ignores him, the only sign that he feels any anger a low, chesty grunt, and together we walk out into the street.
“Is that how you let men speak to you?” I say, hoping to annoy him because...well, just because.
He grins at me. That easy, comfortable grin. It drives me crazy.
“No,” he says. “But your father and I have an agreement. I don’t think giving his bar a new red paintjob will help that agreement any.”
“Is that supposed to sound tough?” I say.
He shrugs, at ease, always at ease, rugged and handsome and wild and comfortable and not trying to prove anything like Dad’s men always seem to be. I am not attracted to this man, I tell myself. I am not!
“No,” he says. “I’ve always found that men who try and sound tough aren’t too tough when you really get down to it. Shall we get a cab? We’ve got a date to keep, remember.”
“Don’t call it a date,” I snap, and then walk right past him and down the street, leaving him to jog after me.
Chapter Four
Livia
When he catches up to me, I say: “We’re going to an Italian restaurant.’
“Are you bossing me around, princess?” he asks. He speaks in a way-too-comfortable tone of voice, like he doesn’t realize I’m the daughter of a don and he’s just an Irishman on loan.
“Don’t call me princess,” I snap. “This is a business meeting. You shouldn’t even call me by my first name, really. You should call me Ms. Russo.”
He laughs and I wince. It does sound silly, saying that aloud, but Mom’s voice is a constant wail in my head: Don’t you dare get close to an Irishman. Get a nice Italian boy. Find an Italian and settle down and give me some lovely cute Italian grandchildren. Is that so much to ask?
“Are you serious?” he says.
“What if I am?” I shoot back. “Anyway, you haven’t answered me. I said we’re going to an Italian restaurant.”
“That’s fine. I know a great Italian place. I’ll take you there. We can share our cultures.”
“Hmm.” I’m not sure if I believe him, but Aedan has a strange aura around him, nothing like the men I normally mix with in the bar. They’re all bluster and fight, loud and boisterous, always acting as though they’re aware their friends are watching and they have to make sure everybody knows they’re the hardest men who’ve ever walked the eart
h. Aedan isn’t like that. He just smiles through his red beard and looks at me with an open expression. The change is disconcerting.
“Fine,” I say, after a pause.
We walk through the streets, past pedestrians, alongside a road gridlocked with screaming horns and even louder screaming New Yorkers. I’m walkin’ here! Finally, Aedan flags down a cab. He opens the door for me and waves at the backseat, bowing his head in mock deference. “M’lady Russo,” he says.
“You’re an asshole,” I sneer, as I climb into the car and wiggle up the seat until I’m pressed as close to the opposite door as I can get—as far away from him as possible.
