“No, that’s not true,” Amber answers. “Honey, no. Trust me. I didn’t force Luca to go along with this. We made the decision together.”
“Because he feels guilty about killing my dad?” Daniella asks Amber, still not looking up from her plate.
“No—” Amber starts to answer.
Only to get cut off when Daniella says, “It doesn’t matter why anyway… I don’t know how to be in a family. I’ll just mess it up.”
I don’t know how to be in a family…
Amber opens her mouth to reassure Daniella. But I cover my wife’s hand with mine to stop her, sensing that her niece needs to hear this next part from me.
“Listen, kid. Amber, Lucky and I want you to be part of our family. That’s the holy truth. And as for this family stuff, that’s something me and Amber had to learn, too. We can teach you.”
Daniella stays tense, and I brace myself for more accusations. But then she says, “Really? You had to learn, too? But you’re really good parents.” peeping up at me, as if I just told her Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy was real and she’s still too afraid to believe.
“Yeah, really,” I answer. “And thanks, but we’re still not one-hundred percent sure we know what we’re doing. So don’t be a jerk about it. Don’t make us beg.”
Another long beat of waffle stare down, then she peeps up at me again to ask, “Can I call you Dad?”
“You want to call me Dad?” I repeat, too shocked by the question to keep the surprise off my face.
But I guess the kid’s decided this is the time to be brave again because she chooses that moment to look me directly in the eye…and nod.
There are a thousand ways to answer that question, including, “we’ll see” and “let’s talk about it with your therapist.” But hey, ruthless don here. And I still do what I want. “Yeah, sure, knock yourself out,” I answer, reaching across the space between us to ruffle her silky brown curls.
I guess that’s the right answer, because after knocking my hand away with an irritated, “Stooooop!” she turns her hopeful gaze on Amber and asks if she can call her mom.
“Of course,” Amber answers, her face lighting up with happiness at the question.
But then Daniella asks, “Does that mean I’ll be Daniella Ferraro from now on?”
Amber’s answer to that question doesn’t come nearly as quick as her response to the mom one. And unlike Daniella, I know why.
“I never wanted to be part of this life. I swore it to myself. And that’s why I made you promise to never kill my brothers,” Amber reminded me the night of her rescue. Right after I let her know that Stone had “replaced” Peter’s limo driver and picked him up from his perfect alibi Policeman’s Ball an hour ago. Bold as zero fucks.
Yes, she’d made me promise, but… “Baby, this guy had your other brother murder Rock. He tried to kill you and our baby, too. I’ll do anything for you, but if you think I’m going to let that lie—”
“No, I don’t expect you to let it lie,” she answered, cutting me off. “I expect you to let me kill Peter. Myself. Just like you killed the Deltanos.”
I’d never heard anything as dead as her voice when she said that.
I love Amber. I’d give her the world if she asked for it.
But in the end, we did it my way…Together.
A couple of hours after that conversation, both our hands lifted the gun Danny Jr tried to use on Amber, my finger covering hers on the trigger as we pointed it at the man Stone had strung up and pre-beaten black and blue.
Funny how the mind works. Stone had pummeled Peter Peretti so bad and so long, his head hung at a pre-death lull to the side. You could just tell there were all sorts of internal bleeding going on inside his hanging body. The kind of injuries that would kill worse and slower than a bullet.
But when he saw the gun through his almost swollen shut eyes, he came to sudden life, twisting on his chains like a human fish as he sobbed and threw muffled screams into the duct tape Stone had plastered over his mouth. Huh, check that out… As superior as he’d acted with Amber, in imminent death, he didn’t turn out to be any more dignified than the Deltanos.
I’d glanced over at Amber, wondering if her brother’s anguish would change her mind.
Instead, she aimed the gun toward the sound of his muffled yells, and without so much as counting to three, her finger squeezed the trigger underneath mine. The shot hit right between the eyes, knocking Peter’s head back and ending his protests, right along with his life.
A long, dark beat.
Then Amber whispered, “Trash can, trash can.”
Her face had taken on a sickly tinge underneath all the golden brown, and I got where this was going. I carefully disengaged her hand from the gun and got her to one of the warehouse’s industrial metal trash cans, just in time for her to empty her breakfast into it. The first and last meal she’d had on this terrible day.
After she was done, I pulled the pocket square out of my Brioni suit and pressed it into her hand. Then I stood back, wondering how this would all turn out as she wiped her mouth.
That fucker had my cousin killed, and I’m just as cold as Stone when it comes to ending anything that hurts me and mine. If not for Amber’s sudden desire for vengeance, I would’ve let Stone beat him half to death first, then stabbed him and let him die from the wound. Nice and slow while a Sinatra song played in the background.
But Amber wasn’t me. She’s built her whole life around the opposite of killing, hurting, and taking. Saying you want to end something is one thing, but actually doing it, well that’s another thing altogether.
I handed the gun back to Stone, aware as fuck that this could be the end of Amber and me. The final straw. And for the first time since meeting her, I had no desire to stare. No, instead of trying to read her beautiful face, I kept my eyes on the warehouse’s concrete floor. Bracing myself for the regret, for words of recrimination worse than the ones at the hospital.
But none came. Instead, she said, “Okay…okay…. I’ll take your name. I’m a Ferraro now.”
Mrs. Ferraro. Officially.
Seven months later, I watch my wife’s face startle at her niece’s question, then break into a wide smile. “Of course, we can change your last name to Ferraro. Whatever you want.”
Daniella smiles back, just as wide. And I get the feeling she’s going to be really good at this family stuff. Better than she ever could’ve known. Exactly like Amber and me.
Weird, I’ve been racked by memories all morning, all seven months since I got my wife and baby back if we’re being honest. But just like that, all the bad memories from that other day fall away. That was the nightmare. But this…
This is the dream.
And as I watch my wife and soon-to-be official daughter hug over her breakfast waffles, a new song replaces the usual “Somethin’ Stupid.”
Yeah, no doubt about it, Frank, I think, as we go back to eating Dani girl’s perfect waffles, “The Best Is Yet to Come.”
We discuss whether we’ll need to hire a family attorney or represent ourselves in the court case. No one’s step forward to claim Daniella yet, and it’s doubtful anyone from her mother’s side will. But Amber’s busier than ever these days, now that she’s pretty much switched jobs with Matti and become the Ferraro Family’s go-to lawyer. And this kind of thing is beyond Matti’s new set of family and disability law skills.
But halfway through the conversation, a doorbell interrupts our anniversary breakfast in bed. And then a text pops up on my phone from Gio, the Ferraro soldier who got promoted to Joey’s position after everything settled back down.
I glare at Amber. “Hey, did you invite Matti over for a breakfast meeting? On our anniversary?”
She slaps her head. “Oh, crap, I totally forgot about that! He needs an ASAP consult on a divorce case, and I told him to bring the client over here since I wasn’t planning on working today.”
“It’s our anniversary,” I remind her a
t the same time, Daniella whines, “You said we were going to see Wicked!” Proving that the kid’s become more than used to having two guardians who keep their promises. And Broadway shows.
“We will totally be defying gravity this afternoon, I promise,” Amber says, as she leaps out of bed, and sniffs under her arms. “I think I can get away with not taking a shower. Luca, can you give Lucky a bottle? There should be a bunch in the nursery fridge. And Daniella, can you run to the living room and let Matti and the new client know I’ll be right there? Just give me a minute with them, and I’ll be ready to go…”
Before either of us can protest, Amber disappears into our walk-in closet. And I exchange a look with Dani girl because we both know this is going to take way more than a minute.
According to just about every single person who knew her before we got back together, Amber’s a lot better than she used to be about working too much. But despite her switch to making sure that cases against the Ferraro Family never make it to court, she still had a soft spot for her old business and was known to drop everything when Matti called.
For a moment I think about sending a text to Matti and canceling the appointment behind her back. But then I get hit with another kind of memory. How well she thanked me for the last time she workaholicked all over our plans.
With the thought of her hot lips wrapped around my shaft, I switch into dutiful mode and say to the kid, “Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll get to the show on time. Just do what she says. See ya in an hour or so.”
“Okay…Dad,” Daniella answers like she’s testing the word out. And like the way it sounds.
Gotta say I like it, too. I’m still smiling about it a few minutes later as I feed Lucky his bottle in the nursery. Or I should probably say, give him the bottle so he can feed himself. I’m not accusing anybody of inheriting his mother’s and soon-to-be older sister’s independent streak. But ten months in and it’s already apparent that Lucky’s not going to let us do anything for him that he can’t do himself. Our nanny calls him Boss Baby, and I’ve got a feeling it’s got nothing to do with that Netflix series Daniella likes so much. Amber says, if we don’t watch it, he’ll be changing his own diapers by Christmas.
“Wanna get dressed and go to the park with Dani girl after this?” I ask as he sucks down the bottle.
His eyes light up at the sound of the word, “park,” just as my burner-of-the-month vibrates, hot and dangerous inside my jacquard robe’s outer right pocket. Even though Gio made a big deal of telling everybody on my team I was taking the day off and would be out of touch today.
I pull out the phone and frown when I see it’s Stone. The same underboss who decided, for the first time in the history of me knowing him, to take a whole week off from work to go to the beach last Monday.
I’d been suspicious when he put in the request. Of course, I had. My cousin’s not exactly a beach vacation sort of guy, and he’d been Stone times ten since Rock’s death.
Rock had been both Stone’s and my Jiminy Cricket. The only thing that kept us out of complete monster territory. I’ve got Amber and our kids now to keep me from going all dark. But what does Stone have?
I think of Aunt Peg, beyond hysterical at the funeral, the complete opposite of their father, who’d appeared at the graveside service last minute, escorted by a prison guard. He’s been as hard-faced as his now only son, eyes barely flickering as they lowered Rock into the ground.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine Stone relaxing on a beach somewhere when he told me he needed a few days off. But I let him have the vacation time, no questions asked, secretly hoping he’d actually try to process what happened to his brother during his week away.
But now he’s calling. On the secure line, which can’t be good.
“Hey,” I say carefully, lifting Lucky off my lap and setting him down on the floor, so he can play in his palace of a nursery while I take the call. “What’s up?”
“I’m in South Carolina.”
I still, every muscle in my body tensing. “No, Stone. I told you to leave her alone.”
Naima’s sudden decision to take a job in South Carolina had been a shock to us all. And Stone had been especially annoyed—well, especially annoyed for Stone. His jaw had tightened when Amber told him the news, and he’d said, “Leaving town right before Rock’s funeral. That’s a dick move.”
“Everybody has their way of dealing with grief,” Amber answered defensively, even though I knew, she’d been just as shocked as Stone by Naima’s announcement.
Stone hadn’t answered, just thrown Ambs a disparaging look. Like she was the world’s biggest idiot for not seeing the same asshole Stone did when he looked at her best friend.
Which is why I’d gone out of my way to warn him not to interfere with Naima’s decision.
But here he was, calling me up from South Carolina. “It’s what Rock would have wanted,” Stone tells me as if that thoroughly explains him going against his don’s explicit orders.
I pinch my temple. “Fuck. At least tell me you kept your distance. Didn’t let her see you…”
Stone’s answering silence says no to that question as loudly as the spoken word.
And I curse again. Because how am I going to explain to Amber that my cousin who’s still refusing to talk about what happened to his brother is now in South Carolina, paying an unwanted visit to her best friend?
“How is she?” I ask quietly. Naima hasn’t called Amber in over two months, so I’m figuring the least I can do is get an “other than being terrorized by her dead boyfriend’s brother totally fine” thumbs up to take back to my wife.
But then Stone says, “Pregnant…very pregnant.”
49
DAWN
Wow, the Ferraros are a lot different than what I remember before Dad moved us all to Japan when I was fourteen.
Back then, they’d been the Italians who demanded an envelope of cash every month from the Korean grandparents on my mother’s side. I think maybe they had a nice house in Elizabeth or some middle-class burb like that. But as Matti drives my brother, Byron, and me up the winding driveway of Luca Ferraro’s place in Alpine, I can see they’ve stepped up their game. My hands itch for my sketch pad, as I gape at the large multi-building dark wood and stone estate.
And that instinct to capture everything I see on paper only becomes worse when we go inside. A guard in a black suit escorts us through a two-story A-frame foyer into an open plan great room, kitchen, and dining area space. The entire downstairs is sparsely furnished, with only a wrap-around couch in the great room and a round table with chairs in the dining area. But my animator's eye is totally impressed with the dynamic walls.
Done up in dark grey textured tiles, they feature everything from bookshelves to several pieces of tactile wall art, which keeps the living room from looking like a minimalist nightmare.
The floors are also dynamic, I notice. No carpets anywhere, but there are a couple of paths made out of pearly raised dots, and they blend into the interior way more subtly than the neon yellow tactile flooring at the Rhode Island Design School.
I’m no longer a grad student at RhIDS, and I only know enough about interior design to do rough background sketches for my dreamy animation work, before handing that part of the project over to a specialist. But I’ve got enough real-world knowledge to guess someone commissioned a team of specialized designers to put together this living room. The space radiates with both power and strong intent, and I get the sense that it’s a complete reflection of the people who live here.
I glance over at my brother as the guard leads us into the living room. I still don’t love that he’s on the Ferraro Family payroll, his dirty cop paycheck as steady as the one he gets from the state of New Jersey. It feels like he’s walking in Dad’s footsteps. But maybe he was right about me coming here for help with my Victor problem.
About a minute after we sit down, a cute kid shows up. “My mom is getting ready. She said to tell you she’ll be right ou
t.” Then she drops her voice to say, “Today is the anniversary of the day my parents got married—the second time, not the first. Don’t forget to tell her happy anniversary!”
Okay, that sounds like an interesting story, I think as my brother assures her, “We for sure won’t.” Affable as if we’ve just strolled in for a Sunday visit.
I want to smile at the little girl, too, but it curdles on my mouth. If I’m reading the skin tone right, she’s multiracial. Like Byron and me. Like the baby I’m carrying right now. Truthfully, she’s just too close to a living embodiment of why I’m here to smile at like absolutely nothing is wrong.
I cast another look at the older Jewish guy who brought us here. Matti and my brother say this woman can help us, but I don’t know. There may be no help I think despondently. Especially when it comes to Victor.
The woman we’re here to see shows up just a few minutes later, and I immediately understand how she’s managed to Meghan Markle one of the oldest Mafia dynasties in America. She’s, like, stupid gorgeous. It’s as if the words ethereal and striking decided to have a human baby, and for whatever reason that baby was like, “you know what I’m going to do with all this beauty? Go into law.”
I feel Byron still beside me when she walks into the room, but Matti must be radiance immune, because he stands up with an “Amber, thanks for meeting with us.”
She has a rock the size of Rhode Island on her wedding ring finger, and that makes me look down at my own finger. A ring of black onyx sandwiched between two raised bars of stainless steel. Plain in comparison, but way more ominous, because it’s a slightly narrower match of the band my husband wears. Though husband isn’t the way he refers to himself when it comes to us.
Ruthless Tycoons: The Complete Series (Ruthless Billionaires Book 3) Page 77
