by Bethany-Kris
“You still didn’t answer my question.”
“How did I manage being the youngest Capo?”
“Yeah,” Tom said.
Adriano laughed under his breath. “White knuckles, Tommaso.”
“Huh?”
“I white-knuckled my way through a lot of it. I got older, gained more experience, and a fuck lot more patience along the way. All traits that helped in different situations.”
“And you have no interest in taking over for Damian, or even Theo when they’re done?”
Adriano scoffed. “Hell no.”
“Why not?”
“They’ve gotten used to the politics of this business, Tommaso. They know how to handle other organizations, and make deals. They talk, talk, and talk more every single day just to keep peace and get shit done. Me? I’ll do politics, but I want to do them on the streets. It’s where I work best.”
Tom drummed his fingers to the steering wheel, considering his uncle’s words. “Maybe it’s just the politics I’ve been dealing with, then.”
“Pardon?”
The two men glanced at each other before Tom’s attention went back to the road. He wondered how to phrase his next statement, as he didn’t want to come off as ungrateful for the position he had or the work he had been given in the Outfit.
“The politics of a crew, the streets, and the Capos,” Tom said. “I think it’s the wrong kind of politics for me, Adriano.”
“Probably.”
“You don’t sound surprised for some reason.”
“You’re a hell of a lot like your father, Tommaso.”
He scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Adriano rested back in the seat, unbothered, and seeming pleased to be driven around by someone else to do his business. “It means, there was once a time when your father was one of the best Capos in Chicago.”
“And then?”
“Then, he became a boss. He did that for one reason—something he wanted more than anything.”
Tom’s brow dipped in his confusion. “My mom?”
Adriano nodded once. “Yeah. See, he went into the boss thing because he had no other choice, but that man would be a damn liar if he ever said he thought he could go back to what he used to be.”
“Funny.”
“What?”
“I don’t think I could see my father as anything other than a boss.”
Adriano chuckled. “See? Like I said when we started this conversation, Tommaso, some men are simply made to be a boss. They’re not meant to be fucking around with all the other nonsense that makes this organization what it is. They work better at the top.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
His uncle reached over and hit his shoulder.
Tom looked over at Adriano. “What?”
“You might just be one of those men, Tommaso.”
Who knew?
Not him.
Tommas’s hands landed heavily on Tom’s shoulders. His father leaned over him to see what was on his plate. “Nice spread.”
Tom stabbed the fork into an egg, but his interest in food was very little. “I have to keep my energy up somehow, don’t I?”
“I suppose. Adriano says you’ve been throwing yourself into work, and keeping your head down. Any reason for that?”
“Nope.”
His father moved around the table, and took a seat in front of him. Tom continued shoving his face full of food in an effort not to have this conversation with his dad. Especially not now, and not there, at tribute. There were too many other men around to hear their conversation, and he wasn’t up for that.
“You haven’t been over to the mansion more than twice since you got back from New York,” his father noted.
“Work,” Tom reminded him.
“Mmm. How was it, anyway?”
“Work is fine.”
“Nice try. New York, I meant.”
Tom cleared his throat. “Fine.”
“I don’t think so—something’s different with you since you got back. I’m not the first person to notice it. A mood, Adriano tells me.”
Tom shot his uncle a look. Beside him, Adriano pretended like he hadn’t seen or heard a thing. Asshole.
“Adriano should learn to keep his mouth shut,” Tom said, shrugging.
“I take it you’re not going to fill me in on whatever is bothering you, then?”
“It won’t make a difference if I do.”
Tommas nodded, and stood from the table. “All right, son. Enjoy your breakfast.”
His father left the table, and headed to his own where his underboss and front boss were waiting with their food. It was another twenty minutes, after tribute had been paid and the men were well into eating, before Tommas spoke again.
“Marty, I heard you’re having some kind of problem with another Capo. Care to fill me in?”
Tommas’s voice carried over the chattering Capos in the restaurant. Instantly, the men quieted, and looked to Tom’s father. A few glanced between the Capo Tommas had called out, and the boss himself. One or two glanced at Tom before looking away.
It made him think Marty had probably been running his mouth a bit. Not that it would be a surprise.
“No, boss,” Marty said from two tables away from where Tom sat with Adriano and another Capo. “There’s no need, really.”
“Can I assume the issue has been corrected, then?” Tommas asked.
No.
Not even close.
Tom kept quiet just to see what Marty would say.
“I can’t say the issue has been fixed,” the balding, bulging Capo replied, “but I can’t say a conversation here would fix it, either.”
Tom’s father tipped his head to the side like he was considering the man’s words. “And why is that, Marty?”
“Well, I suppose to start—”
“Do you think I’m not objective when it comes to my men and their issues?” Tommas asked, not even giving the older Capo a chance to speak.
“I didn’t say that, boss. I was going to say—”
“How you already went to Theo, and were told to take the offer the other Capo offered because it was a better deal—far more—than any other Capo would have given you, considering?”
Marty cleared his throat, and his gaze shifted to where Tom sat. “I don’t mean to be rude, boss, but—”
“You should know by now, and at your age no less, that adding a but into a sentence you start with “I don’t mean to be rude” actually means you very much intend to be rude, Marty.”
“I … my apologies.”
Tommas cocked a brow, but never once did his gaze leave the older Capo. He didn’t single Tom out, or even make it seem like his son was involved at all. While Tom was almost certain there were a few Capos in the room who knew that the other Capo his father meant was him, he appreciated the way his father was handling the issue.
At the same time, he really didn’t need his father to handle it.
Tom could do it.
He certainly didn’t need anyone thinking he needed his father to come to his rescue, either. He didn’t think that would do any good for him at the end of the day.
“My offer still stands, Marty,” Tom said, joining the conversation. “Twenty percent for the truck being on your territory, as it always is, and another five percent on top of that for the misunderstanding you think we had.”
“I don’t think anything, Tommaso. You know damn well what we agreed to.”
Tom sucked air through his teeth, refusing to show his irritation or frustrations in the presence of so many made men. “Yes, that my men would steal the truck, and sell the goods. They had the scheme worked out, and I brought it to your attention because of territorial lines. Not one thing was mentioned about who would handle the goods—you were only interested in money. My boys did the work, and so, they get the payoff from it.”
“As I told you, Marty,” Theo, the Outfit’s front boss, said.
“Any other Cap
o in here would—”
“Agree that if they wanted to handle the goods, it would have been brought up in the first conversation,” Adriano put in. “I mean, I’ve done these boosts between our territories before, and you didn’t try to pull this shit on me.”
Marty’s face reddened. “I didn’t pull anything on Tommaso. I can’t help that the boy doesn’t know how business works when a man who has been in it for longer than he has asks for something, Adriano.”
Tom stiffened, but still refused to let his anger bleed into his tone when he said, “That’s it, right?”
“I beg your pardon, Tommaso?”
“Because I’m almost twenty-two now, and you’ve got forty years on me. So it’s easier for you to think you can screw over a young gun like me because I won’t speak up, right? I’m a Rossi—my dad’s the boss—and you had it in your head I probably wouldn’t run to the boss because it would make me look like a boy who needs his daddy to fix shit for him.
“Nobody is fixing anything for me,” Tom continued, unaffected. “My offer stands, Marty. Twenty for the territory, and five for the misunderstanding. And since you tried to pull this nasty shit on me this time, you can trust that I’ll never work with you or your crew again on anything else.”
Finally, Tom’s father decided to speak up again. It was not like Tommas to stay quiet when his men argued. He usually culled that nonsense as soon as it started.
“Take the extra five, Marty,” Tommas said, “because if it were me, I would have dropped you back down to fifteen just for thinking you were smart and could pull one over on me.”
Nods passed around the room.
Confirmative agreements echoed from several men.
Tom had not been in the wrong. He could handle his business. He fucking hated being a Capo, but he knew how to be one.
Sometimes, the politics weren’t such a bad thing. At least, not when they kept him distracted from something else. Like the phone in his pocket that still hadn’t rang in a month with a call or message from Camilla.
Fuck his life.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE WORDS on Camilla’s laptop seemed to be bleeding together the longer she stared at them. She blinked, and when that didn’t work, she rubbed the heels of her palms into her eyes just for good measure.
It also did nothing.
The words were there, sure. Black strokes in Times New Roman font against a white backdrop. Her essay due on the correlation of lack of available healthcare to women living below the poverty line, and inadequate maternal care leading to premature births. She had been given the assignment a month ago, and should have had it done already.
This was one of the areas she excelled in. This was a topic she could discuss for days and days. She knew the ups and downs, and exactly how she wanted to handle the posturing of the essay. It should have been done already, yet here she was, still looking at the damn thing and wondering what else she could write into the opening paragraph.
It was due in …
Camilla checked the date at the right hand, lower corner of the laptop’s screen.
One week.
It was due in a fucking week.
She tipped her head to one side, trying to stare at the words from a different angle. Then, she tipped her head to the other side.
She probably looked like an idiot.
August confirmed it. “What are you, a bird?”
Camilla straightened on the couch. “No.”
“Why are you looking at your screen like that?”
Knowing she wasn’t going to get anything done going on like she was, Camilla sighed and closed the laptop screen. She set the computer on the coffee table, leaned back on the couch, and rubbed at her temples.
“You okay?” August asked.
The scents of bergamot and chamomile wafted through the apartment. Compliments of a chamomile tea August had brewed from loose leaves, and a bergamot oil she had put in a diffuser. Apparently, Camilla’s stress wasn’t only visible to herself, but also to her best friend.
August’s way of helping was tea and oil, and quiet.
Lots of quiet.
Except now, her friend seemed ready to talk.
Camilla didn’t know if she was ready, too.
“I don’t know what I am anymore,” Camilla whispered.
She didn’t even know if August had heard her, but she felt slightly better the moment she let the words slip past her lips. It was the first time she had admitted them out loud. It was the first time since Tommaso walked out of her place a month ago that she told someone else in her life that she was hurting.
August had heard her.
Loud and clear.
Camilla wasn’t all too surprised.
This is what best friends were for.
August came to sit on the edge of the coffee table. She moved Camilla’s laptop further away, and picked up the chamomile tea that had long gone cold. Peering into the almost-full mug, her friend let out a heavy exhale.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not sure what to say,” Camilla replied.
“Well, anything you haven’t told me would be a great start.”
Camilla laughed, but it came out strained and bitter. It even left behind a bad taste in her mouth. Fuck everything because she couldn’t even laugh lately without it being something awful, too. So was the way of her life, it seemed.
“You were trying to talk to me earlier, weren’t you?” Camilla asked.
Maybe she wasn’t ready to talk about Tommaso, or what happened. Maybe she wasn’t ready to admit out loud that she had purposely hurt him, and then forced herself not to call him for a whole month despite every single part of her wanting to hear his voice.
Maybe Camilla just wasn’t ready to say she had been wrong.
Old habits died hard.
Hers died even harder.
“It wasn’t anything important,” August murmured. “I was just telling you about a spread I got to help with for Bared Brand’s magazine.”
Camilla stared at her friend.
Heaviness weighed down her heart.
Regret filled her stomach.
Sadness clenched around her lungs.
“Aug,” Camilla said quietly, “that’s fucking amazing, and you know it is.”
August shrugged. “It’s nothing big.”
“No, it is. It really is. And you were trying to tell me about it, but I was just over here off in my own world.”
“So you’ve got a lot going on.”
“No, I’m just being a shitty friend lately.”
August gave her a look. “Cam, you’re not being a shitty friend. I think you’ve just got some stuff to figure out in your head, that’s all. We all go through that stuff sometimes.”
“Not me.”
“Well, maybe you don’t usually go through it with a guy.”
And there her friend went …
Calling her out.
Without actually saying Tommaso’s name, of course.
August cleared her throat, and stood up from the coffee table. “Do you know when I figured out something was up with you after last month?”
“When?”
“You had an appointment to get your hair done up in those mermaid colors you wanted, and you totally flaked. You’ve been talking about that style for months now.”
Camilla blinked. “Shit, is Chilla—”
“She’s fine with you missing one appointment, Cam. I might have mentioned you were a little out of it lately.”
“So my missed hair appointment clued you in, huh?”
August laughed. “You don’t miss those. I saw you go to one once when you had the Norovirus.”
Camilla made a face. “I did do that once, didn’t I?”
“Puke everywhere, Cam.”
Yeah, Chilla was not pleased about that. Not that Camilla blamed the woman.
“Hey, my hair looked good, though,” Camilla pointed out.
“That was about the on
ly thing you had going for you.”
Camilla smiled, and for the first time in a month, it didn’t feel forced. Still, as quickly as it had come, it faded. Just like that, her moment of happiness was gone. It was far too easy for her to lose happiness lately than it was to keep it.
August didn’t miss Camilla’s sudden change in mood again. Her friend bent down, patted a hand against her cheek, and made Camilla look at her. Familiar russet eyes told her shit was rough, but it could get better.
One of the many reasons she loved her friend.
“What happened when he came down to visit last month?”
Camilla shrugged. “Things felt too serious, I guess.”
“And you bolted?”
“Like a baby deer.”
August cocked an eyebrow. “You do know there’s nothing wrong with … falling in love, right? Being with one person. Whatever.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Because I don’t know that you do, Cam.”
“I know I freaked out a little.” Camilla made a noise under her breath, and stood from the couch. It made August take a couple of steps back to give Camilla room to move. “But he knew I was like this anyway—I didn’t want serious, Aug, I wanted fun.”
“I think you’re trying to convince yourself of something that no longer applies, Cam.”
“I—”
“And maybe you should give him the benefit of the doubt, too.”
Camilla glanced at her friend, confused. “What?”
“Tommaso—give him the benefit of the doubt. You said it, Cam. He knew you were kind of a little crazy when it came to commitment and relationships. Like you’re fucking allergic or something. Some part of him probably expected this to happen, or something like it. He might be a guy, but he still protects himself from getting hurt. Walls, you know?”
“We all have them,” Camilla filled in what her friend didn’t say.
August shrugged. “Yep.”
Well, all things considered, Camila figured it was too little, too late now.
“It’s been a month,” she told her friend. “I haven’t called, or texted. He hasn’t made any effort to contact me. I think we can safely say I fucked up, and it’s done.”
“Mmm, I don’t think it is. At least not for you.”
