Protected by the Monster
Page 20
Don Leone looked up and smiled.
“I have to say, Luca, you did well.”
I nodded my head. “I did what I could, sir,” I said.
“You did more than well. You came through for the family.”
“I had help.” I looked at Clair and touched her hand. “She stepped up.”
Don Leone looked at his niece and leaned forward. His eyes seemed to simmer with light, life, and anger.
“You did more than you should have,” he said. “It never should have come to this, and for that, I apologize.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I just want to sign the papers and be done with this.”
He grunted and leaned back. He watched us for a moment, eyes scanning over our faces, then reached into a drawer and produced some papers.
“That’s it?” she asked.
“That’s it,” Don Leone said. “It’s all there, and feel free to have a lawyer go through it. I get two properties, you keep all the rest. You can—”
She grabbed the papers and began to sign each page without reading a word. I let out a little laugh, and when she finished, she shoved the papers back toward the Don.
“There,” she said. “Your blood money.”
He looked at the pages and I could see the greedy joy in his eyes. He looked back at Clair and nodded his head.
“I can understand why you’d think that,” he said. “But I promise you, niece, this was for the best.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “Just don’t bother me again. Do you understand? We’re done, me and you.”
“We’re done,” he agreed. “I won’t bother you or your mother so long as I live.”
She turned on her heel and marched to the door.
I nodded to the Don. “Thank you, sir.”
He nodded back and a smile spread across his face. “No, thank you,” he said. “Couldn’t have done this without you.”
“And unfortunately, it’s the last thing I’ll do.”
Don Leone narrowed his eyes, and I saw Clair pause at the door out of the corner of my eye, then slip into the hall and shut the door behind her.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I’m leaving the family.”
He rocked back in his chair and gaped at me. “You’re what?”
“Leaving,” I said. “I’m through with this.” I gestured around me. “Through with the family.”
“Luca,” Don Leone said. “You can’t just leave. You’re a made man. That’s for life.”
“It’s retirement then,” I said. “Just like Sergio. I made you a lot of money, Don, and now it’s time to let me go.”
Don Leone gripped the edge of his desk and slowly got to his feet. He struggled, grimaced in pain, but managed to stand on his own. He extended a thin, bony hand toward me.
I reached out and shook it.
“Go then,” he said. “And don’t ever say I was a bad Don.”
I nodded, released his hand and walked to the door.
“What was that about?” Clair asked when I came out.
I smiled and took her hand, pulling her from the room without answering. Roberto stood in the hallway, glaring at the two of us.
“Nice knowing you, Roberto,” I said. “You sour old fuck.”
Roberto flipped me off as I tugged Clair down the hall.
The place was a wreck. Lights were smashed and broken, walls were riddled with burn marks and bullet holes. Most of the paintings were ripped to shreds, though some survived the fighting. The carpet was stained with blood, ripped by glass and shrapnel, and otherwise ruined beyond repair.
Clair walked alongside me, back toward the main entry hall. The crystal chandelier made it through the fighting somehow, though it hung over a warzone.
“What did you do back there?” she asked, turning to face me.
Her voice echoed off the chipped and wrecked marble floor.
“I left the family,” I said
“How? Why? What?”
“I told you that once this was over, we’d go to Chicago.”
“Luca,” she said, shaking her head. “I never thought… you couldn’t have…”
I reached out and pulled her to me. She stumbled, fell against my chest, stared up into my eyes.
I held her hips and kissed her.
I didn’t know how else to explain what I felt. I kissed her, deep and slow. When I pulled back, she chewed on her cheek.
“I meant it,” I said. “I want you, Clair. I want a life with you, beyond all this. I want that pizza place, or maybe a grocery store, or whatever the fuck you want. I don’t care what we do. I just want to do it with you.”
“You really left for me?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
“I love you,” I said. “Always have. Always will.”
“I love you, too.”
I pulled her tight and kissed her again, my heart beating fast, my head almost dizzy.
I thought I saw the chandelier sway, glinting naked light along the broken and shattered wealth all around us.
“Come on,” I said, pulling back. “Let’s go pack.”
“Forget packing,” she said. “Let’s get in a car and drive. It’s, what, twelve hours?”
“Probably longer.” I laughed and held her hand tight as we left through the front door, stepped out into the cool Philadelphia afternoon. “But who cares? Let’s get going.”
“We have to stop and say bye to my mom,” she said.
“Sure,” I said. “But then you’re all mine.”
She grinned up at me. “Then I’m all yours.”
We walked down the sidewalk, holding hands, and I didn’t look back at the ruin of the mafia house behind me.
27
Clair
Two Years Later
Sweat dripped off my forehead, down into my eyes. I blinked it away. “Order twenty-two!” I shouted.
“Order twenty-two,” Luca echoed, found the two medium pizza boxes on top of the oven, brought them over.
“That’ll be… $32.40,” I said to the pretty young mom with a toddler clinging to her hip.
She handed me a card, I ran it through, gave it back.
“Receipt?” I asked.
“No, thanks,” she said, grabbing the boxes. “Have a nice night.”
“You too.”
She walked out the door, the little bell ringing behind her.
“You ever think about one of those?” Luca asked, coming up to me from behind.
I laughed as he hugged me, kissed my neck. “What, two medium pizzas?”
“No,” he said. “Not the pizzas.”
“The yoga pants?” I asked. “She had nice yoga pants. Looked cool. Nice pattern.”
He grinned, bit my lip. “Come on, don’t play.”
I shrugged a little, kissed him. “I guess I can think about it.”
“We could start right here, right now.”
I glanced at the table of teenagers eating cheesesteaks and playing paper football. “I don’t think so,” I said.
“Ah, they won’t mind,” Luca teased. “They’d probably love the show.”
I turned and hit him in the chest. He laughed, kissed me again.
“Oh, gross,” Kelsey said, coming out from the back. She smelled like cigarettes, had thin blonde hair, but smiled a lot and customers loved her. “How long are you two going to be like this? I swear, it’s been two years, and you’re still hugging and kissing like teenagers.”
“Can’t help myself,” Luca said. “She does it for me.”
“He’s a pig,” I said. “But I love him anyway.”
Kelsey rolled her eyes and took over at the register. I went into the kitchen area with Luca, checked in on Ryan and Mike as they worked on orders, then ducked into the office to balance receipts.
Luca joined me, perched on the edge of the desk.
I looked up at him and frowned. “Can I help you?”
“I was serious,” he said. “About the baby.”
Everything in the restaurant was new, everything except my desk and my chair. I cut costs where I could, since it wasn’t easy running a pizza shop in a major city, but we made it work, and besides, we didn’t need the money.
I was rich as all hell, after all.
“You really think it’s a good time?” I asked. “We’re just starting to make Clair’s work, and—”
“It’ll never be a good time,” he said. “A baby’s going to fuck our life up.”
I laughed a little. “You’re really selling me on it.”
He reached down, took my hand, kissed my fingers. “It’ll fuck our life up, but it’ll also make it better. Come on, I want a kid, and I know you do, too. You keep looking at all these young moms like you want to jump over the counter and steal their life away.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Yes, you do.”
I looked at him, chewed my lip. He was right, of course. I’d been thinking about a baby for over a year now. Once the restaurant was open and we settled into a routine, I kept thinking about expanding our little family.
We had a beautiful condo a block away from the shop with two spare rooms and two full bathrooms. There was plenty of space for a baby and a freaking nanny if we wanted to hire one. It wasn’t like money was a problem. The pizza shop broke even, made a little profit, and anyway, we could life off the money Fazio left me for the rest of our lives.
But it scared me. Having a baby terrified me. I didn’t want to bring a baby into this world and have it lose its parents like I lost my father.
“I want to ask you something first,” I said, squeezing his hand.
“Anything,” he said.
“You’re not going anywhere, right?”
He looked surprised and held my hand tighter. “Where’s that coming from?”
“My father, he died when I was young,” I said. “You know that, but I mean, it ruined my mom, ruined me in a lot of ways, and I just—”
“Clair,” he said, his voice gentle. “I left the family. That life’s behind me.”
“But they’re in the city now. You could still have enemies.”
“I don’t,” he said. “I’m here for the long run. You know that.”
“I know, it’s just—”
He pulled his hands away. For a second, I thought he was angry.
But instead, he reached into his pocket, and took something out. He held it in both hands, hiding it from view.
“I was going to save this for the right time,” he said. “You know, the perfect moment. But there’s no perfect moment in life, there’s no perfect anything. The only perfect moments are the ones we make for ourselves.”
“What are you doing?” I asked as he dropped to one knee.
“I love you,” he said, and opened his hands.
A diamond ring sat in his palm, glittering and huge. One fat diamond on white gold, surrounded by a constellation of smaller diamonds, each of them multifaceted, catching the light, magnifying it into shining shards.
“Where the hell did you get that?” I asked, my voice jumping two octaves.
He grinned at me. “I’ve got my own money still,” he said. “I didn’t spend it all when I was in the family, you know.”
“Luca,” I said.
“Marry me, Clair. Marry me, then let’s have a fucking baby.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, holy shit, yes.”
He took my hand, slipped the ring on my finger, and he was right, he was so right, it was a perfect moment.
We kissed, I don’t know how long. It didn’t matter. We kissed in the back room of our pizza place, of the business we built together, and we were going to build a life, build a family, build a world.
That was him, my man, my future.
* * *
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