“Why didn’t you say so?” Tavi mutters, as he tapes up the body before he slides it into a bag that looks like he’s packing up for a hockey match. He does clean-up like some men make their morning coffee: sheer muscle memory and a matter of routine.
“Say what?”
“He fuckin’ threatened you. That’s a whole other animal, you know that.”
I do. I didn’t want to get into it, didn’t want to have to justify myself. I know I fucked up, but as Underboss I have to stand my ground. I’ve only been out of prison for hours, and it was my second stint. Three strikes, you’re out, and the next time, I ain’t coming home.
Not to mention I’m on goddamn probation.
I turn to the sound of an approaching ride. Santo rolls down the window and grins. There’s a new scar across his cheek that wasn’t there before I left, but he wears the same jaded, arrogant look in his eyes he’s had since he was in middle school. “Get in the car, motherfucker,” he says affectionately. “Let’s get you home before your mama sends out a search party and the lasagna gets cold.” My stomach growls. God, I’ve missed good food. Good to know wiping off another man’s blood hasn’t affected my appetite.
Tavi might give me shit about what I did tonight, but no one… no one… will ever find out. The oath of silence is an unbreakable oath, no matter what the consequences, and covering up for me’s something my brothers might not like but won’t ever question.
We’re ten minutes from my family home, the iconic home called simply “The Castle,” where I grew up north of the city. Though all of us have private apartments or condos in downtown Boston for both business and pleasure, we all grew up in The Castle. And to this day, we all still call it home. It’s expected that we show for Sunday dinner, and that we arrive for a meeting my father calls within an hour of him calling it.
The paradox of mob life means that while we’re rooted in tradition centuries old, we’re practically nomadic—moving as times warrant it, from the North Shore home of the Family to our private places in Boston, or to our family home in Tuscany.
The Castle has made history and the news more times than I can count, but my parents haven’t allowed reporters in since my sister’s wedding several years ago. They said it was more publicity than they needed and didn’t like the reporters’ implication that the servants’ quarters and basement functioned like dungeons.
They do, though. We just don’t like to publicize that fact.
With fourteen bedrooms, eight bathrooms, ten fireplaces and servants’ quarters, The Castle is a veritable mansion, worth an estimated twelve million dollars. It also features quirky, historical features such as a turret, a seven-story tower, carved woodwork, and a functioning organ my eldest sister played before she married and moved to Tuscany herself. The ten main living areas include a dining room, library, study, exhibit rooms, a kitchen, and guest bedrooms, not to mention an inner courtyard, southern tower, and a Great Hall.
We’ve made many memories in this home. Some say we aren’t the only ones, that The Castle is haunted. But I don’t believe in ghosts.
Demons, on the other hand…
The smell of baked lasagna and fresh bread wafts through the air as we pull up to The Castle. I draw in a breath and let it out slowly, savoring the chill in the air and the wide-open sky above me, like blue velvet studded with rhinestones.
I don’t care how old I am or how many houses I own… I like coming home.
I have business to tend to since I went into the slammer, so I won’t go to my own private house until later in the week.
Tomorrow’s a big day, and everyone—cousins and aunts and uncles and honorary members of the Family—will be at The Castle tonight.
There’ll be women here, too. They’re guests, but with the understanding that I don’t have to sleep alone tonight if I don’t want to. And fuck, I don’t want to.
My mind goes to the curvy brunette pinned to the ground by the motherfucker whose body’s growing cold. She was so helpless. So innocent. So fucking beautiful I could almost feel her.
I better never fucking see her again.
When we arrive, the dogs greet me with whines and licks, belying their underlying viciousness. With sleek black and speckled brown fur, the Rottweilers we raise and keep are not here as family pets. They’re highly trained and vicious, and never allowed near any of the children. Even my sisters won’t touch them. I raised them myself from infancy, so they never bite the hand that feeds them. I scratch behind their ears, pat their heads, then order them back to their place by the door. They obey on command. If only my brothers were trained so well.