“Last night, Mama and Marialena took a call from Rosa.”
Our eldest sister Rosa lives in Tuscany with her husband and their young daughter. She dodged a bullet when it came to an arranged marriage when she fell in love with Anthony Mercadio, a man of prestige and power in Tuscany. Our father allowed the nuptials with the understanding that it would be a mutually beneficial situation.
“Yes?”
He thrusts one hand in his left pocket, his right grasped around a wine glass. “Not good, Rome.”
“Tell me.”
I stand up straighter. If that son-of-a-bitch hurt my sister, I’ll take our private jet and go to Tuscany tonight before I’ve even unpacked my bags. I never liked my brother-in-law but allowed my sister to marry him against my better judgment. I never trusted him, though. Tavi knows this, which is why he waited until we got home to tell me.
“Now, Romeo, you just got home,” Tavi says as if reading my mind. My temperature begins to rise. I polish off my wine and signal for a waiter to take my glass. I need to be sober for this.
“Tavi, he’s the fuckin’ Underboss,” Orlando says, coming up behind me. “Will be Boss any damn day. And needs to know. Fuckin’ tell him or I will.”
Orlando, the largest and most muscular among us, is our resident heavy. When he walks down a public street, he parts the crowd like Moses parted the Red Sea. But though he can be brutal and vicious, he hates shedding blood and hates causing pain, a decided weakness in our family. Orlando’s my father’s least favorite, thereby making him a favorite to me.
The heaviest eater among us—which is really saying something—Orlando settles his second plate of food on a side table so he can toss the first down before he digs into the second.
Tavi exhales and takes another sip of wine before he tells me.
“Rosa found her husband banging the nanny. She lost it. Cursed him out. Threw shit. He…” he pauses, either trying to get his own anger under control or trying to prepare for mine.
My voice is barely controlled. “Did he hurt her?”
“Tried to. Bodyguard stepped in. Restrained him, called Papa.”
“I’ll fucking—”
“He’s dead, Rome,” Tavi says in a low voice. “He’s no longer your concern.”
I slam my fist on a sideboard table, but no one even looks my way. I smack the exit to the dining room with my palm, relishing the sting of pain. I march past the guards who nod their heads at me, ignore the stare my mother gives me from the kitchen entrance, and stomp past the soldiers taking shots at the bar between the Great Hall and the dining room. Beyond the dining room sits the library and further still, the roughly hewn stones that pave the courtyard. But that’s not where I’m going.
I know where he is.
A small, narrow hallway between the dining room and kitchen gives way to a darkened interior and a door you wouldn’t see unless you knew it was there. Deeply carved into the wall as if it’s an emblem, the door fits flush against the wall. I run my finger along the edge, pull the metal latch forward, then slide my key in the lock and push the door open.
It smells like the recesses of an ancient confessional in here, faintly lingering odors of incense, whiskey, and sin. Here, behind the hidden entryway door, lies the secret wine cellar, a closet furnished with the finest cigars, and a circular war room that hearkens back to days of old. Beyond the war room a small stairway leads to one of several towers, my favorite place to go and hide when I was a child until my father discovered it and made it his own.
And there, sitting amongst papers, smoking his cigar, is my father, flanked by his bodyguards who never leave him even when he sleeps or takes a piss.
He takes a pull from his cigar and lets the smoke out slowly. Small circles rise and spread. He smiles. My father’s smile chills one to the bone and is rarely, if ever, provoked by amusement.
“Son.”
“Papa.”
“Welcome home.”
I’m not here for pleasantries. I served time for a crime he committed, because it was my duty as Underboss. I want details, now.
“Tell me about Rosa.”
He nods his head. He expected me. He expected the question.
“She can tell you herself.”
I school my reaction when he knocks on the door behind him that leads to the war room. A quick rap, and a woman’s voice rings through.
“Yes?”
“Come, Rosa. Your brother returns.”
The door opens, and Rosa enters. Taller than my mother, Rosa carries herself with the grace of Mama and the confidence of Papa. Our eldest sister is wise beyond her years. She steps into the light, and I blink in surprise when I see one eye’s swollen shut.