I nod. “Felicia is your granddaughter.”
“Oh!” Mother gasps, tearing up as she drops to her knees to hug Felicia. “Mia nipotina!”
The little girl hugs my mother back, simply happy to be getting so much affection and attention. “You smell nice,” she mumbles happily, rubbing her hands over the fur lining of my mother’s expensive coat. If it were anyone else, I’m pretty sure Ma would swat their hand away. She appears to take it in stride, too overjoyed to care.
“You should have told me sooner, Dominic,” she chastises, but her smile remains in place. “I would have brought over my famous homemade tiramisu.”
“What’s that?” Felicia asks.
“It’s dessert, sweetie,” Arin answers softly.
“I like dessert!”
“Everybody does,” I say.
“Would you like to stay for dinner, Isabella?” Arin asks. “I was going to make burgers.”
“I’d love to!” Ma exclaims before I have a chance to interject.
“Wonderful. I’ll get the table set. Felicia, go wash your hands please.”
“Okay, Mommy!”
The moment we’re alone, Mother smacks me across the arm again. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
“There was never a good enough time,” I answer with a wince. There are only two things I fear most: God’s wrath, and my mother’s ring-clad backhands.
“You and I are going to have a nice, long talk after dinner,” she warns. “And not just about your secret family. My sources tell me there’s trouble brewing.”
“Are your sources saying the same as my sources?”
“If it’s that Lorenzo’s a disloyal son of a bitch, then yes.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, praying the dull ache behind my eyes dissipates. “Please tell me you have something concrete.”
“I’ll do you one better,” my mother says, reaching into her purse to pull out a thick yellow envelope. “You’ll want to give those documents a good read.”
Curious, I open the envelope and slip the pages out. They’re printed on crisp paper, the ink still fresh. It’s page upon page of private correspondence, all from Lorenzo himself to Renato.
Help me get rid of my problem and half my territory is yours.
Consider it done.
My jaw drops open. Lorenzo isn’t fighting against Renato. That’s just a cover. They’ve been working together this entire time.
“Where did you get this?” I ask.
“Have you forgotten who I am? I may be retired, cuore mio, but I still have plenty of influence. A handful of people who are close to both Renato and Lorenzo are ultimately loyal tome.”
“Are you sure these are legit?”
“Straight from their own servers,” she confirms. “All of them timestamped and IP address-verified.”
Anger churns in the pit of my stomach.
“Dom?” Arin calls sweetly from the kitchen. “Dinner’s ready.”
“We’ll be right there,” I reply, keeping my tone as level as possible.