“She’s well. She lives in Florida now.”
“So I heard. Remarried, eh?”
I nod, willing the knots in my belly to release. I’m certain Donna Teresa dislikes my mom. Probably because my mom made it plain she thought the woman’s husband was responsible for the death of my dad.
“Do you like him?” Donna Teresa asks. “The new husband?”
I chew my lip and shrug. “Not so much. But he makes my mom happy.”
“Ah.” The older woman’s eyes glint. “That’s important.”
“Hey, Joey,” Sammy calls to him. “Come on, Al wants us in the office.”
Joey seems reluctant.
“He said it’s important.”
Joey squeezes my knee. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Even though I’m the one who’s been avoiding him since we got here, I feel abandoned. But I can’t lean on Joey here. He’s one of them. I’m the outsider. The one who doesn’t want to fit in.
I watch the men file into Al’s office. Was it one of them? Pauly? Sammy? Tony? Is his killer here tonight?
“I’m taking off, Donna Teresa,” a young college-aged man says, leaning down to kiss her.
Right. I don’t need Joey to hold my hand, and I don’t need to wait for him to take me home, either. “Are you driving anywhere near the business district?” I ignore the raised eyebrows of Donna Teresa.
“Yeah, you need a ride?”
“Yes, please.” I jump up to grab my purse and give Aunt Marie a quick kiss.
I need to get out of here before I say or do something I totally regret.
Joey
“Have you seen Sophie?” I ask my mom, not spotting her anywhere when I return.
“She left with Eddie.”
Eddie? I scowl. “What? When?”
“Right after you left.”
I swear under my breath.
“Joey, I think you should let that one go. She’s beautiful. But she doesn’t love you.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ve only been dating her for a week, Ma. Of course, she doesn’t love me.”
“I mean, she can’t. She never will. It has nothing to do with you—it’s about who you are.”
I stare at my mom, not understanding.
“She can’t handleLa Cosa Nostra.She’s just like her mother.”
I bristle at the mention of her mom, more details of the night Artie Palazzo died surfacing in my memory. “She’snotlikeher mother.”
Except a sick sense of knowing washes over me. Maybe my mom’s right. Maybe I’m trying to convert Sophie to a life she’d hate, the same way her mother had hated. Because her mother’s hate started long before Artie died. Her mother’s hate was indirectly the cause of his death.