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Now that I’m surrounded by the men I love, I feel totally secure.
Esther has mischievous delight in her voice as she tells us, “A bishop I know in San Lorenzo is very progressive and open-minded. I think he might also be very available, given the right conditions. I’ll have him flown over.”
She holds the door as we step out.
“We must go to the opera together more. Don Giovanni is at the Met this month. It’s the story of a man destroyed and consumed in the fires of hell, because of how badly he’s treated the women in his life. I think I might book a box for us all.”
I let the men go ahead while I hang back with Esther for a private word.
“Esther, if you want to, you could stay. You can still be the head of the family.”
She blinks. “Take charge of all that chaos and mayhem? Do what you’re going to do? No. No, thank you, not me.” There’s a mischievous edge on her smile. “Besides, after all that’s gone down? And I’ve been away. Nearly ten years. No, no. You want this. I think I’ll stay to see you settled in, make sure everything is secure, then I’ll be back to the Med, thanks all the same.”
Before she lets me go she says, “Maybe you’re smarter than I was. Maybe you’re luckier. Both my husbands were weak. Stephano, my first husband, was a wonderful man,” she lets out a wistful sigh. “But he was weak for money and power. I did love him, though. My second, well, you saw what he was. He was pathetically weak for cucchia, and look where that got him.” She sniffs. “Those three? Well, two of them are my sons, so all I have to say about that is if you hurt either of them…”
“If I hurt them?”
“I’ll hunt you down like a dog.”
“And the other one? Alessio?”
She shrugs. “It’s you who wants to marry him. Whatever happens to him, I don’t care one way or the other. I always thought of him as cold as a fish.” She gives me her calculating smile. “You seem to know something about him that I don’t.”
After all that’s happened, coming home is strange for me. My old family house feels different and it’s almost like I’ve become another person. I wanted to bring my men to give Daddy a chance to meet them, but I worried that he would think I was coming to him with a mob.
All three of them still insist on coming with me — they hardly let me go anywhere without them — but I make them wait outside the closed doors of Daddy’s study.
He’s not going to like what I have to say. It will be hard for him to take it in. If he felt like I came to him with force, that would only make it tougher for him to accept it and take it in.
I don’t want to make it any harder than it needs to be for him. Not that I’m giving any choice. That’s not the way in the Life, and he knows it. Still, it takes a while to sink in.
He swivels in his executive chair behind his big desk. With the glow of the sun lighting him from the side, I see the all his trappings of strength, all the props that he relies on, as signs of weakness.
Now I have a different perspective, all his fears seem so exposed and out in the open. My heart aches for him.
EPILOGUE
“Ihear you snared all three of the Fortuna boys, and they’re even going to let you have a part in running the family business.”
I take a slow breath in as I shake my head. “Daddy, they’re not letting me have a say. I’m taking charge. I’m the boss, they’re my captains.”
He smiles. “Well, however you make it work, I’m sure it will work out fine. But seriously, I’m proud of you.”
“Are you, Daddy? Are you really? It’s wonderful to hear it, but I’m not sure if you’re serious. If you really mean it, that’s great.”
“What do you want me to say? Well done, Lucia.” Even now, I can’t tell if he is just going through the motions, patting me on the head. Still, when he says that, a fuzzy glow starts inside me, and I straighten up as it spreads.
He gets us both a drink and I settle into the armchair, getting ready for what I’ve come to say. When I get to it, his jaw drops.
“Daddy, it’s time you stepped aside.”
He narrows his eyes and fills his chest. “What? You going to have me taken out? Have me popped? Because that’s the only way. I’m not handing over to Miko. You’re crazy if you think I am. What, do you think I’m blind? Am I soft in the head? He’s my son, and some day he will have to be my heir, I know it. But he needs to grow and develop. He needs time to mature. Right now, he’s a nincompoop.”
I smile and shake my head. “Daddy, it will be a miracle if Miko matures at the speed of a coastal fucking redwood. I could find you an acorn that will be ready to run a family business before Miko.”
Daddy sits back, but his color is up and his eyes are wary. “So what the fuck you talking about? Have you come to try and get me to hand over to Chris? What would be the logic to that?”
“I’m not talking about you handing over to either of them.”
