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I hold up my hands in defeat. “You’re right, I’ll cut it out.”But this better be worth it because I’m starving.
I watch him as he finishes cooking. Back in the day, my father used to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and he was damn good at it. It was like a hobby, he’d tell me, a way to be a normal human being when most of the time he had to be something else. I didn’t understand back then—I thought life in the Famigliawasnormal—but looking back, I think I know what he meant.
Life in a criminal organization is life or death. It forces its members, especially its leadership, to twist their morals and start acting out on the margins of society. That changes a man, makes him more feral, more violent, grinds him down into dust. Nobody can exist like that forever. Cooking is about as simple as it gets, and for a little while, Dad could forget about his problems and focus on making a meal. It was a way to short-circuit theprocesses around him molding him into a thug and a killer. It was simple and very, very normal, and that’s exactly what he needed.
I didn’t appreciate that back then, but now I think I’ve gotten closer to how he must’ve felt all the time, and it couldn’t have been easy.
I wish I did things differently with Dad. I wish I was more patient, more forgiving, a little bit kinder. I wish I had tried harder to understand. But at the time, when I was in it, the Santoro Famiglia felt like it would last forever, and I had no idea that one day my father would be gone and I’d be on the outside looking back on what we had and realizing that it was special.
“All right, love, here you are.” Ronan presents a bowl of meat, potatoes, and carrots, garnished with a little something green, and while it’s extremely simple, I have to admit that it smells good.
“Needs some pasta,” I mutter, smiling to myself.
“Pasta, that’s all your Italians ever talk about ispasta.” He makes a face and sits across from me, waving a fork in the air. “This is hearty cooking made by people that actually had to survive, instead of your soft Italian ancestors living fat and happy in their warm little peninsula.”
My eyebrows raise. “I’m sorry, was it the Irish that conquered the known world?”
“You had more resources. The Romans had access to some of the most advanced and wealthy civilizations on the face of the earth.”
“And your ancestors had sheep to fuck and stews to cook.” I wink at him as he laughs and take a bite. It’s shockingly good with a spicy, complex flavor profile very much at odds with its simple appearance.
“Well?” he asks, leaning forward. “Still think we’re just a bunch of sheep fuckers?”
“Yes,” I say, and he glares at me. “But you do make a mean stew.”
“That’s my girl, I knew you’d come around.” He looks very happy as he digs into his portion. I give him a few more compliments because that’s only polite, but I really do mean it. Ronan’s a lot of things, but I never imagined he’d also be a pretty good cook.
We make some small talk. He tells me about running around the kitchen as a little boy and learning to make this dish with his mother and his aunts, and how his father gave him shit for weeks calling him soft and gay for liking to cook. “Beat that out of me quick,” Ronan says, smiling slightly, but there’s a softness to his face. “But really it taught me just to keep my mouth shut around my father.”
“That must’ve been hard.”
“Yes and no. It’s how things were in the family, right? Men were men and women were women, and the roles were strictly defined.”
“Were?” My eyebrows raised. “It’s different now?”
“Not exactly, but the newer generation is less liable to call you a fairy for liking to cook at least.”
“Ah, yes, homophobic slurs. I swear, it’s like every insecure guy immediately starts calling everyone and everything gay.”
“It’s the insult of choice for men without much of a brain. But again, falling out of fashion. A couple of the cousins are gay and while nobody talks about it, they’re also not ostracized like they might’ve been a couple decades ago.”
“Very progressive.”
“Nah, not really, but what do you expect from a bunch of criminals? All in all, a more united family is a stronger family.”
He asks me questions about what it was like growing up in a crime family as a woman and I try to be candid. It wasn’t always good—my opinion wasn’t necessarily valued by all of my father’s Capos—but I had my dad’s backing and support, and that was generally enough to keep the worst of the bad behavior away. I go quiet and focus on eating, and a wave of homesickness washes over me.
“You know, we should talk about our next target,” he says, sounding almost casual about it.
I tilt my head. “Already? We just finished up with Rocco.”
“I know, love, but idle hands and all that. We should be working on the next score.”
“I’m already working.” I feel a little defensive and frown at him over my glass of wine. “What’s the rush?”
“There’s no rush.” He leans back to study me. “You said you had three targets. We hit one of them. Now it’s time to start thinking about the next, that’s all.”
I don’t like his tone. Something about it bothers me, and I can’t pinpoint why. “I feel like I’ve done enough already. More than enough, actually.”
