Enzo laughed loudly, but his amusement tapered off as he sat up straight, staring across the table with wide eyes. Reaching over, he snatched ahold of Matty's shirt collar, yanking it aside. "Holy shit, you're not joking!"
Matty grimaced, knowing exactly what his brother saw. The back of his neck stung, the burning sensation running down his spine from where Genna had brutally dug her fingernails into his flesh. He smacked his brother's arm, pulling away as he tried to focus on the work.
"Don't hold out on me," Enzo said. "I want details."
"I'm not talking to you about my sex life."
"Come on," he pressed. "At least tell me who it was."
"It's no one you know. I just met her."
"You just met her, and she's already putting out like that?" Enzo laughed, shoving him. "You sure she's not a hooker, too?"
Matty cut his eyes at his brother, the look on his face silencing Enzo before he could even say, "Shut the fuck up."
Enzo held his hands up defensively. "You must really like her."
"More than I like you. In fact, right now, I'm really starting to not like you."
His laughter resurfaced. "You love me, bro."
"Doesn't mean I have to like you."
Rolling his eyes, Enzo swallowed down the rest of his drink before motioning toward the notebook. "So, how are the Yankees looking this week?"
Matty started plugging numbers into the calculator on the Blackberry, trying to make sense of the week's calculations. He was entrusted with the job of keeping up with the betting games, to note the odds coming out of Vegas and coordinate with the rest of the local bookies, but he also directly ran the books at The Place.
Being a bookie was far from glamorous, and certainly not what he had in mind when he enrolled in Princeton all those years ago, but a job was a job. "They're favored to win every day."
"Who are they playing?"
"Home against the Indians at the start," he said, "then away against the Mariners by the weekend."
"Put me down for a grand on Friday's game," Enzo said as he stood up.
"It's a twenty cent line this week," Matty said, shrugging off his brother's offended look. It was usually only a dime. "Either pay up or put your money on the Mariners."
"That's foul."
"I didn't set it," Matty said. "Gavin did."
For every dollar they wanted to bet, they had to fork over another twenty cents on top of it. For a thousand dollar bet, Enzo would have to shell out an extra two hundred. It had to be balanced out somehow so they weren't the ones losing money, and New Yorkers didn't like to bet against the home team without some incentive.
And for gambling addicts, scrounging up a few bucks to play the game, sometimes an extra dime was enough to push them over to the other side of the fence.
Sports betting—it was a tedious business, but taking all of those statistics classes had certainly paid off. It had taken him a while to get used to the system, learning firsthand from the best bookie in the city: Gavin Amaro.
A steady flow of betters stopped by their table; some trusted to wager large sums with their word alone, while others were forced to pay in advance. Matty plugged in the numbers, making sure the bets didn't get too uneven, so he'd come out on top no matter who won the games, while he jotted down names in the notepad. The Blackberry started ringing after awhile, trusted guys with a direct line to him, so they wouldn't have to personally come down to The Place.
Two hours a night, a few days a week, depending on how he felt. Some weeks he only showed up twice, other weeks he immersed himself there every single night. They were at his mercy, much to their chagrin. He didn't do it for the money.
He did just enough to keep the peace with his family.
At exactly midnight, Matty turned the phone off and slipped it away, tearing the notes out of the notepad and sliding them over to his brother so Enzo would know who to hunt down if they didn't willingly pay up. He didn't care who was still there, who hadn't gotten a chance to get their bet in.
He was off the clock.
"So this girl of yours," Enzo said, nursing a beer across from Matty. He'd been staring at him the entire time, hardly able to restrain himself from interrogating him.
Nosey bastard.
"What about her?" Matty asked, motioning for the waitress to bring him another drink.
"How'd you meet her?"
"She was stuck in the elevator with me this morning."
"No shit?" Enzo looked notably impressed. "So the two of you took advantage of the privacy?"
"Hardly," Matty said, tipping the waitress when she delivered his drink. "I brought her back here for a drink afterward."
"And then you took advantage of the situation?"
"More like she took advantage of me," he muttered, sipping from his glass. "She hustled my ass in a game of pool. I nearly lost my car to her."
Enzo's eyes widened. "You? But betting is your thing, man. I don't think I've ever seen you lose a bet."
"It didn't happened today, but only because she let me win. And thank God for that. I don't know what the hell I would've done otherwise. I put my car, my watch, and money on the game."
"Why the hell would you do that?"
"It's what she wanted."
"What did she put up?"
"Whatever I wanted."
Enzo stared at him, blinking rapidly. "And that was, what… pussy? Because you know, bro, that kind of makes her like a—"
"Shut the fuck up," Matty warned him again. As much as he loved his brother, he wasn't above beating his ass if he called her that one more time. "It's more than that. After the way she played me? I wanted her more than anything."
"She must be some girl."
He sighed, taking a gulp of his drink. "She is."
Little Italy, a neighborhood in lower Manhattan, was a melting pot of their kind. Unlike the rest of the city, Little Italy wasn't clearly defined by boundary lines, segregating the different families. Here they ran the same streets, frequented the same businesses, and rubbed shoulders with one another in a sort of restrained civility.
Ground zero, her brother called it. The point where all the explosions originate. So much brewing hostility, so much distrust, only escalated by the constant run-ins on ground they each considered part of their territory, tensions running high day in and day out. It only spanned about four blocks, but they were the last unclaimed blocks in an overrun city, the last piece of the pie up for grabs.
Primo hated Genna going to Manhattan as it was, forbidding her from venturing into Little Italy, but she couldn't resist its appeal—she loved the deep-rooted culture, the locally owned shops and restaurants, the tight-knit feeling of the small neighborhood. So whenever she went—whenever they knew about it, anyway—Dante was always forced to tag along with her.
"So let me get this straight," Dante said, leaning back in the creaky wooden chair, pushing it up on its hind legs as he eyed Genna peculiarly. They were at Casato, a small café owned by the Amaros, another of the five New York families. The place was brightly lit from its vast windows, with a comfortable breeze blowing in from the propped-open doors. "You were stuck in an elevator yesterday and you didn't raise hell about it?"
"Nope," she said, lightly blowing into her cup of espresso. "There was no point."
"So who's the guy?"
"Excuse me?"
"Come on, for you not to flip out about something like that? There has to be a guy involved somehow."
Rolling her eyes, Genna took a sip of her hot drink. Am I that fucking predictable? "You know, you sound just like Dad."
"So I'm right."
"No," she said defensively, eyes narrowed at his smug expression. He stared at her, disbelieving. After a moment, she sighed. "Well… okay. There was a guy."
"Ha!" His chair dropped back down on all four legs, the ear-splitting screech drawing the attention of people around them. "Knew it."
"It's different this time," she said defensively, setting her drink down.
"This one is different."
"How so?"
"I, uh… I don't know." How could she explain something she hardly understood herself yet? Dante was always picking on her about the guys she went for, but this was nothing like before. "From the moment I saw him, I couldn't seem to look away."
"So, what, he's attractive? Whoop-de-fucking-do."
"No. Well, I mean, he is, but it's not just that. There's something about him. It's unexplainable. He looked at me, and it felt like he was consuming me… like my insides were too big for my body and I was going to combust, like my heart was going to explode."
Dante stared at her, eyebrows raised. "That's, uh… that's the stupidest shit I've ever heard."
His laughter, brash and amused, rang out. Annoyed, Genna flung a balled up napkin across the table at him. "I'm being serious, Dante."
"That's what makes it even worse," he replied. "Are you sure it wasn't acid reflux you felt? Heartburn can be a bitch."
She sneered at him, picking her drink back up. "You just don't understand."
"I don't," he agreed. "I fall in love every time I fall into a new pussy, but I've never felt that… and if I did, I'd get to a doctor, STAT. That's just not normal."
She ignored him, instead shifting her attention to the plate in front of her, and picked apart the rest of her lunch in silence. The day before still felt so surreal, and absolutely incredible, and her brother wasn't helping. At all. She felt ludicrous, swept up in something so outrageous, so all consuming. She hardly knew Matty, yet she felt like she knew him intimately, like she had somehow always known him. Maybe that wasn't normal, but there was no denying it.
He had been on her mind all night long as sleep evaded her. She'd stared at her phone, typing out messages to him, but promptly deleting them before hitting send. What could she say? Nothing felt right.
He stole all words from her, leaving her speechless. One thing was for certain, though: she was dying to see him again.
She finished her espresso before standing up and gathering her things. Dante was on his feet right away, tossing some cash down on the table for a tip, even though he hadn't ordered anything for himself. They strolled out of the café, into the cool afternoon. Italian flags flapped in the breeze, affixed to businesses, as red, white, and green decorations adorned the massive six-story buildings, canopies casting shade along the cracked pavement of the old sidewalks. People hung out on fire escapes, calling out to each other.
A few greeted Dante warmly, shouting his name from above. His gaze would flicker that way, a smile on his face as he waved politely.
It was strange to Genna, how loved her brother seemed to be by almost everyone they encountered. Not to say she didn't love him, because she did. She would be hard pressed to name someone closer to her. He wasn't just her brother—he was her best friend, too. He was her confidante. He was the one person she could count on, her constant in this world. But this was Dante, passive and playful… yet the people of New York revered him, treating him like he was so much more. No matter what she knew about his involvement with their father's business, regardless of the fact that she knew he carried a gun at all times, he was still just her harmless, overprotective big brother in her eyes.
"Where to now?" he asked, cutting his eyes at her as they walked south, casually swinging his keys around on his fingers.
"I wanna stop by the music store on Mulberry," she replied. "Then you can take me home. I'm sure you have other things to do."
It had to annoy him sometimes, she thought, being ordered to shadow her around like a bodyguard. He never complained about it… he never complained about anything, really. But she still felt guilty, him being treated like an employee within the family on account of her.
She never wanted Dante to resent her for anything.
They headed down the block and turned the corner onto Mulberry. Her gaze wandered the street as they walked, taking in the scenery, her footsteps faltering when a flash of bright red caught her eye, gleaming in the afternoon sunshine. A familiar car whipped in along the curb down the block, the loud bass of music coming from it echoing through the neighborhood.
No fucking way.
A Lotus Evora.
There was no way he was here—no way she'd run into him in the middle of Manhattan, a city of well over a million people. But what were the odds of someone else driving that car? One in a fucking billion.
She stared at it, watching with awe as the driver's side door opened and Matty stepped out. Her breath hitched, her heart thumping erratically, lodging in her throat. The very sight of him brought back all of those feelings her brother had laughingly dismissed just moments ago. Matty was even more handsome than she remembered, dressed impeccably in a light blue button down, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing off his tattoos.
Snatching a hold of her brother's arm, Genna yanked him to a stop, unable to drag her eyes away from Matty as he laughed radiantly, shouting to a group of guys stepping out of the music store in front of him... the same music store they were heading to.
"That’s, uh…" Holy shit. "That's—"
"Barsanti."
That name, ground out in a harsh voice, drove her attention straight to her brother. Whoa, Barsanti? She turned to Dante, suddenly on edge, knowing he sensed serious trouble to speak that name out loud. Coldness rushed through her, bitter and unwelcome, sending a tremor down her spine. Dante's narrowed eyes shot daggers down the block, right to where the Lotus was parked.
Her gaze frantically followed his as Matty approached three others, greeting them. Immediately, she recognized Enzo Barsanti along with two others, vaguely familiar guys… ones who had come into The Place the night before.
'Friends of the family,' Matty had called them.
No. No. God, please, no.
He couldn't be, could he?
She would know, wouldn't she?
"Dante," she said, tugging on her brother's arm, trying to get his attention. He tore his gaze away from the group, his expression stone cold serious as he regarded her. "You know all of those guys?"
"Enzo Barsanti," he responded, focus going right back down the street. Enzo was a beast of a guy at only twenty, with the mass of a bodybuilder and enough hair coating him to make him damn near part-werewolf. "You know him."
"And the others?" she asked, desperate for this to be some kind of mistake.
"Two of his lackeys." Dante motioned toward the guys in similar red shirts, flanking Enzo. "Carl and Roy. Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Barsanti street soldiers."
"And the other?" she pressed, holding her breath as she waited for his answer. Dear God, let him be a neighbor. He can move. Let him be an old friend. Friendships die. Anything except what she feared her brother was about to say.
"Matteo," he said, voice as cold as ice. "Matteo Barsanti."
Her chest burned at the confirmation. She felt like she was going to puke. Matteo Barsanti. Matty-B. Adverse emotions flooded her system, her mind frantically racing, trying to make sense of it all as she recounted everything he had said to her the night before.
How could it be that he was one of them?
Had he known, she wondered? Watching him, seeing how at ease he seemed, how cheerful he was, she couldn't stop the sensation of betrayal that seeped into her bloodstream like poison. Devastation made her knees shake. The way he had looked at her, seeing through her, like he was reading her… had this boy, this seemingly perfect creature she stumbled upon, been playing her the entire time?
"Oh God," she gasped. What had she said? What had she told him about her family? She had spilled her soul to him so easily, and the whole time he was one of them.
Had he really hustled her?
"Guess the long lost son has returned," Dante said. "I was starting to wonder if he was even still alive. It's been a while since he showed his face around here."
"How do you know it's him?" Genna's voice was barely a strained whisper. It could still be a mistake, right? A big misunderstanding?
Please let it be a misunderstanding.
"Oh, I know," Dante said, not an ounce of wavering. "Trust me… I know the enemy when I see it."
Enzo turned then, his elated expression deteriorating when he caught sight of Dante and her. The guys at his side, attuned to their surroundings, quickly took notice of their presence. Matty's expression twisted with confusion at the sudden shift as he followed their gaze straight to them down the block.
Genna inhaled sharply the instant his eyes connected with hers, her chest constricting, treacherous sensations twisting her gut. He was a Barsanti. He was one of them. She should have been disgusted. She should've been consumed by hate. But looking at him, all she could feel were those butterflies.
Fucking tummy-fluttering butterflies that raised hell the moment his face lit up with a genuine smile at the sight of her. The breath left her lungs in a whoosh, strangling her. She watched, everything in painful slow motion, as Enzo leaned toward him and whispered something. She could see his lips moving, could practically make out the bitter word that made Matty's expression plummet.
'Galante.'
As much as Genna's family hated theirs, she knew they hated hers, too. They hated the Galantes just as much. And taking in his appearance, the way he blinked rapidly, shoulders tensing, eyes widening with disbelief, she knew… this was the face of a man who had just been knocked on his ass as hard as she had been a moment ago.
"Come on," Dante said, grabbing her arm and pulling on it, forcing her to take a few steps backward. "We're getting out of here. I'm not risking it."
"Not risking it?" she asked, grudgingly pulling her gaze away from Matty to turn around as her brother continued to drag her away. "You never retreat."
"If you weren't here, no problem, but I'm not putting you in harm’s way."
She scoffed. "I'm not afraid."
"You should be," he said, his voice low as he cut his eyes at her. "Do you know what they'd do to you, Genna? Those people… those Barsantis? They're fucking savages. How many times has Dad told you that?"