“When we met, he told me he was an investor. He said he invested in opportunities.”
She was chewing her food, but didn’t wait to respond. “You told me that.”
I wanted to tell her everything and have her agree that I was right and he was wrong. In the end, I hoped her acceptance of my actions would somehow provide me comfort. “Well, after I left here the other night, I drove by some random building, and his car was there. So I pulled in.”
She grabbed her glass of tea and washed down her sandwich. “Oh my God. He was fucking some skank.”
“No,” I snapped. “Just let me finish. So, I went in, and him and three other guys had guns, and they were dressed up like bank robbers.”
Her mouth fell open. “What?”
It seemed strange talking about it. It confirmed my actions were justified. “Yeah.”
She took a drink of tea. “What the fuck?”
“Exactly. What the fuck. So I asked him just that. What the fuck? He said ‘it’s complicated, I can’t tell you, but all I can say is that it isn’t bad.’ So, I looked around and said ‘do you work here?’ and he said he did. So I asked about the guns, and then we got into this whole other conversation...”
I inhaled a shallow breath. It wasn’t as easy to talk about as I had hoped. My lip began to quiver. She reached for my hand and held it until I began to speak again.
“He’s a gun dealer. He sells guns. Bad guns. Like what that guy used when Paul got killed. He said he has huge shipments, and it’s difficult to explain. Those are the kinds of things he told me. That is his investment, guns. I asked him what kinds of guns, and they’re like machine guns. Assault weapons. Those kinds of guns are his opportunity.”
I met her gaze.
She stared.
After a long silence, I cleared my throat. “Well?”
She stared back at me in obvious disbelief. “That’s it? That’s your story? You’re done?”
I chewed against my lower lip. “Yeah.”
“He didn’t kill anybody? They weren’t robbing a bank?”
“I don’t know what they were doing. He said it wasn’t bad.”
“He was like a marine or whatever, right? Like some war veteran or something?”
My response lacked enthusiasm. “Yeah.”
“And so was that friend of his? Cap?”
“Yeah.”
“Was Cap there? With a gun or whatever?”
“Yeah.”
“And tell me again, why did you break up with him? The exact reason.”
My eyes fell to the table. “He’s not an investor. He’s a gun dealer.”
“You said that he said large shipments and it’s complicated and he sells assault weapons and machine guns?”
“Yeah.”
She coughed out a laugh. “He’s not a gun dealer. He’s a gun runner.”
“Huh?”
“I heard my dad and Philly Pete talking about a guy. A gun runner. It was a while back. Gun runners bring in guns and sell them to people. Like independent armies and stuff. People that stand up against the government or maybe against people like Saddam Hussein or whatever,” she said excitedly.
“Gun dealer, gun runner. Whatever.”
She raked her fingers through her thick hair and shook it out like something was driving her nuts. “You’re telling me that’s why you broke up? Because he sells guns? I think it’s sexy. It makes him a badass.”
Sometimes Michelle was impossible. I glared back at her. “Excuse me? They’re bad guns.”
“According to you,” she huffed.
“They’re bad. Did you not hear me? They’re like the guns that those two kids used when they shot up that school. When Paul died. Remember?”
She sighed. “I remember. Those kids were fuckin’ evil, Tee. I hate to sound like a bitch, but that wasn’t the gun’s fault. They said on the news that those kids were killing animals when they were little. They’d been seeing psychiatrists since they were ten.”
“Michael sells assault weapons. They’re the same guns that killed my cousin. They’re bad. He’s bad.”
“Tell that to the people who fuckin’ need ‘em,” she said with a laugh.
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Who needs assault weapons?”
She cocked her head to the side. “Every capo, soldier or associate under your father, that’s who.”
I forced a sigh. “You know how I feel about that stuff.”
“So you say. You drive a Benz. You wear that ring. You live in your condo. You’re a mafia princess. Trust-fund baby. Whatever you want to call yourself. You don’t have a job. Where’d the money come from, Tee?”
“We’re not talking about my father. We’re talking about Michael. You asked why we broke up, and I told you.”
“Stick your head in the sand. Okay. The whole reason you got with him in the first place is because he was a badass. Now, he shows you he’s a real badass, and you run away?”
I wanted sympathy. I was getting criticized. I felt sick. “I think he deals death,” I said. “And I can’t...I just...if I would have known that at the beginning, I never would have...”
My eyes welled with tears.
When my grandfather died, I cried for a week. I was sixteen at the time. When I thought of Christmas, a birthday, a family gathering—anything—a fond memory of my grandfather came to mind. The realization that he would never again accompany me through any of those events followed, as did the tears.
As time passed, I learned to cherish my memories of him. A year later, at Christmas, when I thought of my grandfather, I smiled. I told stories about his odd sense of humor, the way he farted when he ate pork, and how he snuck cigarettes after the doctor warned him against it.
I wanted my grandfather to accompany me in life for as long as possible. His death, however, was inevitable. In the end, I accepted it and cherished my memories of him.
But.
I realized I needed Michael to simply survive.
There was nothing anyone could do or say to convince me what he was doing was in anyone’s best interest.
Which left me no alternative but to live without him.
And doing so was crushing me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Michael
It had been a week since the night. I hoped Agrioli would honor his commitment to me after the rescue of his son from the Bulgarian mafia. At his request, I agreed to meet him for lunch at a restaurant of his choosing. Upon entering, I was shocked to see Agrioli and one more familiar face at what appeared to be a celebratory lunch of some sort.
The entire restaurant was void of patrons with the exception of us. I took a sip of wine and glanced at the men seated around the table.
There wasn’t much in life that made me uncomfortable, but I wasn’t exactly at ease sharing a glass of wine with the Italian crime lords of the city.
After we gathered at a large round table positioned in the corner of the dining area, Agrioli stood, leaving me and the other four men seated at the table. I flinched slightly as he reached for me. “This man.” He patted me on the shoulder. “A man of honor.”
Four respective heads slowly nodded.
He waved his hand toward the four men. “These men are my family. My strength. For me, they make decisions. Good decisions. Mio capos. My captains.”
He motioned toward the man in the pinstriped suit who had visited me at my office. “Jimmy Cupcake.”
Cupcake nodded.
He tilted his head at the next man on my right. “Little Frank.”
Another nod.
“Gino.”
A half-assed salute and nod followed.
“Mad Sal.”
Mad Sal raised his wineglass.
/> Little Frank and Mad Sal looked like older versions of Cap. Slightly overweight and maybe twenty years older, they remained intimidating—primarily due to their size. Their faces told me they weren’t wannabes.
They were the real deal. The types of men I suspected cut off fingers, assassinated people through open car windows, or walked into a restaurant and shot the entire place to shreds just to get the one man they were after.
Afterward, it was apparent they celebrated with a plate of pasta.
I had no idea what to do or say so I gave a nod suitable for any nationality, religion or ethnic origin. “Gentlemen.”
“This man.” He squeezed my shoulder again. “This man and his men rescued my son from the Russian fucks that kidnapped him.”
He cleared his throat. “They strapped a fuckin’ bomb to his neck. My Peter. This man? He defused the bomb himself. He cleaned Little Pete up, gave him a suit and delivered him to me.”
The four men nodded in unison.
“Twenty million dollars they demanded. Twenty fuckin’ million...”
I raised my eyebrows in an effort to express my disgust with the demands of the Russians. Not because it was what I necessarily believed, but because it was what I thought the four men across the table expected me to do. I took a sip of wine and exchanged glances with each of the men.
“Figli di putanna,” Agrioli said. “What did they get? The hand of death.”
Four wineglasses raised. I glanced at Agrioli.
Five.
I raised my glass.
“Salute!”
We all drank. To the hand of death.
For the past week, I felt like hell for many reasons, my primary being the absence of Terra from my life. My phone calls and text messages had gone unanswered, leaving me to believe that she was serious with her statement of never wanting to see or talk to me again.
The other thing that bothered me was my decision to take the lives of the two Bulgarians. At the time I felt like I had no choice. If the bomb would have been detonated remotely by either of them, we all would have died. And negotiating with them wasn’t an option.
As with every time I had to make a decision to take the life of another man, the decision was made promptly, and only when I felt my life or the lives of men I was empowered to protect was at stake.
Nonetheless, I always felt remorseful afterward.
Agrioli’s expression of gratitude made me feel better about my decision. In an odd way, his appreciation gave the act purpose.
“Today, and all days in the future.” Agrioli squeezed my shoulder. “This man will be known as a Giovane d’onore. A man of honor.”
“Salute!”
We all drank.
Agrioli sat down.
“We consider you a member of this family, by association. Anything you need.” He motioned toward the group of men seated before me. “You ask the family.”
Humility filled me. Guilt soon followed.
In Agrioli’s heritage, family was very important, and he had somehow found a way to include me in his family. A man I once detested had made me feel that I was involved in something larger than life as I knew it, and as attractive as it was to have some facsimile of a family, I couldn’t convince myself the mafia was where I needed to nestle.
Everyone stood. We remained in the restaurant for over an hour, talking, drinking and telling stories of friends, family and our devotion to both. I couldn’t offer much short of my stories of my marine brothers—some of which were now my employees.
There seemed to be a consensus amongst the men. Although none of them knew me—and only two of them had ever met me—there was a degree of sorrow each of them expressed when they realized I had no family.
They insisted that I had a new family. A group of men I could lean on in times of need. They assured me—as individuals, or as a group—they would provide whatever I felt I needed to survive as a gun runner in the streets of Kansas City and abroad.
The conversation soon migrated to talks of weapons, other factions of the Italian mafia, and of potential future orders for their Italian brethren in need.
When we parted, I received something from each of the men I hadn’t expected.
A hug.
Filled with an unusual feeling of warmth, I walked to my car. I sat for several minutes and mentally digested what had happened, what—if anything—in my life had changed, and what the future held for me.
In doing so, I realized regardless of Agrioli’s offering, I would be spending the evening alone.
And the warmth soon vanished.
* * *
Cap folded his arms in front of his chest and glared at me in apparent disbelief for a moment. “You’re fuckin’ shittin’ me? That’s exactly what he said?”
“Well, it’s as good I can speak Italian. But he also said ‘a man of honor.’ And a member of the family by association, or something like that.”
“You don’t watch TV, but I do. I’ve seen the fuckin’ Sopranos. He made you an associate.”
I took a sip of beer and tried to act like I didn’t care. Part of me, however, did. “Yeah, so what?”
He shook his head and reached for his beer. “Let’s just say we won’t be havin’ any more problems with the mob.”
I found it reassuring everything in my business life would be without worry. “Back to normal is good.”
He leaned over and propped his forearms on the edge of the bar. “Yeah, ’cept for the girl. Now what the fuck you gonna do about that?”
I felt empty and weak. I wished there was a way I could fix it, but I knew better. I wasn’t the type of guy to go against her will or her demand of leaving her alone, and I really didn’t want to talk to Cap about how I felt about her.
I finished my beer and walked to the refrigerator. “Can’t really do anything.”
“Sure as fuck can.”
I opened the bottle, and tossed the cap and my empty in the trash. I lingered there for a moment, out of Cap’s view, and thought.
“She asked me to leave her alone.”
“Yeah. Guess fuckin’ what? My old high school sweetheart asked me not to poke it in her butt, too. But I did. And you know what? She fuckin’ liked it. Women don’t know what they want. What they say and what they want is two different things. Remember that. Words of wisdom from Cap’s vault.”
I laughed a light laugh and walked around the edge of the bar. “So she really wants me to talk to her?”
He pointed the mouth of his beer bottle at me. “Well, she wishes you were truthful with her from the start, and my guess is she feels like she was lied to. Now she’s embarrassed and hurt. She wants a fuckin’ explanation and an apology.”
I was shocked to be hearing life lessons from Cap. I didn’t know he had it in him. “When did you get so versed on life with women?”
“Netflix, fucker. Rom-coms,” he said with a nod.
“Rom-com?”
He took a sip of beer and nodded. “Short for romantic comedy. Whole fuckin’ shitload of ’em on there. Teach you a lot about life, too.”
“Well, rom-com or no rom-com, I’ve tried to call and I’ve tried to text her. No answer on either. She doesn’t want to talk.”
It seemed I’d insulted him. He pushed himself away from the bar and furrowed his brow. “You insensitive prick. A text? The woman you love left you and you sent her a fuckin’ text?”
He raised his index finger as if he had an idea. “Maybe you should buy her a box of fuckin’ chocolates.”
It seemed reasonable enough. “I could do that.”
“I was jokin’. You know, for as intelligent of a man as you are, you’re one dumb motherfucker sometimes, Tripp.”
He turned around, grabbed another beer from the fridge, and tossed his
empty in the trash.
“She don’t want chocolate. Or a fuckin’ text message. You know, ninety percent of the problems on this earth could be fixed if we could just turn back the clock to 1860. If somebody broke into your house back then, they get shot. If we did that today, that’d stop burglaries. They used to shoot horse thieves. If we shot fuckin’ carjackers, I bet that shit’d stop too. All of them fuckers that lied and lost all them fellas money during the subprime bullshit? Shit, if they’d a done that in 1860, they’d would have been strung up by their necks. If a man rapes a woman today, half the victims don’t testify for fear of the man beatin’ their asses, and the rotten pricks walk free. Back then, they hung the bastards. If we started hangin’ rapists on the courthouse steps, I bet that shit’d stop.” He took a long drink of beer.
“And guess what else, Tripp? Back in 1860 there wasn’t such a thing as a text message or a phone call. You wanted to get something resolved, you talked face to face. Here’s my suggestion.” He raised his bottle of beer. “Take a step back in time.”
“Go see her?”
“No.” He chuckled. “Steal her horse. Yeah, dimwit. Go see her. It’s a damned good thing you got me for a friend, I swear.”
“And say what?”
“I’d start with I’m sorry.”
“I can do that.”
After a few long seconds of glaring at me, he tossed his hands in the air.
“What?” I asked.
“I’ll lock up when I leave,” he said.
“It’s eight o’clock at night. You think I should go now?”
He cleared his throat. “Do you love her?”
My response was immediate. “I do.”
“I’ll lock up when I leave,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Terra
I stared up at the ceiling. It reminded me of the night Michael and I talked about the definition of making love. I rolled onto my stomach and turned my head to the side. It reminded me of how I encouraged him to spoon with me.
I took one of the pillows and put it between my knees and tried to get comfortable.
Instead of comfort, I felt like I was going to cry.