This summer has been the best of my life. I’m in love for the first time. The only time.
Simone is perfection in my eyes.
She’s a beautiful dreamer. I’ve never been able to see things like she can. She’s always pointing out the colors of things, the textures, the shapes.
“Look at those swirls running through those clouds over there—it reminds me of wood grain, don’t you think?”
“Look how the buildings are lit up from the side. The glass looks like gold.”
“Do you smell that? Those are damask roses. Some people think they smell like tea leaves . . .”
“Oh, feel this stone, Dante! If you closed your eyes, you’d think it was soap . . .”
We get more and more bold, going all over the city together, because I want to show Simone all my favorite places. She hasn’t been here as long as me.
I take her to Promontory Point, to the Botanic Gardens, to the Arts Corridor to see all the murals painted along the walls.
I even take her to an exhibit of 1930s and 40s Old Hollywood costumes. Simone loves that more than anything. She loses her mind over the green dress from Gone With the Wind, apparently sewn out of curtains—I never saw the film. I do recognize the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz—one of several pairs made for the movie, according to the little placard next to the display.
Watching her excitement over the clothes, I tell her, “You should accept the offer from Parsons. You should go there.”
Simone pauses next to a display of outerwear from Casablanca.
“What if I did?” she says, not looking at me. “What would happen with us?”
I’m standing right behind her, almost close enough to touch the curve of her hip. I see the edge of her face, her lashes laying against her cheek as she looks down at the floor.
“I could visit you,” I say. “Or I could come to New York . . . plenty of Italians in Manhattan. I’ve got cousins there, uncles . . .”
Simone turns around, face lit up.
“Would you?” she says.
“I’d rather go to New York than the fucking UK,” I say.
The truth is, I’d go anywhere to see Simone while she’s at school. But I know it’s Parsons she wants, not Cambridge.
“My parents are already annoyed at me that I delayed my acceptance,” she sighs. “I said I’d go for the winter semester . . .”
“It’s not their life,” I growl.
“I know. I’m the only one they’ve got, though. Serwa . . .”
“It’s not your responsibility to make up for all the things your sister can’t do.”
“She’s actually been doing much better lately,” Simone says happily. “She’s on a new medication. She’s been applying for jobs in London. At least we’ll be close by each other, if I do go to Cambridge . . .”
I haven’t met Serwa, or any of Simone’s family.
Simone thinks they won’t accept me.
She’s probably right. I know what I am. I look like a thug and have the manners of one. My father can be dignified when he wants to be. He can hobnob with politicians and CEOS. I never learned to do that. Papa turned over the uglier parts of our business to me, and that’s all I know.
I tell Simone that she doesn’t have to bend to her father’s demands.
But I have my own responsibilities to my family. What would they do if I went to New York? Nero isn’t old enough to handle things on his own. And there’s truth to what Edwin Dukuly said right before I killed him. Papa is still powerful. But he hasn’t had the same focus since Mama died. He tells me what needs doing. I’m the one that has to do it.
Simone isn’t the right wife for me in my family’s eyes either. I should marry a girl from a mafia family—someone who understands our world. It would form an alliance. Help keep our children safe.
Plus there’s the issue of the scrutiny it would bring, to marry someone like Simone. The Gallos stay out of the spotlight. We always have. It’s called the “underworld” for a reason—because we don’t get our picture in the society section of the Tribune.
That’s what happened at the masquerade ball. Someone took our picture, and the next day the Times published a center spread photo of Simone and me, waltzing around the museum ballroom. Luckily, I was wearing a mask, but Papa was far from impressed to see the caption: “Simone Solomon, daughter of Yafeu Solomon, dances with an unknown guest.”
Papa gets all the newspapers. He slapped it down in front of me, right across my breakfast plate.
“I didn’t know you were a patron of the arts,” he said.
He had already met Simone. But I’d promised him that she and I were keeping a low profile.
“You can’t see my face,” I told him.
“This infatuation is going too far. Her father isn’t stupid—he cultivates his daughter like one of his hotel properties. She’s an asset. One that you’re devaluing, publicly.”
“Don’t talk about her like that,” I snarled, looking up into my father’s face.
I could see his anger rising to meet mine.
“You’re young, Dante. There are many beautiful women in the world.”
“Not for you there wasn’t,” I told him.
Papa flinched. He’s not a sentimental man, not a man who shows weakness. When my mother was ripped away from him, his attachment to her created a hole. Because he can’t talk about her without emotion, he doesn’t talk about her at all.
“Your mother wasn’t from our world. That was hard on her. A woman shouldn’t marry a man like me, or you, unless she’s raised to accept certain realities.”
“Mama accepted them.”
“Not wholly. It was the only point of conflict in our marriage.”
I stood up from the breakfast table, so abruptly that my movement shoved the heavy table, slopping fresh-squeezed orange juice over the rim of the carafe.
“I’m not going to stop seeing her,” I told my father.
Now I’m telling Simone that she needs to make her choice as well. She’s delayed school by a few months, but eventually she’ll have to decide.
Parsons or Cambridge?
Me, or the man her father would pick out for her?
I have to take Simone back earlier than I’d like.
I drop her off at the library, her excuse for where she said she was going today.
I see her chauffeur Wilson already parked down the street, waiting to pick her up.
I don’t like the subterfuge. I hate feeling like her dirty secret.
Since I’ve got time to kill, I swing over to Seb’s school and pick him up.
He comes out the front doors as soon as the bell rings, his basketball tucked under his arm. It’s as much a part of him these days as his shaggy haircut, or the silver chain with the medallion of St. Eustachius that he always wears. Our uncle Francesco used to wear it, until he was killed by Bratva.
Seb smiles when he sees me. “I didn’t know you were coming,” he says.
“Thought you might want to go to the park,” I reply, knocking his ball out of his hand and stealing it from him.
“Yeah,” Seb says. “Let’s see if you can do that on the court.”
I take him over to Oz Park, where there’s plenty of open basketball courts. I’ve got a pair of shorts in my trunk, sneakers too. No shirt though, so I don’t bother with that at all. Seb shucks his off, too. He’s skinny but starting to get ropey with muscle. He’s almost as tall as Nero now, even though he’s only thirteen.
We play “make it, take it,” half-court. I let Seb take possession first. He tries to get around me, and he’s fast as fuck, but I’m still faster, at least with my hands. I strip the ball off him, take it back to the line, then shoot a three right over his head.
It swishes through the hoop, not even glancing the rim.
“Yeah, yeah,” Seb says, as I tsk at him.
I’m the one who taught Seb to play. I’m the one who took him to the courts every day after our mother died, when he was so low that I didn’t see him smile for a year. It was hardest on him and Aida—or at least, that’s what I thought at the time. They were only six and eight, just babies still.
But now I wonder if it didn’t hit Nero worst of all. Seb and Aida are okay. They’ve pulled out of it, recovered their happiness again. While Nero just seems so . . . angry. He gets in fight after fight, each one nastier than the one before. I think he’s going to kill somebody. To distract him, I’ve been taking him along on the armored truck hits. And he’s good at it—good at boosting the getaway cars, good at following instructions. Even good at planning the hits himself. He’s smart as hell, though you’d never know it from his grades.
I couldn’t go to New York. Not full-time. I said it to Simone in the heat of the moment, but I can’t leave my siblings here alone. Aida’s getting prettier by the day, and more troublesome. Seb needs to practice with me, so he can make the high school team. Nero needs me to keep him out of jail, or from getting himself killed. He thinks he’s invincible. Or he doesn’t care that he’s not.
I could still visit Simone, though. If she goes to Parsons.
Seb does some tricky little fake and steals the ball off me mid-drive toward the hoop. When he tries to bring it back down to score, I block his shot, knocking it right back down.
“You’re not gettin’ that bitch-ass little shot over my head,” I tell him.
“You’ve got like eight inches on me,” Seb complains.
“There’s always gonna be somebody taller than you. You’ve got to be faster, stronger, more devious, more accurate.”
I drive toward the hoop again, easily knocking him aside with my superior weight.
After I’ve made the shot, I hold out my hand, helping to pick him up off the concrete.
Seb gets up again, wincing.
He’s skinny, smaller than me, with big brown eyes that break my heart. I want to go easy on him. But how would that help him? It wouldn’t. Nobody else is ever gonna go easy.
“Try again,” I say, tossing him the ball.
