Hidden in my car, using a burner, I dialed the number I promised myself once I left Chicago I’d never call again.
He picked up right away. “I’ve been waiting for your call,” he said in his Italian accent and calm tone. “How are you doing, topolina?”
Tears sprung to my eyes the moment I heard his voice. “I’m…I’m well.”
“No, you’re not. You’re crying. What happened? Are you safe?”
“Yes, yeah. Don’t worry about me. Nothing happened.”
“Yet. Nothing happened yet.”
“What do you mean, Michele? Do you know something?”
“I need you to come home so I can take care of you. I’ve only kept my distance all these years because I respected your wishes, but now, you need to come back where I can protect you. You fooled the Lanzas for now, but it won’t be for long.”
“You knew? Of course, you did. You and they are close.”
“A lot has changed since you left, Jo. Things will change even more and not for the better. There’s a war coming, and I don’t want you anywhere near it.”
“That’s why I left, Michele, and you know it.” I didn’t want anything to do with any mob. Even if Michele was the one who saved me that night, gave me a new identity and hid me in Bellomo Academy. I was grateful and forever indebted to him, but that wasn’t a life I wanted for myself. Once I finished school and became eighteen, I had to get out and start a life on my own without any relation or interference from the mob for this exact reason, for not getting anywhere near a mafia war.
“That’s not the way. There are things in life we don’t choose but we cannot escape. Let me take care of you the way it should be done. The Night Skulls cannot be trusted, Jo.”
He knew about Laius, too? “I trust him.”
He sighed. “Oh, my sweet girl. You can’t. There’s so much you don’t know. The Lanzas and the Night Skulls of San Francisco had always had business together.”
“But Furore’s chapter is in Texas, and he wants nothing to do with the Lanzas. You know how they are in the South.”
“Enzio Lanza has good connections with the cartel in Mexico more than he leads on. He has a good chance to run the South if the Irish help him. If that happens, Lazzarini and his club won’t be able to stop him. Have you ever considered that he might have turned the Lanzas’ offer so he’d trade you himself?”
I shook my head in disbelief. “For what?”
“Keeping his turf. If he helps the Larvins, they won’t help the Lanzas.”
My jaw dropped. How had that possibility never crossed my mind? But no. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t do this to me. Not after… “He…he did things.” I didn’t hide anything from Michele. He was the only father figure I’d ever had. But I was too embarrassed to tell him that Laius, when he didn’t know I was on birth control, came inside me bare in a prison cell. A man didn’t do that to a woman he was going to deliver to her demise. “He still protected me even when he thought I was someone else.”
Another sigh. “You think his life is better than ours, topolina? You think he can protect you better than I can?”
“No. I owe you my life, Michele. Everything I am today wouldn’t be if it weren’t for you. And I know his life is as brutal and dangerous as the one I ran from, the one you’re now telling me I can’t escape. But if it’s inevitable to lead such a life, can I, at least, get to choose how to spend it and with whom?”
“And you choose Laius Lazzarini of all people?”
“He makes me happy, papà,” I cried.
He didn’t speak right away. “You’re hitting heavy with your words, topolina. I haven’t heard you say it in years.”
“I mean it when I say it. I wish you were my real father, Michele.”
“I should have been.” His voice got thick with emotion, and more tears streamed down my face. “Anyway, if he made you happy, why didn’t you go see him yesterday?”
“Wow.” I wiped my face, sniveling. “You really kept your distance, huh?”
“You know I’ll always watch over you. Now, answer me. Why aren’t you with him? I can’t imagine you want my permission.”
A troubled moan fled my chest. “I didn’t go see him because I’m afraid.” I didn’t want to fail again, yet I knew I was bound to. “I’m afraid he won’t want me after he finds out what I’ve done. I fucked up, papà. Big time.”
“La mia topolina tutta speciale,” he chuckled.
“You know I couldn’t learn that language no matter how hard you tried to teach me. What are you saying?”
“You’re a special girl, Jo. And kind and innocent. Whatever you think you’ve done, he’s done worse. Way worse. What do you think he does for a living?”
My lips twisted. I didn’t want to know the details. If his chapter was anything like the one that used to be here… “How illegal are we talking about? Narcotics? Guns?” I sighed. “Trafficking?”
“Not the trafficking.”
A sliver of relief washed over me, yet it didn’t make the club Laius ran any less illegal.
“Do you think you’ll want him after you know what he’s done and what he continues to do? And don’t compare him to me. I’m your father. He’s going to be your man. You’ll share a life, and his sins will become yours.”
“I think I love him enough to accept him and his sins.”
“Love?”
I laughed and cried at the same time, at how ridiculous that must have sounded. It was too soon and too dangerous and too wrong. I meant, even our names were dooming us to a tragedy. Jocasta and Laius? Really? What was next? I had his son who would grow up to kill him and marry me? “It’s… Yes. I think I’m in love with Furore.”
He didn’t respond for a long time I had to check the phone to see if the call was disconnected. “Michele?”
“Listen, Jo. I don’t approve of your relationship with Lazzarini, but you don’t need my approval or blessing. If you truly think you love him and he can make you happy, then you have to go and be with him. Just promise me you won’t tell him how we’re connected yet. Not until I can trust him with you. Do you hear me, topolina?”
“Yes,” I said, starting the car.
“Then promise me.”
I wasn’t planning on hiding anything from Laius. I trusted him that much, but I couldn’t say no to Michele either. “I promise,” I said as I checked the GPS and looked through the windshield to make sure for the millionth time that I was heading toward the right place. Rosewood. The Night Skulls’ compound where Laius had told me he was staying in an angry message after he promised to punish me for not being there yesterday outside of the Arena or at my place when he’d come looking for me.
My vagina buzzed with anticipation, and when a couple of motorcycles flashed out of the forthcoming, creepy gates, my nipples hardened at the thrill for I was indeed in Rosewood.
“There’s a couple more things you need to know before—”
My heart contracted, and I couldn’t hear what Michele was saying, as another motorcycle darted out of the ugly gates. Ty’s bike with him on it.
