to the shoreline I get, I can’t escape the Whitney Houston ballad that spills out of the basement bar. I can’t escape her, either.
Jesus Christ, she’s everywhere. I crossed the line earlier, and now I’m forcing myself to keep my distance. Which is near-impossible, because tonight she’s a walking, dancing, disco ball with legs. It’s like she put on that damn dress to irritate me. The sequins shimmer and flash every time she moves, commanding my gaze like a magnet. And then I find myself watching her. Watching her sway her hips and flip her hair to cheesy ballads. Watching the hem of her dress ride up her ass as she leans over the bar to talk to the server. Even when she sits in the shadows, twirling the straw in her gin and, with a lop-sided smile, observing Don and Amelia dancing to the slow songs, she forces me to watch her.
It’s all too easy to forget she’s a gold-digging whore.
I catch her watching me, too. I feel it, her heavy gaze brushing against my back while I’m talking to Cas or Benny. I clench my fists and try to concentrate on whatever business shit they are rattling on about, but it’s near impossible when her laugh trickles over my shoulder, or she teeters past and I catch a whiff of her vanilla and bubblegum scent.
When it’s too much, I come out here to smoke to get away from her. Yet, I’m so pathetic, I can’t help but hope she’ll follow me out.
The moonlight cuts a path across the sea, which spills out onto the shoreline and onto my shoes. The late night breeze is a welcome chill, snaking down the collar of my shirt and cooling the heat on my skin. With a snap of my wrist, the Zippo lighter in my fist comes alive, and I wave the flame under a fresh cigarette.
I’m almost out.
A shadow crosses the moonlit sand, and the suited figure it belongs to comes to a stop by my side.
“I haven’t seen you smoke this much since the funeral.”
Taking a long, much-needed drag, I exhale a cloud of smoke up into the sky and pass the pack to Rafe.
“Stress.”
“Huh.” He takes a cigarette. Lights it. “You’ve spent nine years resisting the urge to pop a cap in everyone’s ass. Nine years as the boss of a billion-dollar company, where you can’t make your problems go away by burying them six feet under.” He pauses to take a drag. “And yet, in nine years, I haven’t seen you smoke once.”
“Yeah, well it’s been nine years since I spent more than a weekend on the Coast. I’m surprised I haven’t turned to the crack pipe.”
Rafe doesn’t laugh. Instead, he stands shoulder to shoulder with me, smoking his cigarette and watching the waves roll in.
“Tell me why you’re back, bro.”
A long sigh escapes through my nostrils. I drop my gaze to the sand and roll my shoulders back.
Fuck it. It’ll all come out eventually.
“Last week, I had a meeting in San Jose. A tech company we’d invested in a couple years ago has been defaulting on the dividends. I was getting sick of the disrespect, and we weren’t making any headway with conference calls, so I decided to just fly over there. Shit the bastards up a little.” I drop the cigarette and grind it into the sand with my foot. “Anyway, I turn up to this office in Silicon Valley, and I’m met by some asshole claiming to be the CEO. You know the type—lives in a hoodie and wears flip flops Monday thru Friday.” Out the corner of my eye, Rafe grazes a finger over his collar pin and shakes his head in disgust. “He leads me into this glass boardroom, and I tell him he’s got seven days to pay up. And you know what he said?” I grind my teeth together, hot, angry flames licking the walls of my stomach. “Make me.”
Rafe’s face stretches into a sly, sideways grin. “And then what? You slammed his head against the desk and forced him to eat his own flip flops?”
I huff out a bitter laugh. “No, I left. Told him he’ll be hearing from our lawyers, and then I got into the fucking elevator and I left. No broken bones, no chokeholds.” I rake a hand through my hair and shake my head in disbelief. “I left, Rafe.”
Rafe’s laugh is louder than mine. “Jesus Christ. That’s what happens when you go straight—you spend your life paying taxes and getting shit on.” He fills the silence with a cloud of smoke. “So, let me guess: you decided you’d had enough of playing Mr. Normal and diverted your London-bound jet to the Coast to remind yourself of how the other half live?”
“No. I walked out the building and started pounding the sidewalk. I had no idea where I was going and I didn’t care. I just had to think. I was angry, not even at that tech asshole, but at myself. At this family. Viscontis—all of us—are hard-wired to do bad things, be bad people. It’s entwined in our DNA, and no matter how many fucking spreadsheets I fill out or how many hours I spend in boardrooms, I’ll never be normal.” I crack my knuckles and glance up at my brother. “An intern put sugar in my Americano and my first thought was to dislocate his jaw.”
Rafe smiles. “But you’ve always been like that; that’s how you got your nickname. It’s instinctive for you to deal out revenge that is always greater than the crime.” He hitches a shoulder, smirking. “Like the time Dante told dad you missed a drop-off, so you fucked Dante’s prom date. You’re vicious.”
I bite back a smirk. “So that’s why. I couldn’t remember.”
“He sure does.” Rafe drops his cigarette and smooths down the front of his shirt. “We’re bad people, Angelo. You can run from that fact, but you can’t hide from it, even all the way in England.”
“You know what Mama always used to say,” I say quietly, tugging another cigarette out the carton and lighting it. “Good cancels out the bad.”
My brother is silent for a beat, but I can hear the cogs in his brain clicking into place. “That’s why you left. You thought Mama would have wanted you to turn good, because it’ll cancel out all the bad from the rest of the family. You left because of Mama.”
It’s not a question, it’s a fact. I nod anyway. “I’m back because of Mama, too.”
He whips around to face me. “What?”
I keep my gaze trained on the horizon. “That day in San Francisco, I walked and walked and eventually, I found myself in China Town. I was crossing the road when a woman jumped out in front of me rattling this big sack.” I glance over at him, lips pursed. “She was selling fortune cookies. Broken ones from the factory she worked at. You know I don’t believe in any of that shit, but I was just thinking about Mama, and you know how much she loved those fucking fortune cookies…”
“You bought one.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Angelo,” he says seriously. “For the love of God, don’t tell me you came back to the Coast because of a fortune cookie. Christ,” he huffs, tilting his head to the sky. “I wish I’d never asked.”
“And hopefully, you won’t ask again.”
“What did it say?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Seriously?”
I offer him nothing more than a curt nod.
If I told him what was inside the fortune cookie, then I’d have to tell him why it made me come back to the Coast. And that would mean peeling back the layers of the lie I’d built to protect him and Gabe from the truth.
At least talking about it reminds me why I’m here. I landed on the Coast exactly a week ago, a man on a mission, and have done fuck-all since. I’ve been too…distracted.
“All right, another question.”
I groan, dragging a knuckle across my jaw. “Come on—”
“The kids at the poker game. What were you playing at, man?”
I steel my jaw and slide my hands into my pocket. “They were shit-talking family.”
“They were shit-talking Uncle Alberto’s plaything.”
“She’ll be family soon enough.”
I ignore the punch in my gut.
“Yeah. That’s why you’ve been staring at her all night? You’re just checking out the latest addition to the Cove clan?” His eyes drop pointedly to the cigarette pack poking out my top pocket.
In my slacks, my hands clench into fists. His gaze burns my cheek as he waits for an answer, but when it’s clear he’s not going to get one, he lets out a hard sigh.
“Papa always used to ask me and Gabe, if Angelo jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too?” He smirks at the memory. “Know what I’d always say?”
Behind us, the Whitney Houston ballad picks up into something more up-tempo.
I shake my head.
“Without a parachute.” He laughs into his hand as he wipes his mouth. Then, he turns his back to the sea, brushing his shoulder against mine. “Look,” he says, lowering his voice so I can barely hear it over the Marvin Gaye song blaring out the house. “I’ll always be your ride-or-die, and I know Gabe feels the same way. You want to burn this fucking coast down, I’ll lend you my lighter. But please, for the love of God, don’t make me go to war with our cousins over a piece of pussy.”
And with that, he strolls back up the beach toward the bar, leaving me alone on the shoreline with all my sins.
