The Promise (The 'Burg #5)(178)

“This is my goodwill mission,” Sal stated, jerking his thumb to his chest and leaning toward Benny. “Don’t need no private dicks from the Rocky Mountain state hornin’ in.”

Oh God.

He knew about Nightingale.

This wasn’t surprising. Sal knew just about everything, and if he didn’t, he had ways of finding out. What was surprising was that he seemed proprietary about his “goodwill mission.”

“Sal, they been on this case longer than us and can do shit above board, not knockin’ people around and whackin’ ’em,” Benny pointed out.

“I’m not gonna whack anybody,” Sal snapped.

“What happened to the hit man?” Ben asked. “Or do I wanna know?”

Sal settled back and grinned. “He got an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

I started giggling.

Ben cut his eyes to me.

I pressed my lips together and stopped giggling.

Benny looked to Sal and said low, “This shit isn’t funny. We’re discussin’ a f**kin’ hit man.”

At that, Sal looked like he was starting to get mad and that made my breath start to go funny.

“Got hundreds, maybe thousands of lives on the line this drug is bad and it goes out, Benny. I am not in the business of good deeds, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know this isn’t decent work that needs to get done right. But that isn’t all it is. This is for my Frankie. Do you think I’d do anything to get her ass in a bind?”

I thought that was very sweet and it bought Sal and Gina being on my Christmas card list (and birthday card list, and maybe, if I could swing it and not make Benny’s family lose their minds, an invitation for them to our engagement party).

For some reason, Ben didn’t think it was sweet.

I knew this when he demanded, “Explain that to me.”

“Explain what?” Sal asked.

“Why you’re up in Frankie’s shit,” Ben stated. “Vinnie’s gone, Sal. She’s no longer a member of your family.”

That comment made Sal go from looking like he was about to get mad to just looking pissed.

Not good.

I made a move toward them, whispering, “Benny—” but Sal cut me off.

“She’ll always be family.”

“Explain that,” Ben repeated.

“Family never dies,” Sal returned.

“Your kind does,” Ben shot back, and in normal circumstances, this exchange would not be dangerous. This exchange might even be positive in a getting-it-all-out-there (finally), healing sort of way.

That would be if one of the people involved in the exchange wasn’t a mob boss.

“You don’t get this,” Sal clipped, his pissed-off anger sizzling in the air, “because you had what she didn’t when you were growin’ up. And if you don’t find some way to get it, then you aren’t the man for her. The man I thought you would be. She didn’t have a father growin’ up who gave a shit about her and I”—he jerked his thumb to his chest again—“get that.”

At this news—deep, heartbreaking sharing from Sal about something I never knew—my breath caught and I glued eyes to him that were suddenly stinging with tears as he kept talking.

“You had it all growin’ up, Benito Bianchi. When you don’t, you search for it and hope to Christ that search doesn’t last a lifetime, leavin’ you takin’ your last breath and knowin’ you lived a life never havin’ somethin’ you need. I get why you don’t like me. I get why you wouldn’t want me around Frankie. I also don’t give a f**k. If I can, in some way, give her a piece of what she needs, I’m gonna do it. Gina can give her her part of that, she’s gonna do it. You like it or not.”

“Sal,” I whispered, and his eyes sliced to me.

“You’re beautiful, Francesca Concetti. You got a light inside that those parents of yours couldn’t extinguish. It shines bright on Gina and me. We got girls. We understand that light. We know the privilege of havin’ it. We know the kind of person you are, givin’ it to us, even after what happened with Vinnie. You wanna keep givin’ it to us, we’ll take it. You need to take it away, we won’t like it, but we’ll live with it because we love you and that’s what you do.”

I felt a tear slide down my cheek as I stood frozen, staring at Salvatore Giglia, finally understanding after all these years why he and his wife were still on my Christmas list.

After this staring lasted a long time, huskily, I told him, “I love you too.”

“I know,” he replied quietly.

“I think you just got invited to my engagement party,” I blurted.

Sal grinned.

Benny muttered, “Christ.”

“Come here, amata,” Sal ordered.

I went there, and when I got there, the boss of a crime family folded me in his arms.

I folded him right back.

We held on to each other for a while before Ben called, “Babe.”

I kept holding on but turned wet eyes to Benny.

“I want you to have your moment, and you need more, keep takin’ it, but Sal and me gotta get this Nightingale situation straight.”

“Okay,” I replied, and Sal pulled away but not totally. He held me tucked to his side with one arm around me and I kept one arm around him as we turned to Benny.