All I Believe (Firsts and Forever, #10)(87)
“Oh, there you boys are,” Nana exclaimed. “We were waiting for you before we sparked this bad boy up!”
Ollie handed her a butane lighter, and my grandmother flicked the switch and held it over the punchbowl. A fireball roared toward the ceiling, twice as big as the one she’d mustered back in Italy. The difference was, Nana’s house, unlike my cousin Fiona’s, was wired with a sprinkler system. Immediately a siren started to blare, and little sprinkler heads popped out of the kitchen ceiling and began hosing all of us down.
Somehow, Nana and her friends just took that as a bonus, and sent up a cheer before they went back to dancing in the rain. The little plastic ship had warped from the flames, which still burned on the alcohol’s surface despite the sprinklers, and listed in a half-circle before sinking bow-first into the punchbowl.
“Yup. That’s a Flaming Titanic,” my boyfriend said.
“Welcome to the family, Luca.”
He kissed my forehead and pulled me close. “Thanks. I’m damn glad to be here.”
Chapter Seventeen
Two hours later, we were dried off and dressed, well, like members of the mafia. Somehow, that was just what you did when you set out to intimidate someone. I’d put on my best dark suit, and Luca did, too. His brother had gone by his apartment in Rome and packed a bag for him, so he looked like his old self again. Andreo, Vincent, and Dante were always in dark, expensive suits, so they were good to go.
We ended up parking around the corner from Jerry’s house, so we wouldn’t tip him off to our arrival, and as the five of us walked down the sidewalk, Vincent muttered, “I feel like I’m in Reservoir Dogs.”
“Oh my God, such a good movie,” Andreo exclaimed.
“The best,” Vincent said. “Tarantino at his finest.”
“You wanna pipe down, Siskel and Ebert?” Dante grumbled. “We need to get our game faces on.”
Vincent’s phone beeped, and his brother sighed. “What?” Vincent said as he pulled it out of his jacket pocket and looked at the screen. “My son sent me a funny cat video. He loves these things.” He hit play and began to chuckle.
“That’s it,” Dante said. “You can’t be my second in command when we take the family back. You’ve completely gone soft.”
“Bite me, Dante,” Vincent said, then hit play on the video again and chuckled just as much as the first time.
When we rounded the corner onto Jerry’s street, I mumbled, “Oh shit.” People were coming from every direction and congregating in front of my cousin’s house. I was related to all of them. “Jerry must have known we were coming. He mobilized the family.”
“Actually,” Dante said, “I think they’re here because I told our cousin Carla to put out feelers and see who’s still on our side.”
A long, white stretch limo pulled up just as we reached the front of the house, painted with a rainbow and what, I’m sorry, just had to be a giant dong on the side. “Oh hell,” Dante muttered as Nana and everyone from her impromptu party started pouring out of the back of the limo, including the big security guards who were supposed to be keeping her at home. “What happened to not letting her leave?” Dante asked one of them, who still sported a face full of makeup.
“It’s not right to keep your grandmother locked up,” the man told him. “She got us to see the error of our ways, and then hired us to back you up when you go take down the dirty, rotten, back-stabbing f*cker who’s trying to ruin your family. Her words, not mine.” The security guard colored a bit under his rouge.
Dante sighed and said, “Fine,” then went to work trying to keep Nana from charging Jerry’s house.
While that was happening, I took a deep breath, then stepped forward to address the crowd. I said somewhat loudly, “Thanks for coming. I’m sure you’ve all been hearing plenty about what’s been going on in the family lately, some of it truth, some of it rumor. Here are the facts: I fell in love with one of Sal Natori’s sons. That’s it. Two people found love, and for that, Jerry thinks we should pay. He took a hit out on my boyfriend and his brother, whose only crime was being born into a family we erroneously considered our enemy.”
A murmur went through the crowd and I tried to gauge their reaction. Dante stepped forward and put his hand on my shoulder, then said, “Sal Natori paid with his life for what he did to my parents and sister. That should have been the end of it. Luca and Andreo had nothing to do with their father’s actions. They were kids when Sal Natori crossed that line, just like I was.”
The crowd started talking, but fell silent when Dante said loudly, “I’m here for two reasons: to stand with Nico and Luca, and to come out of retirement and take back control of this family. Jerry has shown me he’s not the right man to lead us. How is going after Sal Natori’s sons any different than Sal coming after my sister and brothers and me that night two decades ago?”
From somewhere in the crowd, my cousin Carla said, “Damn, he’s right.” There was a murmur of agreement.
“We’re going in there to get Jerry’s resignation, and to get him to call off that hit,” Dante said, gesturing at the house. “When this is all said and done, I won’t hold a grudge against him, and I hope none of you do, either. He was trying to protect our family. He just went about it in the wrong way. I don’t want to see the family splintered because of this, so we all need to find a way to move past it.”