All I Believe (Firsts and Forever, #10)(88)

“Good speech,” Nana yelled. “Now get in there and kick his ass if he won’t listen to reason!”

Andreo handed his brother the briefcase and said, “Go get him.”

Luca took a deep breath and nodded, then started to stride toward the house with all of us right behind him. But a moment later, the crowd parted and Jerry walked toward us, dressed in a tuxedo and an elegant wool overcoat. He looked troubled as he said, “I didn’t even think about it. I didn’t think about the fact that going after his sons was just like Sal Natori going after my uncle Paulie’s kids, but it is, isn’t it? I crossed the same line. It makes no difference that they’re grown men and not children. I wanted to make them pay for the crimes of their father.” Jerry ran a hand over his face and said, “Shit. I totally f*cked up.”

“Damn right you did!” Nana yelled.

“So, all of a sudden you’re willing to listen to reason?” Dante said.

Jerry turned to him and said, “I was so pissed off at you for disrespecting me. Frankly I’m still pissed that you lied about who these two were at first. But Jesus, when I heard you say that about going after Sal’s kids, I felt like a f*ckin’ monster. How could I not have seen that?”

“We were taught to hate all Natoris equally and without question. No good ever comes from prejudice like that,” Dante said.

Jerry came up to my boyfriend and extended his hand. “I’m Jerry Dombruso,” he said, “and I owe you a huge f*ckin’ apology.”

Luca shook his hand, his eyes wary. “Luca Caruso. This is my brother, Andreo Natori.” Andreo and Jerry shook hands as well.

Jerry turned to me and said, “Nick, I’m sorry.”

“A good way to prove it would be to call off the hit,” I said.

“Yeah, shit,” Jerry said, pulling out his phone. “Come into the house, let’s have a drink while I get this fixed. Jesus, I need a double after all this.” He turned and started to walk to his front door, the crowd parting for him again.

“Well damn, that was anticlimactic,” Nana griped.

“Good,” Dante said. “This family doesn’t need any more drama. Sorry about putting you under house arrest, Nana, but now that you’re free and so many of your friends are with you, why don’t you go celebrate? They’re hosting a wet brief contest at that new gay bar in the Mission, didn’t you say something about wanting to check that out?”

“Oh hell, that’s tonight,” she exclaimed as she rushed back to the limo. “Come on, peeps, we gotta be somewhere!”

Her entourage piled back into the vehicle, and as Jessie pulled away from the curb and the crowd dispersed, Dante gestured at Jerry’s house and told Luca and me, “Come on, let’s go have that drink.”

I asked, “Do you really believe this is over, just like that?”

Dante said, “Jerry’s a smart man. I’ll bet he got a notification that all his accounts were empty, and when he tried to get at the family funds and couldn’t, he figured out I was the one behind it. He saw the tide was turning, we’d gained the upper hand. Pushing back would have left him penniless, so he went this route to get back in my good graces.”

“Do you think he really called off the hit?” I asked, picking up Luca’s hand as we walked toward the house.

“I’ll make sure of it.”

“How?”

“I’m going to keep control of Jerry’s assets,” Dante said, “he’s going to be on a tight allowance until he proves we can trust him. Calling off Connie is the first step in rebuilding that trust.”

“Are you still going to go through with assuming control of the family?” Andreo asked as he fell into step with us.

“I have to. Jerry can’t be left in charge. I’ll make him a good offer though, third in command after Vincent, assuming my brother still wants the job,” Dante said.

“Sure, but do you really want to keep Jerry in a position of power?” Vincent asked.

His brother told him, “You know the old adage, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I have no idea which one Jerry is, I guess time will tell. But either way, I want him where I can keep an eye on him.”


Luca turned to Andreo and said as he handed him the briefcase, “All your hard work was for nothing, cutting off the money was enough.”

Andreo passed the briefcase to Dante and said, “You never know where you stand with a man like Jerry, so we might want to hang on to this. If he finds a way around his financial situation, he might start to get ideas.”

“That,” Dante said, “is an excellent suggestion.”



*****



During our two-hour ‘sit-down’, as Andreo called it, Jerry had seemed contrite, and plied us with expensive Scotch while apologizing repeatedly. Dante meanwhile told him very calmly about the restructuring of the family, and how he’d be retaining control of Jerry’s finances, just to make sure everyone remained on the same page. Since the entire family had shown up in support of Dante, Jerry knew where he stood. Refusing to give up control wasn’t an option.

After we left Jerry’s house, Dante was in a particularly upbeat mood. He called his husband and Vincent’s, and all of us met up with Nana and her cohorts at the bar. “God bless America,” Andreo said as he ran his gaze up and down the muscle men in tighty whities who were onstage for the wet brief contest.