"The damage was done the moment our eyes collided."
~Xavier De Luca
***
One life-altering night ignites a soul-scorching passion between a gangster and a good girl...One that could burn everyone they know and love to ashes.
Loyalties and legacies...
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Christian and I met Pa and his consiglieri on the tarmac before dawn to brief him over espresso while onboard the family jet.
Pa was a purist and insisted on starting his day with fresh ground beans from the Old Country. It was the simplest of rituals, but without it, he felt as unbalanced as an American-brewed coffee (his sentiment, not mine).
We were seated around the jet's bespoke mahogany table while our crew readied everything for takeoff. Classical music piped over the cabin speakers, competing with the keen of the engines just outside.
My brother was busy reclining his seat almost all the way back and figuring out the chair's built-in massage features. His tortured groan echoed my general misery.
"You can sleep when I'm dead," Pa's frown deepened, "Report."
"We got jack-shit," Christian remarked, reversing his seat, and waiting until he was fully upright to meet our father's stern gaze. "That's the whole report."
Andreas, Pa's consiglieri, and best friend since their childhood in Sicily tried to hide his subtle chuckle at Christian mouthing off while half-asleep.
"Puttanata!" Pa's outburst woke us all up as he scrubbed his jaw and shook his head with a scathing look of parental disappointment. "Tony was a good man and a loyal soldier. I'm godfather to his daughters for fuck's sake. I will be in purgatory until we find, and punish, whoever did this."
My brother and I had spent another fruitless night pounding the pavement, and the occasional face, to see what we could turn up. It yielded nothing more than a wild goose chase.
Our cop associate, Detective Bryant, located Tony's car at a police tow lot in Bakersfield. It turned up miles away from where he was killed, plus, the car was stripped to the bolts and wiped clean of any prints. Everything pointed to a hit.
That's also, unfortunately, where our trail went cold.
"Hold that thought," Christian's brow furrowed as he pulled his phone from his breast pocket to answer it. "Go, doc."
My ears perked while the two flight attendants Pa has employed since my childhood, saw to our every need.
That call could be a notification that Lucia had gone into early labor, or it could mean Pa's private doctor had found something on Tony.
"I see," Christian kept us on pins and needles while he nodded along to whatever was being said. "What the hell does that mean?"
A million thoughts tossed in Pa's oceanic eyes, warning of a pending storm, though you would never know it by his body and face. His steepled hands were shadowed by imposing shoulders, leaning over the polished conference table to take a moment with his thoughts.
I watched Pa and Andreas in my periphery, keeping my profile focused on Christian's one-sided conversation.
"All right, thanks doc," Christian ended the call and sucked in a large breath. "FUCK!"
