Chapter 133 134

Chapter 133 134
“Please be okay,” she whispers.

I leave. My throat is dry. I see now why Nario said what he said. He wants me to have this with Hazel.

But that can never happen.

The Albino is waiting for me when I get out of the hospital room. I can see that he’s already called up guards for Nario’s room, and I nod in acknowledgment. For the time being, with Durante and Nario out, Maury is going to be functioning as my second.

“What’s the plan?” he asks.

“We’re calling an all-hands meeting at my mansion,” I tell him. “It’s the safest place right now. I don’t even like Nario being here and Durante being at Ettore’s, but …” I sigh, shaking my head. “They’re guarded, yes? And so is Hazel.” I shake my head. “Too many moving pieces.”

“Your mansion.” The Albino nods. “If we’re going to war, Carlo, I want to get my … ah … fuck, how you say: fucile di precision?”

“Your sniper rifle,” I say. “The fifty cal?”

He nods, a hungry gleam in his red eyes. “It will take me about an hour to get. But it will be worth it, I promise you.”

I smile a little uneasily, but right now the Albino’s passion for violence is just what we need. I pat him on the shoulder. “Go there, come straight back. We can’t have you getting hurt, too.”

He grins. “Let them try.”

He swaggers down the hallway and I head for the exit, a pit in my belly. I can tell the guards think a couple of them should be going with me, but I must look how I feel, which is pretty fucking pissed off, because they know better than to mention anything. I jump on my motorcycle and race back through the city to the mansion. It’s time to gather the troops. It’s time to wage all-out war.

As cliché as it might be, it’s true: it’s time to kill or be killed.

In the mansion, I go to the conference room and start dialing the men. I walk up and down the office, trying not to think about how, if I’m killed, Hazel will be left to raise the baby alone. Worse. If I’m killed, the Elephant will find her and …

I can’t even finish the thought.

After I’ve made the calls, I look up to find Mother standing there, her face just about visible through the gossamer green fabric of the veil. I feel something in my chest drop, a heavy stone thudding down into my belly.

“Why are you wearing that?” I ask.

“Hazel told me you threatened to take her child,” Mother says icily. She walks around the table and puts her hand on my shoulder. I think she’s crying, but it’s hard to be sure. Her voice is steady enough. “Is that true, mio figlio? Did you really say that?”

“What other option is there?” I say uncomfortably. “Mother, she’s—”

“I know who she is,” Mother growls. I haven’t heard her sound like this in years. It was how she used to speak to Father when he was getting too lost in his own self-importance. “I did not take you for a fool, Carlo, to believe that we’re punished at birth for the crime of being born.”

I almost shrug her hand away. But now her voice isn’t steady. There’s a croak in it, anger and heartache fused together.

“Look at me, Carlo, and tell me that you do not love this woman. Go on. Lie to your mother.”

I turn to her, shaking my head. But it seems like lately the more I shake my head, the more convinced I am that it’s all an act.

“Or tell me the truth,” she whispers. “Tell me that you love her despite her name. Tell me that you want to be with her, raise a family with her, be the man your father would wish you to be.”

“Do you really believe Father would want me to be with an Irishwoman, Mother?”

Her expression tightens. The veil shimmers. “I believe he would have wanted you to be happy.”

I shudder and step back. “I have work to do. Nario Sartori was wounded tonight. Badly.”

Suddenly, her whole demeanor changes. She brings her hand to her mouth. “Then you must—”

I wave a hand at my cell phone on the table. “I am, right now. The men are on their way.”

“Good,” she says coldly. “Yes, good. You will want food, yes? And drink? I must prepare something.”

“Mother, you don’t—”

She marches from the room before I can say anything, but then, a moment later, pokes her head around the doorframe, minus the veil. She gives me something akin to a supportive smile. “End this war with the Irish, and then end this war with Hazel. You know it’s the only way.”

I drop down at the desk, tracing the old lines in the wood, thinking that all of this really isn’t necessary. Durante, Nario, Emily, and now Mother telling me to forgive Hazel, reminding me that I love Hazel … they’re wasting their breath. I already know I love her. I just had to remember. Or forget, maybe. Forget just how white-hot angry I still am.

I drum my fingers along the table, feeling all the twitching muscles in my wounded arm. Soon, I will be charging into the worst gunfight of my life, far worse than when the Elephant attacked us that day. I’m not sure I can do that with how things stand between me and Hazel. But at the same time, there’s still that feeling of betrayal. It’s like I’m trying to grip the barrel of a gun that’s recently been fired and I keep getting burned. But I can’t snatch my hand away forever.

I shake my head, smiling grimly. Emily would have a few choice words to say about that analogy, I’m sure. Just thinking of Emily brings up images of her and Hazel together, Hazel listening—downright rapt—as Emily tells her about her latest plot, or reads a snippet from her novel. The look in Mother’s eyes, as though she’s found a second daughter. The way, when I’m holding Hazel, I can almost forget about the pain that her father caused.

I had this fire in me when Father and Angel were alive, a passion for life that flickered out when I watched them die. I never thought it could be reignited. I thought I’d always be cold. And then Hazel’s fire came into my life. At first, it was an ember. But it caught, flared, scorched through me unstoppably. I’m kidding myself if I think it’s gone out. I’m kidding myself if I think I can’t forgive her.

My hand lingers near my cell phone. I’m not sure if I can call her, though. Hazel’s voice might undo things in me that cannot be put back together ever again.

And her name is Hazel, I realize. She’ll never be Colleen Sweeney to me.

“She’s not going to call herself, bro,” Emily says from the doorway.

“Jesus,” I groan. “Is everyone in this house an armchair psychologist?”

“I think you mean a wheelchair psychologist.”

“Emily …”

She laughs. “Take it easy, Mr. Sensitive. I work in here sometimes. I forgot my notebook.”

“Why do you work in here?” I ask.