“You have no reason not to, Leonardo,” the man says calmly, making me look up at Leo as the man behind me keeps a tight grip on my arms before opening the passenger door and beginning to force me inside. “Besides, I am taking her anyway, with or without your cooperation.”
“Over my dead body!” Leo yells before we both hear the sound of a rifle cocking inside the vehicle.
The older man lets out a sinister laugh. “That can be arranged. But I believe you seek the truth? And I am the only one that can give you the answers no one else will. If you don’t want to die, I suggest you come with me. Besides, do you really think I would kill my own daughter?”
Chapter 19
Leonardo
I stand in the corner of Vincent Nitti’s house and grind my teeth together in disgust. I always thought Nitti and I would meet under different circumstances. Like me with a gun pointed with a perfect shot lined up to destroy his cold heart. Not in a dark room with three of his men armed and aimed in my direction, ready to end me.
Maria sits on the couch across the room where Nitti instructed her to take a seat after we arrived. She hasn’t moved. She hasn’t spoken. Shit it looks like she is barely breathing as she stares in my eyes in terror, wondering just how in the hell we are going to manage to get ourselves out of this one. Even if the man in front of us is her biological father. I roll my shoulders and look to the right as another man, another gun, comes walking into the room and blocks the last way of escape.
I hear the clink of Nitti filling a glass with ice, followed by a top being pulled from a bottle before I turn back in his direction. He takes a sip of scotch and savors the taste before raising the glass in my direction and making a motion asking if I would like one. I hold out my hand low sternly and shake my head no. If everything is about to hit the fan, I will need every last fucking brain cell functioning. Not soaked in liquor and fucked for any chance at thinking up an escape, but then maybe that was his plan all along.
He turns back and pours himself another drink and I take a step forward, cautious to keep my eyes on everyone in the room, including Maria. The last thing I want is for her to be harmed. If I can play my fucking cards right, we will both be coming out of this unscathed, and my eyes instinctively look up to the only clock in the room as seconds begin to tick by and I can tell Maria and I both start to grow more impatient.
“Sit, Leonardo,” Nitti says as I suddenly realize I am beginning to pace the room. “You’re making me nervous.” I look up as he throws his shoulders back and straightens his suit jacket. “I only get anxious when there is something to be worried about, and that tends to end badly. For all involved.”
He takes his glass and plops himself down in a chair next to Maria who has now shifted from where she was sitting on the couch in order to be closer to me, and the farthest away from him she can manage. She looks at me with pleading eyes and I try and not fall into them. I try and not give in to the desire to say fuck this, all of it. And forget the fact we are sitting with a man who could easily end both our lives with just a nod of his head in the right fucking direction.
With strategic strides, I take a seat opposite Nitti and rest my elbows on my knees. Looking up, I stare into the eyes of a man that has only ever meant one thing to me, a fucking target I would gladly take out if given the word. But now, all of that is changed. Because of her. My fucking weakness.
“I intend to keep what is mine, Leonardo,” I hear Nitti say and instinctively look at Maria. She stares back at me scared for her life and it cuts through my heart like the sharpest knife. “I’ve lost many years with my daughter. Many years that I can’t get back.” He looks at Maria and I see a sadness in his stare as he examines her. She never looks back at him though, and only keeps her eyes glued to me.
“I understand,” I begin to say in a whisper, but I am cut off as Nitti’s icy stare meets me head on.
“Do you?” He shouts, making me flinch and nervous for the first fucking time since he pulled us away earlier today. “I don’t think you do. I don’t think you ever will know what it is like to have someone you love pulled from you, taken when you were helpless and completely left in the dark.” He slams his glass down on the table in between us and I see Maria flinch out of the corner of my eye.
“Like I said,” I grit out as my jaw clenches and I force myself to take a breath. “I understand that more than you might think, Nitti. Maria was taken from me too. That day has fucking haunted me for almost 20 years. With all due respect, I loved her then. And I love her now. Itoodon’t plan on fucking sharing.”
His brow furrows and I hear a few of his men cock their weapons, but we both stay still. The sound of the clock ticking is the only noise as I wait for Nitti to choose his next words wisely. “You think it is that easy, huh?” He says low and stern. “You think I will just back down to you? The Lombardi Family?”
Without turning my head, I look to my right and lock eyes with Marias’. Her eyes fill with tears as she worries her bottom lip between her teeth. All I want is to cross this room, pull her into me, and tell her, fucking show her, how nothing this man says in front of us matters. We will fucking be together. In heaven, on earth, or in hell, and there is nothing this man, or anyone else can say or do that will stop that.
“Luigi has plans,” Nitti says calmly as I look back his way. “And Lombardis, they alwaysTienilo in famiglia.”He looks at me as if given the chance he would kill me right where I am sitting as he talks about“keeping it in the family.”But the only damn family that matters is the one I plan on building with Maria. The Nitti’s and Lombardi’s be damned.
“I wouldn’t know of such things,” I hiss, as I lean back in my seat and shake my head. “I’m only a capo, Nitti. Always have been. Always will be. You know the Lombardi’s only promote their blood, the lineage. The only family I have ever known was taken from me long ago, and neither you, or God himself can bring them back.”
“That may be true, of you mother,” Nitti says, as he leans forward and captures my full attention. “But not your father, Leonardo.”
I glare at him and try to understand exactly what he is saying, but my head doesn’t want to believe the truth, no matter how much it is staring me right in the face. “What are you talking about?”
“Why do you think your parents moved here from America?” He asks, as he stands and goes back to the bar to pour himself another drink. “And your mother, did she ever tell you her maiden name?” He pours himself a larger amount of scotch than before and takes a drink. “Surely you don’t think that you thought up your last name all by yourself when you decided to join the Lombardis and pretend to be one of usItalianos,do you?”
I stand and wait for him to speak. But I already know what he is going to say as the memories start flooding back to me. I hear his words, I understand their meaning, but I am dragged under and into the past as pictures, fragments, pieces of my former life come crashing together.
“Your mother was Gia Morretti, Leonardo. Your father? The one and only Luigi Lombardi!”
**********
“Come on Leonardo, we can’t be late, the plane leaves in 30 minutes,” my mother says as she pulls me along through the airport. We reach a desk and she pulls a small blue booklet out of her pocket. Opening it, my eyes see her picture and I make out her name next to it. I only just started to learn how to read, but Ms. Casey, my second-grade teacher, says I am really good at it.
“Gia, Morr… Morr..Morre…,” my eyes try and finish reading the words but my mother closes the booklet quickly and looks up at my father. “Momma, why is your last name not Williams, like me and daddy?” I see her give my father a worried look before he stoops to my level and looks me in the eyes.
“You ready for your first airplane ride, Leonardo,” he asks, as he buttons the top button on my coat.
I nod and smile. “Yes, but I promised Ms. Casey I would be back Friday because it’s show and tell and I wanted to bring my pet turtle Tommy.”
