Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 105734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“Where have you been?” Gio asks me.
I climb out of the car, handing him the coffee cup I procured. “I had a date,” I say.
“Same girl?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say with a laugh. If he’s picturing me as some kind of Don Juan, he’s crazy. I had enough trouble convincing Sofia to see something in me. I’m not going to press my luck.
“So, did you seal the deal?” Gio wonders.
“No,” I snap. “But that’s none of your business.”
“Maybe you should tell Marlena to expect another guest at her baby shower,” Gio suggests.
I shake my head. As good as things are between Sofia and me, we’re not at the meet the parents stage. That is going to take a whole lot of soul-searching and a great deal of preparation on my part. I’m going to have to explain a few things that I’ve been deliberately avoiding, or Sofia might say something wrong that will get us both in trouble. I know her brother died, and that she’s still dealing with her grief. I don’t want to spring my mobster family on her just yet.
“What are we up to today?” I ask.
Gio waves me over to his car, and I sit in the passenger seat. “A little bit of everything,” he answers, pulling back out of the driveway.
We ease out onto the road, and we’re off. He’s not kidding when he says a little bit of everything. We cross town at least four times, hitting up half a dozen restaurants. We meet with city council members and people who were recently released from jail.
In the past, whenever there was business being conducted, I was asked to step outside. Now I’m privy to all the private conversations, though I’m not sure that’s a good thing. I’m learning a lot about corruption in our fair city, and it’s a tough pill to swallow. I didn’t know how far up the food chain my father’s connections went, but I’m starting to understand that he’s basically running the show.
At the end of the day, Gio and I return home. I’m tired, but I’m not off the hook yet. Dad calls both of us into a meeting with Edoardo, the head of security. Dad doesn’t even ask me how my day was; he gets straight down to business.
“Any luck locating Andretti?” he asks Gio.
“Not yet,” Gio says.
I wasn’t aware that we were looking for him. I suppose there are still things my father is keeping from me. Leave it up to the two of them to conduct nefarious business while scoping out the city for their greatest rival.
“He’s not going to show his face,” I theorize. “He’s a coward. That letter is meaningless.”
“It means a lot,” my father corrects me. “It means he’s here. It means he somehow knows that Marlena’s pregnant.”
“But it doesn’t mean that he has the capacity to attack us,” I insist.
“I talked to a few of his known associates,” Edoardo reports.
“And?” my father asks.
“Nobody knows where he is,” the head of security replies.
“Did you lean on them?” my dad wonders.
“Of course,” Edoardo replies. I’m coming to realize that ‘lean on them’ can mean all kinds of things, including broken bones and missing teeth.
The meeting drags on longer than I expected. Edoardo goes into gory details about what he did to each of Andretti’s men. He gives my father a word-by-word report of everything they said, even though none of it is remotely helpful.
“I’m gonna get that bastard,” my father swears repeatedly.
Uncle Gio doesn’t fill him in on any of the meetings we had today. It seems like he doesn’t want to bother the don with trivial details when Carlo Andretti has finally come out of hiding. My father’s whole focus at the moment is on finding and neutralizing the threat. Nothing else holds his interest.
After almost an hour, I’m feeling restless. I want to get up and move around. But I know my father well enough to remain anchored in my seat. It’s not worth the grief I would incur if I were to interrupt his thought process.
I tap my finger on my knee, doing my best to cage the beast pounding on the inside of my chest. I’m not ready for this kind of responsibility. And I still have to study tonight. Not a day goes by when I don’t crack a book for at least an hour. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane. If I can hold on to the dream of becoming a lawyer, then all the grunt work I’m doing for my father will be worth it. I don’t necessarily want to step into his shoes, but I can’t see a way out. Yet.
“Are you paying attention?” my father asks.
I glance up, suddenly aware of the attention my fidgeting has acquired. “Of course,” I reply, lying instinctively because I’d never tell my father that he’s boring me.