All I Believe (27 page)

Dante changed the subject by saying, “Nico’s here, Nana.”

She looked around and her face lit up when she finally spotted me. “Nicky!” She rushed over to me, pulled me down to her height, and kissed both my cheeks. “Are you okay, Sweetpea?”

“I’m fine. How about you, Nana?”

“A prisoner in my own home,” she said dramatically, then looked around and asked, “Where’s Luca?”

“He’s waiting in the car.”

“Actually,” Dante said, “he’s downstairs in the living room. We sent him inside when we had to go after Bonnie and Clyde.”

“Why’d you make him wait in the car?” Nana asked.

I said, “I wasn’t sure if he’d be welcome here, now that you know who his father was.”

Nana pointed a bony finger at me and said, “Let me tell you something. My father was a mean drunk. He’d smack my mother around. None of us were all that heartbroken when he died suddenly. I know better than anyone that you don’t get to choose your parents, Nicky. You’re dealt a certain hand and you make the best of it. That sweet, beautiful man of yours took a bullet for you! And you think he won’t be welcome here? Bullshit! Call him and tell him to get his ass up here!”

I had to grin as I pulled out the burner phone Dante had given me at the airport and selected one of three numbers programmed into it. “Come on up,” I told Luca when he answered. “We’re on the top floor. Follow the noise.”

Jessie said, “I’ll go get him,” and bounded from the room.

Nana produced her glasses from a pocket of the jumpsuit and put them on before grabbing my shoulders and pulling me down again. “Let me look at you.” She squinted at me through the thick glass, then announced, “You look good!”

“I feel good.”

“You need to tell me all about Johnny and Zan and how they’re doing.” Gianni’s old nickname had been given to him by his younger brother as a toddler, and Nana still insisted on using it.

“They’re terrific. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two happier people. Gi is writing a book, a gay romance, and Zan’s writing dozens of new songs.”

She let go of me and clapped her hands together. “That’s what I want to hear! Now we just need to fix everything for you and your honey, and you can be just as happy.”

When Jessie brought Luca into the room, Nana charged at my boyfriend with open arms, then stopped short and said, “Where were you shot?”

He pointed at his shoulder, and she grabbed his other arm, pulled him down and kissed his cheeks. “Don’t you worry, Luca,” she told him. “You’re a part of my family now and I’m going to take care of you. Come and sit! You need to not overdo it after getting shot. I know all about this stuff. I watch a lot of them detective-type shows on TV.” She made him comfortable on an antique fainting couch near the senior rockers, who took a break from their music lesson to rush over and dote on Luca. One of them tucked him in with a crocheted afghan (and felt up his biceps a little) while another brought him a spiked cup of hot chocolate.

When Andreo arrived a few hours later, he got a cooler reception. Nana crossed her arms over her chest and stared him down. “I don’t approve of you pulling a gun on my Nicky,” she said. “That boy never did you harm. I understand you’ve come around since then and have been trying to help him and your brother so they can be together. Is that right?”

“Yes ma’am,” he said contritely.

“What your father did to my family is unforgiveable, but I’m not going to take that out on you. Like I was saying earlier, we don’t get to pick our parents. We do get to choose our actions though, and if you really have chosen to support Nicky and Luca, then you’re welcome here.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Andreo looked at the floor.

“Now look. You and your brother and my boys, you need to sit your asses down and figure out how to solve this situation with Jerry. If his mother was still alive, she’d put him over her knee for what he’s doing! But his father wants no part of this situation.” She clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes. “I tried to raise good boys, I really did. Maybe they had too much of my rotten ex-husband’s influence, I don’t know. But at least I got a do-over with my grandsons. I think I did alright by them.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Nana said, “I’ll leave you to it. My friends and me will be downstairs, I’m going to show them how to make this drink I invented called the Flaming Titanic. Make sure all of you join us when you finish here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said again. He seemed relieved when Nana and her entourage left the room. I loved the fact that the alt rockers, made up bodyguards, little old ladies, Jessie, Ollie, and the two middle-aged gay men were all chatting and laughing like they were all one big tribe.

Dante, Vincent, Andreo and I pulled chairs over to where Luca was still tucked in on the couch. The long flight to San Francisco seemed to have taken its toll on him. I handed him a bottle of water, and he sipped it slowly. Meanwhile, Andreo put a briefcase on his knees and said, “I may have come up with a solution to the Jerry problem. I already set some wheels in motion, so I hope you’re all okay with it.”

He opened the briefcase and pulled out a thick file. “The Natori family has an extensive network. There are people we’ve been working with for generations, your family used to be among them. I know you’ve mostly gone legit, but my family hasn’t. I’m not all that involved in the illegal end of things, but I know plenty of people who are, in all kinds of capacities. Over these last few days, I went to some of them and started to build a story. I have friends who excel at photo manipulation, and I had them doctor up a few images for me.” Andreo took out a stack of very authentic-looking black and white images that could have been surveillance photos and passed them around. Jerry was the subject of each of the pictures.

“I have another contact at one of the major airlines,” he said. “It was easy enough to call in a favor and forge travel documents and airline tickets showing your cousin in the vicinity of a couple very high-profile crimes. Those photos pin him to the exact locations. I was able to hack the calendar on Jerry’s phone and chose events that coincided with holes in his schedule, so he’s less likely to have an alibi.”

“Well, damn,” Luca murmured.

Andreo continued, “Since the Natoris were actually responsible for those crimes, I was able to get my hands on some of the stolen contraband. A couple colleagues are planting it in Jerry’s office as we speak, while he’s at some gala fundraiser. I even paid off a dozen witnesses who’ll swear he was at the scene of these crimes.”

His brother raised an eyebrow at him. “And you run an antique export business.”

Andreo shrugged. “Among other things.” He turned to Dante and said, “The goal here is to get Jerry out of the picture and you back in control of your family. Now, the way I see it, there are three ways we can go about that. One, we turn him over to the police and let him cool his jets for ten-to-fifteen. Two, we turn him over to a notorious third party who the Natoris just might have ripped off, and make them think he’s guilty. That’s more of a, shall we say, permanent solution, but one where none of us actually have to get our hands dirty. Three, we present him with all the information I just told you about and let him decide between choice one, choice two, or stepping down quietly and calling off the hit against my brother and me.”

“I can’t imagine him stepping down quietly,” Dante said.

“But it does beat the alternatives,” Vincent chimed in.

Dante thought about it for a moment, then leaned forward in his chair and told Andreo, “Show me everything. I need to know Jerry can’t slip this noose. The evidence you’ve constructed needs to be bulletproof if we expect to blackmail him.”

Andreo handed him the file and said, “There’s one more thing. Your cousin has a lot of resources at his disposal. I know a guy who’s awfully good at moving money around, and Jerry won’t even have enough for a cup of coffee when this guy finishes the job tonight. Your family fortune is more problematic. You have it stashed in offshore accounts, stuff my people can’t possibly hack into. To cut Jerry down at the knees, we need to deny him access to that money. Please tell me you didn’t relinquish all control of those funds when you retired, Dante.”

“No, I kept control of the accounts and just added him as a secondary so I could keep an eye on how he was investing our money. I’m going to remove him from the family accounts right now. He’ll go straight for that money when he realizes his is gone.” Dante found a number in his phone, then got up and paced near the windows as he made a call.

While he did that, I moved over and sat beside Luca on the couch, and he put his head on my chest. “How are you holding up?” I asked him.

“I’m alright. I just need this to be over and done with, and I wish I’d done something to solve it. Instead, my big brother took care of everything like I’m a kid with a playground bully.” The corner of Luca’s lips turned up in a half-smile and he said, “Andreo actually did that for me once, when I was going to boarding school in England and he came for a visit. I was a scrawny kid, a late bloomer. Well, you know that, Nicky, you remember. Andreo came to my school and put the fear of God into a couple huge kids who’d been tormenting the hell out of me for the better part of a year. Did I ever thank you for that, Andreo?”

His brother said, “No, but I didn’t do it for the thanks. And what do you mean, Nico would remember you as a kid?”

“We met in Viladembursa when I was sixteen and he was fourteen. He was my first kiss,” Luca told him.

“You’re shitting me. Nicolo Dombruso was your boy by the fountain?” Andreo looked stunned.

“He was.”

“That’s incredible,” Vincent said. “We heard about this boy for years from Nico. And now you’re telling me you actually found each other again? How?”

“Luck, or the universe, or fate put us in the same place at the same time, and we were drawn right back together.” I kissed Luca gently.

“You don’t actually believe in any of that,” Dante said. He’d just ended his call and was standing beside the couch.

“When Luca returned to my life, the boy I’d thought about for years, the one person I could never forget, I tried at first to write it off as a wild coincidence, but I just couldn’t,” I said. I brushed his hair from his eyes as I held my boyfriend’s gaze and told him, “You took all I believe and turned it on end when you came back into my life. You made me believe in magic. You also made me open myself up to love again. That right there is an absolute miracle! I’d built such thick walls around myself. All I could think about was the need to protect myself from any more hurt. But you knocked down my defenses like a sandcastle, and made me glad to be rid of them, Luca.”

“God I love you,” he said softly.

“I love you, too. More than anything.”

I’d completely forgotten we had an audience, until Dante said, “Who are you, and what have you done with my quiet, reserved, totally unsentimental cousin?”

I asked, “Was I unsentimental?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, that’s no way to be. It’s a damn good thing
mio miracolo
reappeared when he did and saved me from that.”

“Oh man, and you’re sappy now, too,” Dante said.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Have you seen yourself around your husband Charlie? Don’t act like you’re above being a great, big sentimental fool for the man you love.”

“But I don’t call him gushy Italian pet names,” he countered.

“You call him Angel. Like that’s not completely sappy.”

“Let’s just agree that you’re all a big pack of lovesick saps and get back to the subject at hand,” Andreo said, looking uncomfortable.

“That from the man who kissed my hitman brother into submission,” I told him. “When do we get to hear your and Connie’s story? I bet it’s epic.”

“Never.”

“Wait,” Vincent said. “He did what?”

I told them about the kiss and that Andreo was the reason my brother hadn’t carried out the hit, and Luca said, “You never even told me you were gay, Dreo. Come to think of it, I don’t remember you ever dating anyone, male or female.”

Dante saved Andreo from further embarrassment by pulling out his phone again and saying, “I just thought of something. Jerry has a couple safes, one at home, one in his office. I’ll bet he keeps cash in there. I’m going to text his sister Carla, I think she knows the combination and can empty them for us.”

He fired off a message while Luca told his brother, “I know you did all the work to set this up, but I need to be the one to confront Jerry. I can’t let you fight all of this battle for me, Andreo. I get that it affects all of us, but this all started when I fell in love with Nicky. I’m the cause.”

“Actually, I assumed Dante would be the one to confront his cousin, since he’s taking back control of the family,” Andreo said.

Dante chimed in, “I have no problem with you taking the lead tonight Luca, but we’re going to be right there with you, backing you up, because that’s what families do.”

Luca said, “I’m not actually family.”

“Sure you are. That happened as soon as you and Nico became a couple. By extension, Andreo is, too,” Dante told him. “Tonight you’re both going to learn what it really means to be a Dombruso. Jerry and his actions are an anomaly. Normally, we have each other’s back, no matter what.”