Antony (14 page)

“We’re in so much trouble with him,” Cecelia said in a whisper.

“We are.”

Antony bet it would be all kinds of fun, though.

But probably not.

PART FOUR: LA UCCISIONE

Chapter Fifteen

January, 1994

“Goddamn, how many cars do you own, Tony?” Johnathan asked.

Antony shrugged because really, he didn’t know. “A fleet, I suppose.”

“A fucking
fleet
?”

Well, more than a few couldn’t exactly be considered personal vehicles, right?

“I got Dad’s after he passed and Andino had a couple of nice cars that were left to me,” Antony explained.

John glanced around four-door garage filled to the rim with vehicles. “And what, you’ve never gotten rid of your own?”

“Nope. Why should I? They work fine.”

“This is a damn collection, Tony.”

“Yep.”

“Do you even drive them all?” John asked.

“Occasionally.”

Different occasions demanded different cars, after all. The market kept coming out with nicer ones. Antony had to have them. Cecelia never said a thing.

“
Papà
!”

Antony caught the fly-by of his oldest son with his hand. He barely managed to tousle Dante’s dark locks before the boy was speeding on past with Giovanni right on his older brother’s heels.

“Gives me my gun back, Dante! Gives it to me
now
!”

Dante turned on his six-year-old heels with his plastic water gun in hand and pointed straight at his little brother. “Bang, bang, Gio! You’re dead! You hear me?
Dead
!”

“Dante Antony Marcello!” Antony barked at his son.

The boy turned to stone instantly, glancing up at his father with big eyes and water filling his gaze. Rarely did Antony have to yell to gain his boys’ attention. Parenting and discipline didn’t need to involve screaming and spanking. Honestly, it wasn’t all that effective, in Antony’s opinion.

All that shit did was teach the kid to fear their parents, not respect them.

“Yeah?” Dante asked in a quiet voice.

“What did you just say to your brother, huh?” Antony demanded.

Giovanni hid behind Johnathan’s legs, likely knowing someone was in trouble and not wanting it to be him. Gio was sly in that way. The kid could make trouble and get himself out of it just as fast. Antony wasn’t all too sure where he picked his little talent up from, but he hoped that luck carried his kid through life.

“I shot the gun,
Papà
,” Dante said.

“No, after that.”

“Nothin’.”

“Don’t you lie to me, Dante.”

Dante scowled. “We was just playin’.”

“Give me the water gun, Dante.”

“But, no—”

Antony snatched the water gun from his son’s hands before the kid could hide it. He then proceeded to hand it back to Giovanni.

“Gio, what’s the rules, kiddo?”

“No hurting family,” Giovanni mumbled, holding his water gun as tight as he could.

“Why is that?” Antony asked.

“Family first,” his boy said.

“Dante?”

Dante scowled more. “God second.”

“Thank you. Apologize to your brother.”

“Sorry, Gio.”

“S’okay,” Gio whispered. “Can we go,
Papà
?”

Antony waved. “Go.”

Once the boys were out of sight, Johnathan chuckled beside his friend.

“You’re raising them right, Tony.”

“I try,” Antony said.

• • •

Antony stood to help his wife serve the table full of guests, but Cecelia waved him down. Sitting back in his seat, he took the plate of food his wife offered and began prepping his two boys on either side of him for theirs.

Giovanni immediately snuck a piece of bread off the side of the plate to stuff in his mouth. Antony didn’t manage to catch the food before it disappeared.

“Sorry,” Gio mumbled around the bite, knowing he was in shit just by the look on his father’s face.

“No eating before we say grace,” Antony said.

“Sorry.”

“Quit talking with your mouth full.”

“Sorry.”

“Jesus, Gio.”

“Antony!” Cecelia chided. “No swearing at the table.”

Antony avoided his sons’ amused gaze leveling on him now. “Sorry,
Tesoro
.”

The guests sitting around the table chuckled at the show. It wasn’t often Cecelia and Antony entertained people after Sunday services, but Vinnie asked for the Marcellos to do it this week. Not wanting a bunch of people in his house but unable to deny his boss without seeming rude, Antony did as he was told.

Cecelia handled the cooking.

Antony stayed the hell out of her crazy way.

Between Cecelia’s parents, Paulie and his wife, Johnathan and Kate, and a couple of Capos who brought along their significant others, the table was full. While Antony didn’t like being suffocated by people, he didn’t mind seeing others happy and fed at his table.

Maybe they should do this more often.

“Let the boy eat,” Vinnie said three seats down. “He’s a growing
principe
and needs his food, Marcello.”

Antony forced himself to stay quiet, but he knew his son wouldn’t put another thing in his mouth until his father said the prayer. Vinnie wasn’t used to not being head of the table or breaking bread in someone else’s home when he wasn’t in control. More than anything, Antony despised being told how to handle his boys, but he let it slide.

Once the table was served, Antony joined hands with his boys, bowed his head, and said grace. After, conversation flowed easily while the food was consumed. There was something about Italians and their food, Antony knew. It wasn’t just a meal, but a gathering of friends and family. A way to stay connected to those you cared about and those who cared about you.

“Are we ever going to get another little
principe
or
principessa
for the family?” Vinnie asked, directing his question down the table to Kate and Johnathan.

Antony cleared his throat quietly, feeling damned uncomfortable for his friend at the question. Years into their marriage, and Johnathan and Kate still didn’t have children of their own. Really, the two barely tolerated one another from what Antony understood, but they played a damn good game when others were around to see.

Kate knew her place. John knew his.

Somehow, they made it work.

“Maybe,” John muttered before filling his mouth with buttered bread.

“Well, he’d have to be home more often for that to happen,” Kate said with a light laugh that felt anything but funny. “And why should he come home when he’s got his
goomah
taking care of all that for him?”

The chatter at the table stopped instantly.

Cecelia choked on her wine, waving her hand in front of her face as she gave Antony a pointed look down the table. Antony wasn’t sure what to tell his wife. He didn’t even know Kate was aware John had a mistress.

“Kate,” Johnathan hissed. “Not the time.”

“It’s true, John.” Kate smiled and shrugged, picking up her wine glass and swirling it so the liquid inside would spin. “Don’t be ashamed of it. Daddy’s had a dozen or more whores since he married Ma.”

Holy sweet Christ.

Vinnie’s face turned red right along with his wife’s. “Johnathan, please take your wife elsewhere and explain to her proper behavior at another man’s table.”

Johnathan stood without a word, shoved his chair roughly into the table, apologized to Cecelia and Antony, and then walked out of the dining room. Kate followed her husband, but not before saying, “Oh, I know how to
behave
, Daddy.”

“My apologies,” Cecelia said, barely blinking a lash as the words came out of her mouth.

Vinnie smiled, but it was tight. “Kate could learn a thing or two from you, Cecelia.”

“Sure.”

Antony was just grateful the rest of the guests said nothing and went back to eating like everything was fine.

Dante, like the proper little gentleman he was, ate slowly and carefully. The kid didn’t know how to make a mess. He reminded Antony a lot of himself, really. Dante was the straight and narrow one between him and his brother, if not a little loud. He followed the rules, mostly.

Giovanni, on the other hand, had pasta and sauce spread from one arm to the other. He didn’t like forks and he didn’t know how to stay fucking clean.

When he was sure his youngest boy had made enough of a mess and was finished stuffing his face with what pasta hadn’t landed on the table, the floor, or his body, Antony plucked Giovanni up from the chair. Excusing himself from the table, he took his son into the kitchen.

Giovanni laughed, squirmed, and tried to avoid the washcloth as best he could while his father wiped his messy face and body down. Knowing the boy’s clothes were a lost cause, Antony pulled Giovanni’s shirt and pants off and tossed the stained articles in the sink until he had time to deal with them later.

“Don’t move,” Antony told his son.

“But—”

“Gio, don’t move.
Papà
will be right back with clean clothes.”

Giovanni nodded fiercely. “Okay. I will stay.”

“You better.”

“I
will
.”

Thankfully, Cecelia liked to keep a few outfits for the boys downstairs so they didn’t have to walk through their large home two or three times a day just to change their kids when they got messy. Boys always got dirty. It was fucking unavoidable.

Especially Gio.

It took Antony twenty minutes to clean Giovanni, get the boy a new outfit to wear, and dress him again. By the time Antony got back to the dining room, most of the plates were cleared while Vinnie and Liliana had disappeared somewhere. Kate and John had not rejoined the table, either.

As Cecelia cleared off the last bit of dishes, Antony asked, “Where did the boss go?”

“To talk to Kate.”

Antony cringed. “Perfect. No dessert?”

“I think our appetite is more than filled for the night.”

Dropping a clean and wiggling Giovanni to the floor on his feet, Antony sighed. “Sorry,
Tesoro
.”

Cecelia shrugged. “She has to be the center of attention. We know this.”

“It was your dinner.”

“Oh, well.”

The youngest Capo, Daniel, sitting beside his wife at the far end of the table shook his head. He pointed a finger in his wife, Valentina’s, face, wagging it almost mockingly. Antony held himself back from telling the man to have a little respect for the woman he married.

“If you ever pull a stunt like that, Val, I’ll beat your ass black and blue. Act like a bitch and you’ll be treated like one, understood?”

Cecelia gasped sharply.

Antony’s irritation blew way the fuck out of control.

Not in his home.

Not in front of his child or wife.

Not with other Mafioso present.

Absolutely fucking
not
.

Before Antony had considered the fact Cecelia and Giovanni were both in the room to witness him discipline the younger Capo, he was moving toward Daniel. Antony fisted the hair at the back of the man’s head and smashed Daniel’s face straight into the oak top of the table with a sickening crunch. Blood and cartilage from the broken nose Daniel now sported splattered along the table and all over Cecelia’s silk napkins.

Uncaring and knowing damn well he looked cruel, Antony pulled Daniel up and turned the man’s bleeding face in his silently crying wife’s direction.

“Apologize,” Antony ordered.

Daniel coughed on blood.

“
Papà
?” Giovanni asked, wide-eyed and confused.

“My God, Antony,” Cecelia whispered.

Antony ignored them both. “Daniel, you will apologize to your wife for being a disrespectful fool in my home, or you won’t leave this house at all.”

Daniel swallowed audibly. “I apologize, Val.”

He released the man.

“Vinnie’s not gonna like you going on like that, Tony,” said Timmie, the older Capo sitting beside his stunned and speechless wife.

“If he doesn’t enforce the fucking rules, I damn well will,” Antony replied. “Especially in this home.”

“No swearing in my dining room,” Cecelia said, still unmoving from her spot at the other side of the table.

Dante came sliding into the dining room with two RC cars in hand. His oldest barely reacted to the bleeding man or the obvious tension in the room. Instead, he walked over to his little brother and gave Giovanni one of the toy cars.

Turning to his sons, Antony waved at the mess he’d made. This was another lesson. One more rule for the boys to learn. The two boys were almost accustomed to their father’s reactions, both physical and otherwise, when it came to other men, now. Both of his sons spent a great deal of their time following Antony around, which also meant seeing their father running his crew.