Long Live the King (An Italian Mafia Romance Duet #2) (22 page)

“Dominic,” Gloria whispers, as I listen intently, my heartbeat racing at the sight of the gun, at the implication it gives. “What are you going to do with that? I’m your mother.”

“I spent the entire ride over thinking about what I would do once I got here,” Dominic says, shaking the tears away and returning to the mob boss he is. “I went back and forth about it, over and over again, and I told myself I’d figure it out once I saw you, once I heard what you had to say. I’ve got it now.”

Everything goes still as Dominic reaches over and puts a finger on the chrome nine millimeter. “I
don’t
forgive you for what you’ve done, and if you were anybody else, this is the part where I’d pick this gun up and jam it under your chin. You deserve to die for how you’ve selfishly ruined everything in my life, but instead of killing you, I’m gonna do the same to you. You wanted a relationship with me? Well, I want you to know that there’s no chance we’ll ever have a relationship now. You almost got me killed, and you tried to have Alannah killed, and there’s no coming back from that. After we leave this house, you’re gonna pack your stuff and go. You’re gonna leave the entire state of Illinois, and you’re not gonna cross back into Missouri either. We’re done. You’re done. You won’t get another dime from me. I’m dead to you, and you’re dead to me. And if I ever see you again, I might go against the promise I made to myself when I saw you open the door that I wouldn’t kill you. You’re not a mother anymore. You’re just some woman who doesn’t know what it means to be a mother. So, pack your stuff and go away. Forever.” Dominic uses his finger to spin Tommy’s gun around in circles on the table. “I’ll leave this here to remind you of why your life is changing the way it is. This is Tommy’s gun—the man you got killed, and the gun you wanted him to use to kill Alannah—it’s the perfect memento. Goodbye Gloria.”

With that, Dominic stands up and I follow his lead towards the door. Behind us, Gloria cries heavy sobs as she stares at the gun still spinning on the glass table.

“Dominic, please,” I hear her pleading behind us, but Dominic doesn’t miss a step. “Dominic, please don’t go! You’re all I have left.”

Dominic slams the door behind us, then he takes my hand and leads me down the path towards the car parked across the street. He walks me around to the passenger side and opens the door for me, holding it as I slide onto the leather seat. We smile pained smiles at each other just as he closes the door and makes his way to the other side, but when he gets halfway, he’s interrupted by the sound of a single gunshot.

I jump in my seat as my eyes dart over to the house, then back to Dominic to see if he’s hit. But he isn’t. The shot came from within the house, and it only takes a second for me to realize what just happened.

Gloria.

Dominic pauses in the street, breathing heavily as he stares at the house he grew up in. Tears fill his eyes, but only one falls down his cheek, which he quickly wipes away before continuing his walk to the driver’s side. He opens the door and gets in without saying a word, starting up the roaring engine and slowly driving away as he reaches over and interlocks his fingers with mine.

Dominic

“Y
ou okay?”

“I don’t know. I think so. It’s just a lot to take in all at once, and I’m not feeling too well. Umm, I think . . . I’ll be right back.”

I watch as Alannah grabs her purse off the nightstand and makes her way across the room to the bathroom. It’s just after four o’clock in the morning, and I’ve had the longest day of my life. I don’t even know where to begin with how I feel. There’s emotions coming from places I didn’t know they could, and I’ve never had to struggle so hard to fight back tears.

Everything has changed in one night. I was at Maggiano’s eating with Alannah and Tommy only hours ago. Everything in my life was fine. Yeah, there was a situation with Victor and the money we owe him, but stuff like that can be handled. It’s what we do. Money issues with other families is the kind of stuff mob bosses, like Leo Capizzi, have been dealing with for decades, and I was going to deal with mine. If it would’ve come to war—which it still might—I was ready to deal with that too. But it all turned in one big swoop, and the next thing I know, we’re being robbed and guys are getting killed, and there’s all this mistrust and suspicion and secrecy. Everything fell apart—the entire structure of Our Thing collapsed on itself. The kicker of it all is the reason it happened. Everything caved in because of Tommy and my mother. What? Is this real life? Tommy and my mother caused all of this drama?

Now they’re both dead—Tommy by my hands, and my mother by her own. I can’t believe it, not for a second. It’s fucking impossible to wrap my head around all of this.

Tommy was my best friend. He was there for me when I was a captain trying to make a name for myself, back when they called me Boy Wonder. When I was gaining a reputation within the Family and across the Midwest, Tommy was there, helping me come up. Tommy built my reputation just as much as I did, because he was the guy I’d send to your house if you crossed me in any way. Tommy wacked guys because I told him to. He was my hitman, to a certain extent. He was also my partner. I brought him along on every business deal I ever did, both as a capo and as the boss. I never left Tommy out, because if it wasn’t for him, I probably never would’ve become the boss. Tommy was my guy, and now he’s gone. He made me kill him.

It’s not a matter of whether I can forgive myself, though. It’s more about the fact that I couldn’t forgive him. After all we’ve been through together, Tommy turned his back on me for a reason he wasn’t even sure of. He didn’t even know what the end game really was when he took that truck, or when he killed Raphy and took the money. But I have to think that in the back of his mind he knew it’d get me killed. There’s no being voted out of power in Our Thing. Being voted out means being voted to death. The Commission votes on who to kill. They’ll vote to kill you without ever having seen your face. It’s how it’s always been in Our Thing, and for the first time in my entire life, I realize how much I hate it.

Then there’s my mother, Gloria. This woman raised me as a single parent for as long as she could, as long as she could control me. Before my father was murdered in front of me and I went off the deep end, my mother was my rock. She provided for me, and our relationship was great for a long time. She cooked for me and kept me clothed. She bought me stuff I didn’t deserve at times when I didn’t deserve it and she could barely afford it. She supported me when I first told her about Alannah over a plate of lasagna when I was eleven years old. All she ever really wanted was for me to not end up like my dad, and she wanted that before he was killed. She used to tell me all the time that my father’s life was not the good life, even though it always looked that way to me. My dad had everything I wanted, but she was able to see all the danger that came with it, and I was wasn’t. She knew how it would end for him, and she didn’t want that for me, so she was always in my ear about not being like him.

When Dad died, she never said “I told you so.” She consoled me, and when I began my spiral down into this life, she pleaded with me to come back to her. I just couldn’t. My father’s death changed everything about it. It took my heart and turned me into something different, something cold and remorseless. But it didn’t mean I didn’t love her, I was just turning into the man I’d become. I knew she didn’t like it, but I had to do what I had to do, and once my dad was killed right next to me, there was no going back. She couldn’t understand that, but what’s worse is that she couldn’t live her life without trying to change it. I would’ve been happier if she just would’ve kept her distance like she always had once I moved out. But once I became the boss of the Family, she couldn’t stay away anymore. The boss of the family is the one who’s always in the most danger. People trying to steal your spot, cops trying to take you down in the hopes of taking down the whole family, other bosses trying to prove they’re strength by hurting you. It’s a mess of a job, and I really don’t know why anyone would want it. I guess you don’t realize how crappy of a job it is until you have it. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Sometimes the grass isn’t even real—it’s AstroTurf covered in dog shit that you don’t see until you step in it.

Thoughts of my mother and best friend swirl around in my head, and I don’t know if it’s because of the exhaustion or the fact that I just lost two people I’ve always loved, but I can’t fight away the tears that come.

Don’t get it twisted, I’m not crying because I’m some broken bitch, but the few tears I shed come from a son whose mother just committed suicide. Our relationship was shit, but she was still my mother.

I hear the bathroom door click behind me, but I don’t turn around. Even as I hear Alannah approaching, her socks dragging across the hardwood floor, I keep thinking about the shit my mother tried to pull. I wipe away the few tears that manage to escape my eyes, and I realize why she did it. She loved me.

But I still can’t forgive her for it

“Dominic,” I hear Alannah say, trying to see what’s wrong, but I don’t answer her.

I feel her kneel behind me and wrap her arms around my shoulders, and it’s the most comforting thing I’ve felt in my life. Her presence means more to me than she knows, I just can’t express it right now.

“I know you’re going through a lot, and I’m so sorry,” Alannah says softly in my ear. “I’m here for you, Dominic. I love you so much.”

“I love you,” I reply.

“I’m not going anywhere, either,” she continues, still holding me close with her arms wrapped around my neck. “No matter what happens, we’ll figure it out together. We’ll beat all of this. Because we have to. Because this isn’t just about you and me anymore. It’s about all of us now. All three of us.”

I let her words soothe me, comforting me from the inside out. It feels so good to have someone who loves me so much. Someone I can love and trust, knowing she’ll never be the one to turn her back on me. She’ll never be the one to betray me for money or power. She’s in my corner, no matter what, and I’m in hers. Everything else may fall apart, but never Alannah and me. Everything around us may crumble under pressure, but never the two of us.

Then I realize what she just said.

“What’d you just say?” I ask, feeling a sudden shift in emotion, from sadness to confusion.

“We have to figure this out, Dominic,” she says again, trying her best to hold back an oncoming smile. “Because we have to protect our family. I know everything that happened tonight is fucking crazy, and I can’t imagine how you feel right now. But we have to stabilize it. It’s not about the Giordano family anymore. It can’t be. Because it’s about
our
family now. The three of us. You, me, and our child.” Alannah rubs her stomach softly with one hand, the other still over my shoulder as her attempt to hold back her smile fails and she beams from ear to ear. “I’m pregnant, Dominic.”

My world starts to spin and my eyes bulge as Alannah removes her arm from my shoulder, revealing the pregnancy test she’s holding in her hand. I knew she hadn’t been feeling well, and there had been a couple of nights she wasn’t feeling like herself, but I never thought it was this. She’s carrying my child.

And everything just changed.

I can’t muster up any words, but I react by grabbing Alannah and pulling her close to me.

“Are you serious?” is all I manage to say.

“Oh yeah. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I bought a pregnancy test,” she says in my ear. “But everything has been hectic, and I didn’t want to add to your stress without being sure. But I’m sure now. We’re gonna have a baby!”

My heart pounds in my chest from the love I feel for this woman. My focus shifts away from everything else that has happened, and now my only thought is keeping her safe. Keeping them safe. Keeping us safe. We’re a family now.

“I’m not mad that you didn’t tell me about the test,” I reply, looking her in the eye. “I don’t care about that at all. I had a lot of shit on my plate, so I get it. But you just changed everything, baby. I love you so much. I’ll never let anything happen to the two of you.” I reach down and rub her stomach for the first time, and I feel it deep down inside of me—I’ll never be the same again. The life I knew before this moment is over now. I’m going to be a father, and I refuse to let my child be born into this madness. Not even two minutes has gone by since I found out about the baby, but I already feel like a different person.

What if it’s a boy? Do I want him to be like me? Do I want him growing up around murderers and drug dealers? What if he isn’t as lucky as I was? What if he catches a bullet before he ever becomes “a somebody” in this thing? What if he makes a mistake, and the Commission votes to have him iced? Can I live with my kid being a part of La Cosa Nostra?

No.

I realize that my life isn’t the kind of life I want for my kid. I don’t want my child to grow up like me, scamming and murdering people like it’s nothing. I want my kid to be better than that, and the only way that’s going to happen is if I provide a childhood better than mine was.