This had to be the most fucked-up Christmas Leo had ever had. It took all his self-control not to blame Faith. The other women in the family probably knew more than they let on. They weren’t stupid. But they did their talking in private, away from the men. Never in public. It was the separation and division that was necessary for everyone to remain sane. Denial and pretending. And now it was shattered forever.
But then, why be mad at Faith? It was Gemma who’d been the one to crack. He’d been kidding himself since Emilio. He’d comforted himself with the idea that his sister wouldn’t suspect the truth. Emilio had been into some bad shit. That created a lot of enemies. The proximity of the time of his death to her worst beating could have easily been a coincidence. It was the lie he’d repeated to himself over and over. But the tension between them over the years had proven with little doubt that she knew. And tonight he couldn’t deny it any longer.
Once they got back to the house, Leo dragged Faith to her room. “Lock this door,” he growled.
“Wait…”
“WHAT?”
She shrank back at the evidence of his temper-the temper he’d inherited from Uncle Sal. Like Sal, he’d learned to keep a lid on it most of the time, to allow bits of steam to come off the surface. Sal’s outlet was crime. Leo’s was sadomasochism, but they were both treating the same disease. And lately Leo hadn’t been able to use the release valve.
He took a deep breath and said more quietly, “What?”
“Are you mad at me? Gemma was the one who…”
“I know. I’m not mad at you. I need to smooth this out with my family. Keep your door locked. I want you safe.”
Now wasn’t the time for trembling and a quivering lip from her. Even with his family in the house, his deepest urge was to take her downstairs and fuck morals. Fuck her consent. Fuck all of it. All he wanted was to bend her bare ass over the spanking horse and light into her until she was as bright red as a Christmas ornament, then take her from behind until he was too tired to care about any of this. He wanted to stay locked down there with her in their own world until after the New Year when the house would once again be quiet and peaceful.
Faith wrapped her arms around herself as if trying to still her trembling and nodded. “O-okay. I’m s-sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” He shut the door behind him, and let out a breath when he heard the lock click into place. At least she was smart enough to listen to him and not defiant enough to challenge him. Right now he couldn’t handle either stupidity or willfulness.
The other women were sent off to their rooms to much protesting, like recalcitrant children. And the children were treated the same. The men retired to a large den Leo had created for privacy and quiet underground next to the wine cellar. They would never know that on the other side of the cellar was a locked steel door that led into a dungeon where he allowed his own brand of darkness to run free.
The den was a cave of a room compared to the rest of the house. If any place could calm the nerves of these men, it was this place.
He poured and passed drinks and cigars around. According to the clock on the mantle, it was past two in the morning. The kids would be up by eight screaming to open presents.
“Ange, might I have a word with you in private?” Leo said, piercing his brother with a glare.
Eyebrows rose around the room, but no one said anything. Although they were twins, Leo’s request for a word in private with Sal’s capo under the circumstances created a sense of greater intrigue.
Angelo handed his glass to Davide and strode out of the room ahead of Leo. Leo rolled his eyes at his brother’s posturing, but now was a stupid time to fight for the alpha title, even in his own home. Angelo had a lot to prove already in the minds of the other men, given his orientation. Leo would give his brother this one freebie.
He waited until they reached a far, private corner of the wine cellar to speak. With that much space and a closed den door they could be assured of some level of privacy while keeping an eye on the one exit so that nobody came out to eavesdrop, not that anybody would. Nobody in his family was that suicidal.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Leo asked.
“ME!? What does this have to do with me?”
“Oh let’s see… giving her to me for one thing. You could have killed her and never told me about it. Involving me was unfair. You shouldn’t have made her my responsibility. You shouldn’t have told me about her at all!
Letting me think that I could save her… that if I didn’t it would be my fault she was dead… what is wrong with you? Do you hate me that much?” He looked down to find his hands shaking with anger, his fists clenching as everything inside him screamed to wrap those hands around his brother’s throat.
“Marone! Are you kidding me? You’ve always gotta be breaking my balls. Mother fuck.” Angelo took a slow breath to gain control of himself. “You’re my blood. My brother. But you’re so fucking uptight all the time. I wanted to give you what you wanted but didn’t have the balls to take yourself. And STILL don’t have the balls to take, it appears. She is your slave. Use her. She owes you her life. You should be collecting some form of payment. It’s such a waste giving you anything, you fucking Puritan. I don’t know why the hell I bothered.”
“I wish you hadn’t,” Leo said. In his brother’s mind, this was still an appropriate Christmas gift. It was the recipient of the gift that was the problem. Not the gift itself. Angelo didn’t appear to grasp that giving someone a human being for Christmas wasn’t just immoral, it was gauche.
“Don’t worry, this is the last time I try to help you in any way. Go ahead and long for what you want but can’t bring yourself to man up and take while it’s right under your nose in your goddamn house.”
“Why did you have to tell Ma we were engaged? The family is mostly over the gay thing.”
“Ma’s not over it. This whole week would have been all about me and Davide and how I need to settle down with a girl and give her grandchildren to carry on the family name. You know it would have. It’s time you picked up some of that slack and nagging.”
“So now Faith is supposed to be the family brood mare because you prefer men? Even if I could use her like you suggest, you think I could ever be so cruel as to force her to bear children on top of everything else we’ve done to her?”
Angelo shrugged. “I’ve given up trying to figure out how your mind works.”
“Same.”
“Are we done here?”
“We couldn’t be more done,” Leo said. Had he expected an apology from his brother or any remorse or sign of guilt or responsibility for the way the holiday had been ruined? Of course not. Nothing was ever Angelo’s fault. There was always someone else to blame, or kill if blaming alone turned out not to be satisfying enough.
Leo slammed the den door behind him when they returned. He took a deep breath. He had to put this fire out before it got out of control.
“My brother thinks he’s too good for us. He’s always thought so,” Angelo said. “May as well rub our noses in it with this fine house, better than anything any of us have, because he can justify it with the IRS. All bought with his honest money that he flaunts at us every Christmas.”
On top of everything, Angelo had to bring the money up again. Well, why not? It was overdue. “I don’t think that. All I’ve said is that there are alternatives. Either own what you do, or don’t do it, but stop fucking whining about it and making excuses. But that’s not the point of this meeting, and you know it. Faith is not a threat. She doesn’t know anything more than what anybody can find with an Internet search.”
“And we know that how?” Leo’s Uncle Bernie asked. Uncle Sal had already voiced his issues.
“I’m too old for this shit,” Carmine interjected.
“Papi…” Leo said.
“What? It’s the truth. We need to move to the front business and forget the back business. It’s not like it used to be.”
“Right. Because there’s a ton of dough in carpet installation,” Vinny said. “How would we feed our families?” It was one of many businesses, and at least on paper, it was successful. The Raspallo front businesses ran more to casinos in Vegas and construction work in New York. It was hard to prove bids were rigged. And a little illegal gambling alongside the legal stuff was easier to paper over, especially given that most mob families had largely abandoned Vegas, so the heat was elsewhere.
“You work in Vegas at the casino now. You wouldn’t be doing installation,” Leo’s grandfather retorted, still remarkably sharp for nearing ninety.
“I just want to do the sandwich shop,” Fabrizio said.
“Oh, so you’re out of the business, now,” Angelo said. “Maybe you’re the liability.”
“Hey!” Leo said. “Leave him alone. Even if he ran a sandwich shop, you know he’s not going to sing. No more than I would. Aren’t we all selfemployed in our own ways? Can’t we respect each other’s choices without acting like everybody who does something different has gone Judas?”
“I didn’t say I was out of the business,” Fabrizio said. “I’m saying if we all went straight…” Fabrizio must have rethought the extra connotation of that word and changed midstream. “…Honest… if we all went honest, I’d do the sandwich business. I’m just saying I’m not into carpet installation, all right?”
“Nobody is seriously considering doing carpet installation,” Angelo said, as if the idea turned his stomach.
“Papi is.”