I’m glad those windows are tinted dark when the two of them, Luca and Tino, glance over to where our limo has parked. They look away, confer with heads together, and then go into the chapel.
“He saved my life, Pops,” I remind him. “Morelli, along with D’Amato. I was supposed to die there in that dirty warehouse.” And on account of you, I think, but don’t say.
“Don’t you go into this thinking you owe those bastards anything,” my father insists. “You hear me? You’re a Donovan. You’re above them, and you make sure you act like it. Any inside business they let drop, you bring it back to me, to your real family. You hear me?”
I swallow. Pops and I have never been close, especially after the hit that took out Mom. He withdrew from us all, even Maggie, who was always his favorite. I’ve never asked the question, and officially my mother’s death is still unsolved, but I can’t see what else would make my father hate a man he’s never met this much.
“Was it them? The Morelli family? Who killed Mom, I mean.”
Pops looks away. “You come to me with any information you gather. It’s important, Howie.”
“I will, Pops.”
“And don’t you say a word about our family business. You hear me?”
“I hear you.” I don’t know anything about the family business, so that’s one command that’ll be easy enough to follow.
We’ve been sitting here at least five minutes since Luca and Tino went in. I don’t want to wait any longer to start my life with the Devil D’Amato. “Come on, Pops. Let’s go.”
Chapter Ten
LUCA
The only thing I remember about the walk down the aisle is the cool, heavy feel of the guns holstered under my tuxedo jacket. Frank is waiting down there for me as my best man, his eyes scanning the crowd, and Marco joins him at the last minute as another of my groomsmen.
During the course of this last week, Tino suggested Sam and Joey to make up a quartet of attendants to mirror Finch’s number, but I told him I’d rather not be knifed in the back at my own wedding. He laughed like I was kidding, but he didn’t push the issue.
But when Tino deposits me now in front of the celebrant, my reality becomes wider than self-preservation. It finally hits me: this is my wedding. A wedding I never thought I’d have, and when it comes down to it, a damn sight better than any wedding I expected.
To all these goons, shuffling in their seats, nudging each other, whispering and mocking, this wedding is a sham. But the thing is, if I have to get married? I can’t think of a better partner in life than the crazy, bleach-haired angel, who loves death so much he tried to take it in my place.
Besides, he has connections that might prove useful in the coming months and years.
Tino has been our Boss for many years, but his Underboss, Paul Marino, was jailed a few months back, and then wound up dead with a shiv in his throat. Tino hasn’t replaced him yet, or named an acting Underboss. I know he doesn’t want Fuscone to be so close to the throne. But Tino never married, has no heir; his extended family are estranged. So he has no blood relative to nominate as his successor.
But Tino has always been fond of me. I never knew my father and our mother died when I was just a baby, so we were raised by our maternal grandmother. Nonna never told Frank and me much about our father. She had no photographs of him. She told us once that Frank was named after him: Francesco D’Amato. Nonna had no other family in the States, and her husband was long dead. She died not long before I met Finch that first time, but she’d brought us up in strict Italian tradition, and Tino Morelli was a regular visitor during my childhood.
I loved Tino’s visits. Frank thought he was boring, but I lived for his stories, tales of ancient Empires and the men who ruled them. For my first communion he gave me a book called The Prince. I read that shit from back to front for years like it held the secrets of the universe. I learned a lot from Niccolò Machiavelli, but most of all I learned that I was going to have to work goddamn hard to get where I wanted to go.
But despite all his interest in me, it took Tino a long time to accept me into his Family. Long enough for me to try other Families, take insults from them, beatings. It was after the Clemenza attack Finch saved me from that Tino finally gave in. Or maybe that was what he’d been waiting for: for me to make a spectacular splash so he had an excuse to step in and protect me. Because the Clemenzas were out for blood after Frank and I killed four of their guys, and it was only Tino’s intervention that kept us alive.
I’d like to think I’m a worthy protégé for Tino. Sometimes, with the way he delights in my achievements, I find myself wondering if there’s a hidden truth there.
Sometimes I wonder if Tino is actually my—
The music changes.
I turn abruptly, almost startled.
Coming down the aisle on the stiff arm of his father is my angel. I’ve never seen him look so gorgeous, not even the night he saved my skin.
It takes me a second to remember that I can’t show any emotion towards him. Not now, not ever. It would be an instant death sentence for Finch if Fuscone and his allies ever thought I had real feelings
