“If it had gone wrong—” Hector started, but Dean interrupted him.
“If it had gone wrong, then it wouldn’t matter,” he said. “I needed this, Hector. It was a risk, and I admit that it was a big risk, but it was calculated.”
Hector sighed and seemed to crumple in on himself. “The whole city’s talking about it. You achieved that much, at least. I’m going to spend the next year defending you and keeping you out of court.”
“And I’m going to pay you handsome,” Dean said, grinning hugely. “Come on, Hector. It worked.”
“You can’t be serious, Dean,” Bea said, and her tone was sharper than a steak knife. I blinked rapidly. I didn’t think she was capable of sounding like that.
Dean seemed surprised too. “What do you mean?” he asked. “The three guys that tried to kill me are now dead. I did it with my own hands and proved that I’m a man worth following.”
“You proved you’re a stupid, impulsive shit,” Bea snapped.
Dean gaped. I rocked back in my chair like she’d slapped me. Hector sputtered something and sat up straight.
“Bea,” Dean said. “You can’t talk to me that way.”
She grunted and shook her head, disgust etched into every wrinkle of her face. “I talked like that to your father all the time,” she said. “And he knew the value of hearing it. Sometimes you think you’re invincible, when you’re the head of a family like the Valentinos. But hear me, Dean. You’re not immortal, and what you do reflects on the rest of us. What you do matters.”
“I know that,” he said.
“Then grow up.” Bea turned away from him. “You can’t do things like that anymore. You’re the goddamn Don now.” She pulled open the door and stormed out.
I couldn’t handle the tense silence anymore. Dean looked stricken, like she’d stabbed him repeatedly, and Hector seemed like he wanted to bury himself under the desk and never resurface again. I stood, finished the whiskey which made me cough and gag, then followed after Bea.
“Wait, Mags,” Dean said, but I didn’t listen. I shut the door behind me and hurried off until I found Bea standing over the kettle in the kitchen, murmuring to herself.
I lingered close and opened my mouth a few times, trying to find the words. Bea noticed me and waved a hand, beckoning me closer as the water in the kettle began to boil and the whistle shrieked a wild pierce.
“Don’t just stand there and stare at me,” she said. “Go get some mugs and tea bags, please. The Yorkshire Gold, if you don’t mind.”
I obeyed, found the mugs, dropped in the bags, and place them down for Bea to fill.
“Did you really talk to Dean’s dad like that?” I asked.
She laughed, mostly from relief, or so it seemed. “All the time,” she said. “When he needed to hear it, at least. He hated it though. Told me he’d fire me at least once a week.” She smiled and put the kettle down.
I lifted my warm mug in my hands. The heat matched the spreading fire in my belly from the whiskey.
“Dean seems to think you’re nicer than that,” I said.
“Dean’s been sheltered,” she said with a sharp laugh.
I looked away, down at the floor tiles. “I saw him do it,” I said, my voice a tangled whisper than I barely recognized. There was a lot about myself that I barely recognized these days.
Bea watched me carefully. “He brought you in on a hit?” she asked.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “He left me in the car. But then I heard the gunshots and I just—” I stopped, pulled my teabag out, and tossed it into the trash.
“Oh, honey,” Bea said sadly. “How bad was it?”
I stared at the golden-brown liquid then took a sip. It was scalding hot and burned my tongue, but for some reason the pain helped sharpen my mind a bit. It pulled me from the deadening fog that threatened to surround my brain and tug me deep beneath waves and waves of self-pity and fear.
“I saw him kill one of them,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut. “He stood there and shot him in the head. It was—” I stopped myself, started again. “Working at my dad’s strip club was hard. There were a lot of gross things going on all the time, you know? I thought I was hard, or at least hardened. But nothing like that. I never saw anything like that.”
Bea came forward and touched my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The mafia’s a cruel business. They do well to hide it beneath the surface, cover it over with glitz and glam and money, but it’s violence all the way down to the core.”
“Is he evil?” I asked suddenly, and wasn’t sure why it bubbled up like that, as if it mattered. I knew Dean couldn’t be a great guy, since he was willing to buy a wife, and since he ran a crime family. But being hard and being evil were two very different things.
Bea didn’t respond right away. She sighed sadly and sipped her tea, which must’ve been too hot, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“I don’t know, dear,” she said finally, and it wasn’t the answer I wanted, not at all. “Are any of them evil? Some are, without a doubt. Some of the men in the family live for killing and hurting and stealing. But is Dean evil, in particular?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But I don’t know.”
“Does that make me bad then?” I asked. “If I stay here with him, does that make me culpable?”
“Oh, no, of course not,” she said, and laughed. “You can’t control that man and you can’t control the family. You’re here to survive, aren’t
