Page 87 of Because I Need You
“What did they steal from you?”
“Stupid shit.” He shrugged the shoulder behind my head. “Replaceable shit.”
“Hm.” I didn’t push because I’d learned when he didn’t want to outright tell you something, he wouldn’t. “You know what I would kill for right now?”
He chuckled. “Let’s hear it.”
“Chicago pizza.”
He dropped his arm and stopped walking, turning to face me. His face was serious, but his eyes were glimmering in amusement. “Did you say Chicago pizza?”
“Yeah, like the deep-dish stuff.” I bit my lip. “Why? You don’t like it?”
“Oh, I love it. I’m just surprised you do. Do the people in Queens approve of this?” He raised an eyebrow.
“We’re not going to find out, because we’re not going to tell them.” I shot him a look.
“I don’t know, I kind of want to see Luke’s reaction to this.”
“Don’t you dare, Giovanni.” I laughed when he lunged for me and picked me up.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell, but it’ll cost you.”
I kept laughing. “What will it cost me? A blowjob?”
His chest rumbled in approval. “You said it, not me.”
We drove to a pizza place and were instantly ushered to a table in the back. When we reached the booth and slid in, side by side, I glanced over at him.
“Let me guess, your family owns this place.”
“Nope.” He grinned.
“Someone you know owns it.”
“Yep.”
I shook my head and picked up the menu, looking through it, then set it down. “Maybe you should just order.”
As soon as the waiter stood in front of us, Gio ordered some things. It sounded like enough food for an entire village, though, and when the waiter walked away, I said as much.
Gio shrugged a shoulder. “We have enough mouths to feed.”
“Do you always order extra when you go places?”
“It depends where I go. Joey and Tony love this place, so I usually get extras here.”
“You really treat them like family.”
“They are family.” He paused to thank the waiter for our water.
“Did you know my half-brother?” I asked. Gio, who was drinking water when I asked, shot me a wary look. He set the cup down and cleared his throat.
“Yeah.”
“Well?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him? How did he die?”
“That is a very difficult question to answer.” He chuckled darkly.
“That bad?” I felt my brows raise. I didn’t know anything about Vincent besides the fact that we shared a father and that he was dead. Maybe I shouldn’t have wanted to know more, but I’d always wanted a sibling, and now I knew I’d had one at one point in time, so I was a little curious.
“Not bad enough, if you ask me.”
I sat back a little, pulling away from him. He’d said the words so nonchalantly, that it felt like the complete opposite of the Gio I’d come to know in private. I reminded myself of that, though. If my father’s death taught me one thing it was that everyone had different sides to them, and who they showed depended on who they were with. In my case, Gio showed me a multitude of sides, but he definitely kept the darker one hidden for the most part. I decided I didn’t like it. I wanted to know everything about him, even the ugly.
“Tell me.” I angled my body toward him as much as the booth allowed.
“We thought he was dead,” he said, “And two years ago, out of the blue, he came back, kidnapped Catalina and killed my best friend, Nadia’s brother, Frankie.”
My mouth dropped. It was a lot to take in, but I kept going back to two years, and they thought he was dead. Did that mean he was a live, or had they been responsible for his death, ultimately?
“Did you kill him?” I whispered.
“No. We should’ve, though.” He held my eyes as he said the words, there was no remorse in his face at all and I knew he meant it. My stomach clenched.
“Is he dead?”
“Who knows?” He shrugged a shoulder. “Who cares?”
“Do you think he’d…” I licked my lips. “Do you think he’s responsible for all of this?”
“I seem to be the only one who thinks it’s a possibility. He makes the most sense.”
“Why do they think he wouldn’t be responsible?”
“He has a family now. A wife, kids. They don’t think he’d risk his life, or theirs, by coming back a second time.”
I sank farther into the booth, letting that settle. My half-brother had a family. He had kids. I would never be a part of their lives for obvious reasons, and even though I didn’t know him and hadn’t known he existed before all of this, it stung a little. Maybe it was because in a sense, he was the only person who could truly understand what I was going through. Unless he’d known about me, then he couldn’t possibly fathom what all of this had been like for me.
