Page 41 of When She Loves
I press my napkin against my lips. “Sit down.”
“This is the kind of shit that will fuck this whole thing up, you know. The kind—”
“Sit the fuck down, Garzolo,” Nero growls. “Don’t make us ask you a third time.”
Garzolo glares at Nero before he dumps himself into the chair beside me. “Why wasn’t I allowed to attend yesterday’s event? It was my right as Cleo’s father.”
“Cut the shit,” Nero says. “We all know your relationship with your daughter is nonexistent. She didn’t even allow you to walk her down the aisle, and you seemed a lot less angry about that than this. The only reason you’re pissed we didn’t let you come is because you didn’t want us talking to De Rossi.”
He doesn’t bother denying it. “I got a call from him an hour ago, telling me I’m getting cut out of the deal. I’m the one who brokered it! Without me, you’d still be shaking down restaurant owners and getting your shoes dirty in cement. Igaveyou this!”
I pick up the wine bottle and read the label. “Chateau Du Soleil, Cotes du Rhone, grenache grape. Your daughter likes wine, doesn’t she? Maybe I should bring a bottle of this home.”
Garzolo stares at me, his outrage emanating from him. “Did you hear anything—”
I toss the bottle into the air, grab it by the neck, and smash it over his head.
The glass shatters, the wine spattering everywhere. Garzolo howls and raises his arms to protect his face. Nero jumps out of his seat, muttering something about getting his new suit dirty.
I’m still holding the broken bottle by the neck. I grab Garzolo’s tie and jerk him toward me until I’m right in his face. I press the sharp edge of the glass against a vein in his throat. “You ever come talking to me like that again, I’ll decapitate you with this fucking bottle. Do you understand?”
He sputters, wine dripping down his forehead and cheeks.
“This isn’t a partnership. We own you. You’re lucky I’m giving you five more years to enjoy being a don. That was a favor, or have you forgotten that already?”
“This is why we don’t like giving favors,” Nero grumbles as he wipes himself off with a napkin. “No one seems to understand how those work.”
“I understand,” Garzolo bleats, his fury replaced with fear. Pathetic.
Now that I know how incompetent this man is, it’s shocking his family has lasted this long. The foundations laid down by his father must have stood the test of time, but even the greatest of empires can be brought down by one man’s idiocy.
I let go of his tie and shove him to the ground. “If I want to deal directly with De Rossi, I’m going to deal directly with De Rossi. Did you really think he would still want to do business with you after you raised your hand to the woman carrying his consigliere’s child? Your own daughter? You’re lucky you’ve never touched Cleo, because if you had, I would have put you ten feet under as a wedding gift to her.”
Garzolo pales. “Inevertouched her.”
“Get out of my face. You’ve still got a business to run, remember? Focus on that, because the last thing you want is to make me inherit a depreciating asset. Do you understand?”
He pushes himself off the ground and nods. “Understood.”
“Now leave.”
He hurries out of the restaurant.
Nero watches him leave and swears. “Unbelievable. He really thought he could come here and tell you what to do?”
“He’s not thinking at all. That’s the problem.” His power has been significantly diminished, and he’s not handling it well. I don’t mind him making a fool of himself—it’ll make my transition easier when it comes to it, because no one wants to follow a weak man into battle—but I have to make sure he doesn’t run his family into the ground first.
A server and the manager run out to clean up the mess, and a waitress rushes over to Nero with a wet cloth. She looks uncertain for a moment, but then the owner hisses something at her, and she starts to dab at the stains on Nero’s chest.
The lines between my consigliere’s eyebrows melt away, and he grins at her. “Hello, beautiful. I don’t remember seeing you here before. Where did you come from?”
The girl mumbles a response and blushes.
Nero spreads his thighs and beckons her closer. “Come stand over here. You can reach better.”
I watch him shamelessly flirt with the waitress, and my mind goes back to my wife. Does she really think I’m at all like her father? Just because we’re both the dons of our families, it doesn’t mean we’re the same. I have as much in common with Garzolo as I do with a fucking turnip.
Nero says something to me.
