“What, so me pummeling a guy’s face in with a hammer wasn’t protection enough?” Zane asks, his voice heightening with cynicism.
“What if there are no hammers around?” I ask, deliberately playing sweet to annoy him. “If there’s one thing I know, Zane, it’s to expect the unexpected and if all I have to do to feel prepared is shove a gun into my waistband, so be it!”
“If anyone so much as even gives you a dirty look, they will have me to answer to,” Zane cautions me, finally keeping his eyes forward.
“Okay, caveman, back down. It’s just a pickup of cigars, but I’ll remember that if anyone gets a little touchy feely.” I calm him and watch the road for a moment. “I don’t know about anything, but I’ll be more than happy to get out of this car.”
“You don’t like being cluttered in a small space with me?” Zane asks me deprecatingly, his lips twisted into a sideways grin. “I could take you in the back of this car and you wouldn’t complain because I know how you like it. The closer the better.”
I put my hands over my face, feeling a readiness to scream into my open palms. I resist the urge and drop them into my lap. “Get your head out of the gutter and into the game.” I say this more because I could easily agree with Zane and betray myself, but this life is safer when you’re lonelier than when you tie yourself to someone who can easily get taken. Mine might irritate me to high heavens, but it doesn’t mean the pain of losing him physically is any less. “We aren’t going to have a quick fuck in the back of the car. This is business, which we are already behind on, and we have to be back at the house in an hour.”
“I know,” he mutters as if he’s a child being reprimanded. “Don’t blame me for trying to crack at least a small smile on your face.”
Smiling – sometimes it’s a physical expression I forget about. I barely had anything worth smiling about in Italy and then when I came back I thought the trend would continue, but Zane bolted into my life and consumed me and I allowed him. Now, I feel like I’m right back on my ass in Italy, doing what I must.
“You don’t get to smile often when you are what I am,” I speak and clear my throat as a lump begins to form. “You might well learn that soon.”
“What you are?” Zane scoffs, shaking his head.
“As if you forgot my sadistic display of poor, little Tony.” I finally look over at him and his knuckles are going bright white as he grips the steering wheel again. His face is staring forward while his jaw clenches and releases, telling me that he’s trying not to remember, but I think he needs a reminder of what he’s really in for. “Real mafia are stone-cold killers,” I begin to say, twisting back to face him in my seat. “That’s how I was brought up to believe in us, anyway.” I pause a little, waiting for any form of response from Zane. When I get none, I continue. “I thought I was part of the revolution, but I’m not. I’m trapped in the same life my father was born and bred in. My brothers, they’re different. All of them, but Gio, have the chance to revolutionize the face of the Dio Lavoro.”
“And you think you don’t?” Zane asks; his voice is now dripping with sincerity.
I laugh, looking down a little while an abundance of shame lays itself upon my shoulders. “No,” I state bluntly. “I’m too far gone for any of that now.”
“How so?” he asks, giving me a quick look before looking back at the road ahead.
“We’re Italian-American mafia. It’s like the best of both worlds or so I’m told,” I muse, really mulling over that statement. I guess we are, we do indulge in both American and Italian life and enjoy both – for the most part anyway. “We get to cherish the old country and the new one together. We get to see both and bask it in, all ready to inherit it.”
“It sounds pretty fucking idealistic,” Zane considers, reflecting on the basic ideology of my statement.
“That’s because you’re a moron,” I insult him and sit back in my seat. “I seriously don’t know how you managed to get into this position, but you’re still oblivious to it all! You really do hear what you want, don’t you?”
“I heard the part where you were going on about the killers,” he says, waving me off. “But I also heard that part with you wanting to be part of the revolution, Amelia. Could you imagine what you could do between yourself, Enzo, Carlo, and Manuel? You could make Abbiati a name to be admired, not one that drives fear. You could make the best of two worlds, something amazing for your futures.”