“I promise it,” Antonio said. “We’ll stay within reach.”
I wanted to kick him. Was he giving up his dream of going back home, or his dream of being with me? Or was he failing to take my father seriously?
“Hardly something you can promise, Mister Spinelli, seeing as you’re already married.”
That should have hurt. Should have cut me to the bone, but it didn’t. The initial shock of my father knowing I was sleeping with a married man was bad, but once that was done, I felt nothing either way about it. Antonio had promised. That was good enough for me.
“You told me to make one good choice,” I said. “One good choice, and you’d release the funds to keep Zia’s afloat when Antonio was gone. Well, I made a good choice—I came back to LA to see Jonathan. Here I am. And I don’t need the money anymore. So this is the trade I want.”
“You’re pushing it.”
“I could still be gone.”
He leaned forward in his seat. I turned.
“You will never leave,” he said. “Not for any man. Not for any money. Not for any reason. You belong here. Your blood runs beach water and backwash.” He opened the back door. “If there’s a woman being held against her will, you need to call the police.”
He was out the door before I could formulate an answer. We watched in silence as he strode across the street.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll figure something out. He was a long shot anyway.”
Antonio was too quiet, tapping the steering wheel and watching my father cross the street, his umbrella straight. Not a drop got on him.
“We’ll go in the hard way.” Did I sound desperate?
“We shouldn’t go in. I’ll take care of it. I’ll do the trade. I’ll let them take me and figure it out, or not. I’m not afraid to die.”
“If they hurt you, Capo, I’ll kill them.”
He turned to the windshield and took a deep breath, like a man falling under the weight of his burdens.
I took his hand. I hadn’t meant to worry him, but I’d said the wrong thing. The same words that made me feel confident when they came from his lips ripped the world out from under him when they came from mine. I was about to take it back, lie and say I’d do nothing. But he gave my hand a quick squeeze and ran out into the night, dodging a car. The car door slammed behind him, and I lost him in the wash of rain on the window. I rolled it down. Antonio caught up to my father on the other side of the street. Otto watched, smoke rising from under his umbrella.
They were talking, and I couldn’t hear a word. I saw Antonio’s gyrating hands and the bend of his back. He wasn’t flinching from the rain; he was imploring my father for something, arm stretched toward the car, where I was. Jesus. What was he saying? What was he trading? Discomfort spiraled from my gut to my throat. Dad wasn’t even talking, just Antonio, out in the cold and wet. Supplicating. Begging for what? I didn’t even know. But I couldn’t take it anymore. I got out and was pelted with rain. Otto tried to cross around the car to give me his umbrella, but I pushed it away and started across the street.
My father nodded.
They shook hands.
No.
No no no.
“Antonio!”
He came to me, hair flattened and face studded with raindrops, lips dripping before he even spoke.
“What did you say to him?”
“Get in the car.” His clothes stuck to him, leaving veiny ridges up his arms. I saw the flex in his forearms when he grabbed my biceps and tried to turn me around.
“Capo.”
“Get in the fucking car.”
“We’re in this together. Together. Did you forget?”
He shook his head, eyes dark in the night, with only a glint from the streetlights to tell me confusion and pain swirled in them. He put his lips to mine so hard it hurt, and it wasn’t until I yielded to his arms and his mouth that they softened on me.