“Can you tell me what happened with Fiore?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s married to a woman named Marie. A lot of Marie’s and Ann Marie’s in the family. Hard to keep track of sometimes. But Marie is a beautiful woman. As expected for a man like Fiore. They have one daughter, Mara. That’s it. One. That’s sort of a tender spot to begin with. Fiore wanted a large family. He wanted his name carried on. But Marie had some medical issues and couldn’t have another child again. So Fiore went on the prowl and found a young man named Antonio. A real street tough guy. Dressed nice, talked smooth, and could heist anyone at anytime. He wasn’t with a crew so Fiore got him. Lucky for Fiore, Antonio fell head over heels in love with Mara. And Mara the same. What started as this forced relationship quickly took a life of its own.”
“How romantic,” Shayna whispered.
“Yeah, right. Romance. Fast forward a couple years. Mara and Antonio get married. Fiore wanted it done sooner, but Marie insisted they take their time and make sure. You don’t get divorced in Fiore’s family. That’s not how it works. It’s definitely a ’til death thing. Now the guys have side things, sure. That’s just the life. Sometimes the wives do it too, but they know if they get caught, they’re dead.”
“Sounds a lot like I’ve seen,” Shayna said. “The rules are bent as needed.”
“Exactly. So Mara and Antonio get married and go on a big honeymoon. A tour of the old country. Meet the family. They usher Antonio in with open arms because of Fiore’s situation. There had been talk of Fiore having babies with another woman. Real touchy subject, but it was being considered to be acceptable. Good news was that Antonio’s great-grandfather lived in the same village as Fiore’s grandfather. They actually knew each other. Now the guy wasn’t born and raised there, but to the family, it was good enough. They were a happy family now. Which meant the next thing would be to have kids.”
“Did they watch them have sex?” Shayna asked. “That’s overwhelming…”
“That’s how the family is,” I said. “Mara got pregnant really fast. Again, life is great. Then comes along baby Luca. A boy. Everything Fiore could have imagined. The bloodline would continue. Life was good.”
“Until it wasn’t,” Shayna said. “Right?”
“Exactly. Antonio stayed in the business, the life. I saw all of this from the sidelines. I rose up fast to become Fiore’s top fighter. I made him a ton of money. I brought in crowds. I brought in other fighters that I shouldn’t have been able to destroy and I did. I was an honorary part of the family. So I saw it all. I watched this darkness creep in between Fiore and Antonio. That darkness was Zander and his guys. They were running guns around Fiore’s territory. They started pushing drugs into the territory, creating a wave of crime and confusion that left Fiore struggling to keep up. Antonio wanted to go ahead and push back, but Fiore had a different vision. He was okay with a setback for a greater outcome. So he started to track Zander’s crew. Following them, finding their suppliers, their customers. Then he started to chop them off one by one. Killing them. It started to become a bloodbath.”
I took a breath. Right around that time was when I explained my own darkness. A darkness that I never climbed out of. I just learned how to hide it well.
“Did you kill anyone, Finn?” Shayna asked.
“No,” I said. “I was about fighting and nothing else. I never was brought into that side of the business. Then it all happened. The day it all changed. I had come off a real big victory. Got my face busted up real good. So I went to a bar to celebrate. I made Fiore a lot of money and he gave me a really nice kickback on it. Then the next morning I had two guys lifting me out of my bed and throwing me into the shower. They turned on the cold water and woke me up. I was still half drunk when they took me to Fiore. He was a mess. A complete mess.” I completely turned and faced Shayna now. “The night before, Luca had woken up with a fever. He was pulling at his left ear. So Antonio took him to the ER. Poor kid probably just had an ear infection. It was two in the morning. They were at a red light. A car got in front of Antonio and a woman was driving. She got out and started waving her hands, screaming, hitting the hood of the car. She tried taking her clothes off. She was messed up on drugs or something. Antonio got out and screamed that his kid was in the car, sick. The woman sped away. That little mishap there allowed someone to put the bomb under the car.”
Shayna gasped. “No.”
“Yeah. Two blocks later it detonated.”
The fire behind me popped loud. Shayna jumped. She touched her lips. “The baby…”
“Antonio and Luca. Gone. No chance.”