Arrogant Prick: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (13 page)

“You can call me Giovanni.” He puts his glass down on the table and dabs his mouth with a napkin. “I did. I grew up in Flatbush. It was very different when I was growing up.”

“And what do you do for a living?” My dad leans back in his chair, settling in to grill Gio. “Do you have a respectable job?” I try not to cringe, since I should have expected this.

“Depends on how you define that, sir.” Gio’s lips curve into a small grin. “I used to be military, and now I’m a security consultant.”

My dad grunts. “Which branch?”

“Navy, sir. I was a SEAL.”

“That’s impressive.” He nods. “My father was in the Navy, but they didn’t have SEALs back then.”

“Knowing Allie,” Gio smiles warmly at me, “I have no doubt he would have qualified.”

“And what exactly do you do as a security consultant?”

Gio presses his lips thin. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say, sir.”

My dad keeps looking at him as if expecting a better answer.

“I don’t serve as a consultant to any law enforcement agencies.”

My mom and I listen to the conversation with matching nervous smiles until my dad breaks the tension with a small smile. “Was your father Dominic Gallo?”

I can see the muscles on Gio’s jaws tense for a moment before he answers. “Yes. Did you know him?”

“I did. I don’t know if he ever told you, but we went to school together.” My dad takes another sip of his wine. “We were a deadly pair on the football field.”

I look down and see Gio’s hand is clenched tightly into a fist, and I rub his knuckles softly. I’m thankful his bruises have fully faded. “He never told me that.”

“I’m not offended.” My dad smiles. “I offered him an opportunity to join my business, but he didn’t care for my line of work. But I didn't take it personally.”

Gio’s expression is blank and he remains silent.

My dad gestures for the waiter to fill up the table’s wine glasses again. He picks up his glass and takes another sip. Gio downs half with a big gulp.

“Terrible tragedy what happened to your family.” My dad shakes his head and lowers his voice. “It’s even worse that the perpetrators of that crime haven't been caught.”

Gio finishes his wine and gestures for the waiter to fill up the glass again while my mom and I watch the back and forth between the two men at the table. What did he mean by the tragedy to his family? He only told me his dad was dead.

“I'm confident that the people responsible will be brought to justice soon.” Gio’s expression is dark, and his face hard.

“I followed up with the NYPD when I heard the news.” My dad picks up the napkin from his lap and folds it neatly before placing it back on the table. “But they're next to useless.”

“What happened to your family, Gio?” My voice barely breaks through the tension that permeates the room.

My dad looks over at me. “Did he not tell you, princess?”

I’m so confused by what’s going on that I don’t even get annoyed at the use of that nickname around Gio. “What happened to your family, Gio?”

He takes the napkin from his lap and puts it on his empty plate. “They were murdered…in a home invasion.”

I gasp and my mom uses her napkin to cover her mouth. “All of them?”

Gio keeps his eyes on my dad as he speaks in a stiff voice. “My father, mother and little sister. Murdered in cold blood in their own home.”

My heart jumps into my throat. I have so many questions but I don’t even know where to start, and the last thing I want to do is ask in front of my parents. And I feel selfish for wondering why he didn’t tell me. Like that matters at all. How would I act if my whole family was brutally killed? Probably not nearly as well as Gio's handling it.

“I’m so sorry.” I rub his hand under the table.

My mom nods and uses her napkin to wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes. “My condolences, Giovanni. There has been so much death lately. I don’t know what the world's coming to.”

I don’t care about the world. I just want to know what’s going on with the people around this table. This must be why Gio acted so weird when I brought up his dad at Hush that night. And what the hell is going on with my dad? What are the chances that he’d know Gio’s father?

Gio nods to my mom with a stiff face. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Do you believe it was a home invasion?” My dad’s using the same voice he uses when he’s trying to dig out a truth I’m unwilling to talk about. Gio’s not blinking, but he’s stiff as a board, and his fist is still clenched so hard all his knuckles have turned white.

“No.”

“Nor should you.” My dad nods. “Nothing about the crime matched a home invasion.”

There’s a long pause before Gio speaks again. “I’m surprised you went to such lengths to look into what happened.”

“Why wouldn’t I? He didn’t join me in business, but it doesn’t change what we had. He was my left guard in football. He protected me from more vicious hits than I could count.” He turns his head so we're looking at him in profile. “And he saved my face from getting ruined for my high school sweetheart.”

My mom titters out a nervous laugh. I see Marco by the door leading out to the main floor of the restaurant, unbuttoning his jacket. He looks like he’s watching us closely, but when he sees me looking at him, he looks away quickly.

“He was always protective of his friends,” my mom says. “It landed him in lockup more than once.”

“Yeah,” my dad laughs. “He cold-cocked a safety once for getting a late hit on me. Got himself tossed out of the game for that.” My parents laugh over the shared memory of Gio's father.

Gio doesn’t answer.

My dad motions to the waiter for the bill and turns back to Gio. “Well, Mr. Gallo. It's been very interesting making your acquaintance, but we have to get going.”

He looks over at my mom and she nods and begins collecting her things. Then he turns to me. “Will you need a ride home, princess?”

I’m taken aback. I expected him to tell me to go home with Marco, not for him to ask me if I had other plans. Maybe my talk with him went a lot better than I thought.

“No. I’ll get a ride home from Gio.” I turn to him. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

He nods and gives me a small smile, but there’s no joy in his gray eyes.

“I understand.” My dad pushes back his chair, stands up and buttons his jacket. “You two must have a lot to talk about.”

He takes out his wallet, and passes a business card to Gio, who accepts it silently. “If you ever want to talk about your father, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.”

There’s a tone to his voice I don’t understand. But Gio seems to. He nods, takes a look at the card and puts it in the inside pocket of his jacket as he stands up.

“It was a pleasure to meet you both.” He extends a hand to my father who grips it tightly and shakes. He holds out his hand to my mother, but she brushes it aside.

“Don’t be silly.” She gives him a light hug. He hesitates before clumsily returning it. It’s one of the only times I’ve seen Gio awkward, and it helps lighten the morbid mood.

As we head out of the private room, my dad taps Gio on the arm. Gio stops and turns to him.

“Alessandra is the light of my life.” His eyes bore into Gio’s. “If you break her heart, or let anything happen to her, you'll pay the price.”

Gio doesn’t back down from my father’s stare. “I understand.”

“Good.” He pats Gio on the shoulder, and lets him head out ahead of him.

I wait for Gio and take his hand as we head out of the restaurant into the pleasant night air. My father’s car is already waiting for him, eliciting honks from impatient cabbies. Marco is waiting on the curb, but he completely ignores us as we walk past. No idea why he’s acting so incredibly rude, but I don’t care. I can barely contain myself from grilling Gio about his family before we’re alone.

I wave goodbye to my parents as we walk toward Gio’s car, miraculously parked on the same block as the restaurant. He opens the door for me and I climb inside.

I wait until we're on the road to speak. “Why didn’t you tell me about your family?”

“I didn’t want to involve you with my troubles.” He stares directly ahead, one hand on the wheel and the other on the gearshift. His knuckles are still white.

“When you care for someone, you share what pains you,” I say softly. I put my hand on top of his and I feel the tension leaving his muscles.

“I should have told you.” He looks at me, the pain clear in his eyes. “I’m going to fix that now.”

“What do you mean?” I look at the road. We're heading away from the city to the suburbs. “Where are we going?”

“My family’s home.”

We drive the rest of the way in silence.

* * *

H
e pulls
the Camaro into the driveway of a small townhouse in Bensonhurst. It’s a cute little two-story home with a shared yard. It's obvious the garden used to be well-kept, but it’s overgrown now. The siding is painted light blue, with the storm windows and the front door painted yellow. In the dark, I almost miss the police tape crisscrossing the door.

I notice the light coming on in the window across the street and the silhouette of someone watching us as Gio digs a ring of keys out of his pocket and unlocks the front door. He holds a strip of the tape up for me and I duck under it as I walk into the living room.

The home looks as cute on the inside as it did on the outside. It’s clear it used to be tastefully decorated in a minimalist, art deco style. Also evident is that whoever picked the quirky coloring of the outside paint also used the same flair in decorating the interior, but it’s all smashed up.

A lamp with a base that's a modernist sculpture of a dog is broken in half, with pieces of it scattered across the hardwood floor. I gasp as I step around the broken light and see a fake polar bear rug stained reddish brown, the color of old blood.

The place looks like it was tossed apart and broken by men in a hurry to find everything of value. The TV is missing. There’s no sound system or speakers, but there are torn wires dangling from the walls. There’s spots of dried blood on the floor, too.

I grip Gio’s upper arm, pull myself close to him, and look up in his face. He’s trying to keep himself passive and emotionless, but I can see him clenching his jaw, and his eyes are filled with a mix of anger and sadness.

“I’m so sorry, Gio.” I wish you’d told me. But I can’t tell him that. I don’t have any right to expect him to have told me about this. I don’t even want to know how I would react if I found my family murdered like this.

He nods toward the bloodstain on the rug. “That’s where they killed my mother. Her face was slashed, and she was shot in the forehead. The forensics team had to dig bits of her skull from the rug.”

I gasp and grip his arm tighter.

He points toward the stain on the carpet on top of the hardwood flooring past the couch. “That’s where my dad fell.” His voice quavers with the emotion he's held back for so long. “He was shot eleven times.”

“Your dad was right,” he says. He looks at me, eyes glistening. “He was a beast. It took probably at least eight shots to bring him down. He was shot twice in the heart, and once in the head, too. To make sure he stayed down.”

I follow his eyes to the last bloodstain on the floor. This one's in the hallway heading toward the kitchen. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but he hesitates.

“It’s okay, Gio.” I squeeze his arm with both hands. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“No.” He speaks through gritted teeth. “It’s not. You need to know why…”

He pauses long enough for me to ask “Why what?”, but I don’t want to push him. I’ll let him open up to me on his own terms.

“That’s where they killed my little sister, El.” He blinks away a tear and it rolls down his cheek down his jaw.

Hot tears fall from my eyes. I pull him toward the couch and tug on his arm until he sits down stiffly next to me. I put my arm around his shoulders and squeeze him tight.

“This is why I came back to New York early.” He turns back and looks at where his sister was killed. I can’t even imagine what must be going through his head.

“I’d promised her I’d be home in time to drive her to her junior prom.” His eyes fall to his feet. “I was never around much. My job kept me traveling constantly, and too busy to think about much else. But I was going to keep this promise to her.”

He leans back on the couch, and lets his head fall back, eyes glued to the ceiling. “She loved that Camaro.” He turns his head so he can look at me. “She was a real gearhead, even though she was a girl. My dad had other cars, probably ones better suited for prom, but she wanted that one.”

I brush away a tear rolling down his face before it drips onto the couch.

“And she wasn’t willing to accept any other driver than me.” He stands up suddenly from the couch and his voice grows angry. “I should've been here for her. I should've been here for my family. I could've protected them from this.”

I stand up and put my arms around his waist. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened. You couldn’t have known this would happen.”

“I was trained by this country to protect us from the bad guys.” His eyes sweep over the broken home. “And I couldn’t even protect those who meant the most to me. But I could avenge them.”