Page 13 of The Mafia's Surprise Gift

While serving dinner, my mind stumbled down a familiar route of what-ifs. What if he hadn’t left? How different would my life be? Would we have raised Zack here together? Would I have a different job, or would we still move to the city and raise Zack together there? That would be amazing because in that dream, the job my father secured for me wouldn’t have fallen through either, and…

No, I scolded myself. This was a dangerous path. Rocco didn’t matter, and for Zack’s sake, I had to keep that wall up. I was ditched by him, and that was painful enough. I wasn’t going to let him do the same to Zack.

Whatever. I didn’t need Rocco.

And I certainly didn’t want him.

6

JIAN

The soft rumblings of rock music filled the air, broken only by the sharp clack of pool balls bouncing off one another and the gentle clink of square ice against the glass in the middle of everyone’s drinks.

Dino stood before me, his mouth slanted in thought as he studied the table in front of him. I was in the lead, but not by much, and all it took was one strong sweep of the cue and I would be crying into my Vodka for the rest of the night.

“Come on,” I taunted him gently. “Or do you need more time to work out how to take a graceful loss?”

“Fuck you.” Dino snorted, removing the darkened aviators from his face and fixing me with a death stare. “I’m just being gentle because I know you can’t take another loss.”

There was a split second of amusement before we both chuckled at what Dino said, then we glanced at the bar. Rocco was hunched over himself, staring down into his glass of whiskey. He’d been like that for over half an hour, so whatever answer he sought must have escaped him. Games like this were supposed to distract him from his grief, but they only worked when he took part. I’d learned pretty quickly, however, that you couldn’t get Rocco to do something he didn’t want to do. It had to be his own choice, so Dino and I racked up the game, hoping he would join in.

“You can talk about loss.” Rocco grunted from his stool, one leg bouncing lightly against the bar. “I’m not going to fall apart.”

“You sure about that, Boss?” I asked gently. “You don’t have any rage you want to take out on a few unsuspecting pool balls?”

“Or a meddling grandfather?” Dino said with a snort.

Rocco didn’t move, nor did he reply.

Dino and I glanced at one another, silently debating whether to pursue that a little further. We decided against it and returned to the game, for all of thirty seconds because then, Rocco spoke once more.

“I’m sorry, Jian.”

I paused, half leaning across the table while trying to line up my next shot and further secure my victory. “For what?”

“For what my grandfather said.”

Oh. The Triad comment. It wasn’t an uncommon remark, not in this line of work. In the beginning, when I was assigned to Rocco seven years ago, it took a while to build trust. But once we crossed that bridge, the three of us became firm friends. The hierarchy still remained, but I knew Rocco held my best interests at heart. His grandfather’s archaic views didn’t reflect on him because he always had my back.

Always.

“Don’t worry about it,” I replied. “Your grandfather is stuck in the past. Besides.” I took my shot and struck the ball right into the pocket, much to Dino’s dismay. “If I were Triad, I definitely wouldn’t have chosen the Italians to infiltrate when the Irish have superior booze.”

Dino snorted with amusement and headed around the table to me, then he slapped the winning five hundred dollars into my palm.

“You know I only lost because I have that old gunshot wound on my ribs.” He hunched over, playing up the injury as if he could beat me at that. Setting the cue down on the table, I ran my fingers over the money and scoffed.

“By that logic, I’m even weaker since I’ve taken two bullets for you over the years, my friend. So you got beaten even worse.”

“Fuck you.” Dino threw his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close in a brief, tight hug. “Next bullet is mine, and we can play on even ground.”

“I look forward to that, you asshole.” I shoved him away with a smile, then we both moved and sat at the bar with our drinks in hand. Rocco didn’t look up, but there was something slightly calmer about the air around him. We couldn’t take his pain, and we couldn’t bring back his dad. We certainly couldn’t help him shoulder the burden of Don, but we could support him.

And we would. Until our dying breath.

“Oh, you know,” I said after a long victory sip. “I met the hottest woman at the store today.”

“When you were getting your allergy meds?” Dino mocked with a smile.

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