Page 6 of Married With Lies

I miss him. Miss them both. I wonder where I’d be tonight if they’d lived. Not here, waiting to fulfill orders like a deputy from the pits of hell.

By now I might be a lost cause. Luca, however, is not.

My uncle, always calculating, might have seen a hint of my thoughts in my face. His chair creaks as he leans back and he rearranges his expression into something more benign.

“This is the time of year when I miss Angie the most,” he says. “There was never a better sister than your mother.”

When Luca and I were sent to live with Richie and Aunt Donna, Luca was only four. This house is really all he knew of his childhood.

Richie tilts his head to the side and observes me. The chair creaks again under his weight. “I’m sure it’s the same for you and your brother, Carmine.”

A double reminder of our blood connection. First he invokes my mother, then he calls me by the name that was given to me because it belonged to my grandfather. My uncle is the only one who still uses it regularly. I’ve answered to ‘Cale’ since grade school.

Richie wets his lips and moves on to his real point. “Barone reached out today.”

Albie Barone. Sometimes referred to as the Baron of Brooklyn, a nickname he gave to himself. I can guess what’s coming next and my shoulders tense in anticipation.

“His three daughters are in the Riviera for the holidays,” my uncle says with a shrug. “Making too much of a spectacle of themselves.”

“Didn’t know that,” I say, which is true. Also true that I could not care less.

“Their father isn’t pleased. No wonder. I sleep better at night knowing that my daughters are settled down. He wants the same thing.”

My cousins are both married to loyal family associates. There are big dreams swirling around in my uncle’s head. He intends to resurrect the heyday of the Five Families, when the mafia kept New York in a chokehold.

The next words out of his mouth are unsurprising. He’s been hinting in this direction for months.

“Barone is sure that any one of his daughters would say yes to a proposal. You can have your pick.”

He’s confident that’s all it will take. Drop some brainless mafia princess in my lap and I’ll dutifully slide on a ring, accept a life sentence and hand over my balls to prove my devotion.

To be fair, no matter what kind of ring I’m wearing I’ll still get to use my balls whenever I feel like it. Fidelity isn’t exactly a marriage requirement for men like my uncle. After putting in time with the family tonight, Richie will no doubt invent an excuse to have his driver take him to Brooklyn for a roll in the sheets with the ballerina he keeps stashed in a brownstone. No one would stop me from making the same arrangement.

I’ve met the Barone daughters. Checked out their social media profiles. A set of bland spoiled replicas, none of them more interesting than your average pillowcase. Marrying one of them would be a nightmare and it’s not like I could just duck out whenever I felt like it without creating more problems. I’d be permanently locked into the Amato world and all that comes with it.

Yet it wouldn’t be smart to openly refuse a command from Richie Amato without a backup plan. He’s clear about what he expects from me. Absolutely loyalty and a future leadership role in the family.

If only he knew how much I despise everything about him. It’s not that I’m worried about taking a hole to the head, although I guess that’s always a possibility if Richie gets pissed off enough.

There’s also my brother to think about.

Without no sons to pass the torch to and being a big believer in blood bonds, Richie Amato has high hopes for the two nephews he helped raise after the death of his beloved only sister. I was still a teenager when he suggested that Luca and I ought to take his last name. He said it was to honor our mother. As if our father and his name didn’t count at all.

Never happening. Now matter how I play along, I’m still a Connelly to the bone. So is my brother.

I make a show of checking my watch. “Hate to cut this short but I should leave you to your lasagna and show my face at the party.”

My uncle watches me rise from the chair. He waits until I’ve started toward the door before saying, “Luca’s one hell of a smart kid. Your folks would be so proud. You must be proud too.”

An icy finger crawls up my spine.

Luca will have more options than this shit. If I need to crack some more kneecaps to make sure he doesn’t ever know the weight of a gun in his hand then so be it.

“Of course I’m proud of him,” I say and put my hand on the doorknob. “Merry Christmas.”

“Same to you, Carmine.”

I exit his office without another word. The voices of my cousins and their husbands and my Aunt Donna echo from the direction of the dining room but I’m not in the mood to say hello.

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