Page 34 of The Don

I kiss her arm. “My father had a gun on him at all times. He used to say that a man needed an army.” She goes stiff in my arms. “Or he needed tobean army. I’ve lived by those words since I was a boy.”

She cups my cheek with one warm palm and shakes her head. “That doesn’t sound like the kind of motto a kid should adopt.”

“Probably not,” I agree. “But I grew up in this world. My father was an enforcer for a capo in Rome. Even before I realized who he was, I knew. He used to come to us covered in sweat and blood, with flowers for my mother and a present for me. He’d stay for a few days, sometimes more, and then leave.”

“For…work?”

“And to be with his other family.”

“Oh,” she whispers, pained.

“He wasn’t a great man, but he was a provider. We never went hungry or cold. My mother never had to leave the house to work. She could devote herself entirely to taking care of me, whether I wanted to be babied or not.”

It’s been years since I’ve thought about my mother and even longer since I’ve spoken of her to anyone. I haven’t ever trusted another person — not even Giulio or Alfonso — with such intimate details of my past. Being able to do that with Shae feels like a weight I’ve been carrying on my back for decades is dissolving.

“She kept an immaculate home,” I tell Shae with a smile. “But she was not the best cook.”

“So, you cooked?” Shae laughs.

“Yes. At first, I just wanted to help her not burn dinner.” She giggles and squirms against me. “But then I realized that I enjoyed it.”

“That’s adorable.” Her hand caresses my cheek, and I close my eyes to enjoy her touch and her weight on me, hearing her soft breaths.

“I want you to understand the kind of family I come from, so this next part will make sense.”

She kisses the space between my eyes and whispers, “okay,” against my skin.

“Even though I grew up in this world, it didn’t touch me at first. I didn’t understand exactly who my father was or the kind of family he came from until much later. That’s why when I was a boy, my happiest moments came in the summer when my uncles came to Rome.”

“How many uncles?”

“Three. But we only ever saw them once a year.”

“Why?”

“Because they didn’t live in Italy. One lived in Brazil, one in Australia, and the other in America.”

“You have family in America?” She perks up with excitement. I hoped she would.

I nod. “Daniele. He was my favorite uncle, and he always brought his son, Dante, with him. He was my favorite cousin.”

“Yeah?”

I nod again. “My other uncles would come for a few weeks and then return home to their families, but Daniele and Dante would stay the entire summer. I thought it was because Daniele missed home, and maybe he did, but later I realized it was because he and my father had their own…” I shrug, trying to find the right word for their business endeavors, illegal as they were.

“They were criming,” Shae says nonchalantly, still caressing me. “I got it.”

I cannot help but laugh. “Yes. But I didn’t know that then. All I knew was that each summer, Daniele and Dante would arrive with gifts from America. My mother would try to make all of Dante’s favorite Italian foods — which were thankfully my favorite foods, so I could fix her mistakes. Every summer, he and I would be thick as thieves. I helped him with his Italian, and he returned the favor with my English.”

“I love that.” Her eyes have gone soft with emotion. I imagine tears might not be far off.

“Those summers were the happiest of my life before I met you.”

Shae’s smile falters. “What…what happened?”

For the first time in so long, I don’t swallow the pain and all the accompanying sadness. “My mother told me that my father wanted to leave the business. Maybe. I don’t know. I might never know. All I remember is that one day in the autumn, he left home and never returned. A few months later, we heard that my uncle in Australia had died in a car accident. My uncle in Brazil had a heart attack a month later, they said.”

Shae grabs my face with both hands, her eyes shining with tears.

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