Page 98 of Star Crossed
Chapter Nineteen
Romeo left the keys to the Ferrari under the mat at the front door of the lake house. He couldn’t handle saying good-bye to Tino a second time, and he surely didn’t want Jules to see him come apart.
He was thinking Tino was already four shots to getting shit-faced and hadn’t noticed them pull up when he spied the crack in the curtains at the window. The small streak of light broke into the darkness, and Romeo could just picture Tino, paranoid as all hell, 9mm in hand, checking to see who it was.
Tino knew they were there, but he didn’t come out. He wasn’t up for another good-bye either, or just as likely, he didn’t want Jules to see him crying any more than Romeo did.
Even still, Romeo found himself walking up to the window. He placed his palm against the cool glass, and after a few seconds Tino’s hand pressed against the other side. They stood there for a few seconds until Romeo felt his eyes getting watery and he turned away.
He got into Jules’s car. There was a brief battle with the passenger seat as he pushed it back far enough to make room for his long legs.
“We’re good?” Jules asked softly.
“Yeah.” Romeo choked, letting his head fall back against the seat, swallowing hard against the urge to break down.
“Okay.” Jules backed up down the driveway.
Romeo let himself feel the throb inside his skull, using the concussion to distract him. Jules had upped the ache in his ribs when she jumped on him, and they hurt enough for breathing to be hard. He should have more than enough to distract him, but it wasn’t working.
As Jules pulled onto the long, dark back road, Romeo found himself saying, “My ma was beautiful. You can see a lot of her in Tino. She was Sicilian, second generation. She actually spoke Italian, which isn’t as common anymore, but that was her parents’ first language, and it was all they spoke at home.”
“You didn’t know your grandparents?”
“No, they disowned her when she had me at seventeen. I never cared to know them.”
“Oh,” Jules said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“When I was six, my ma met a guy named Frankie Moretti. He was handsome and rich and charming. He bought her nice things and made life a little less hard for us.”
“I can see why that’d be appealing to a young, single mother.”
“Frankie is the son of Aldo Moretti, head of the largest crime family in New York. He’s the only legitimate child the Don had and he is spoiled as fuck because of it,” Romeo admitted, feeling like he was spilling out poison. “I think my ma was compelling to him—old-school, a throwback to days gone past. She was hisgoomahfor a while before—”
“Goomah?”
“Girlfriend…on the side,” Romeo clarified, wincing as he added, “Frankie’s married.”
“Okay.” Jules sounded surprisingly nonjudgmental.
“He was pissed when Nova came along.” Romeo closed his eyes. Just saying Nova’s name made him hurt. “Goomahs aren’t supposed to get knocked up. He had no interest in him, but he still wanted my mother. He stopped coming over to our house. He didn’t want to see the baby, but my ma still met him places.”
“She kept seeing him after he rejected his son?” Jules turned to give him a look.
“Yeah.” Romeo couldn’t blame Jules’s judgment for that when he agreed, but despite the bitterness a nostalgic smile tugged at his lips. “But it’s a good thing she did. We got Tino two years later, and he was the cutest baby. He was a lot of fun. They both were.”
“What’d Frankie do when your mother got pregnant a second time?”
Romeo shrugged. “He was sort of ambivalent at that point. My ma wasn’t one to force the kids on him, and she didn’t ask him for extra to support them. They were hers, and I guess he figured if she wanted a houseful of little mafiosi brats, what the fuck did he care? He didn’t buy things like he did when they first met. We were poor, and Frankie was fine with that too. He didn’t give a shit if my ma was working two jobs to feed his sons.”
“I get the impression there’s no love lost between you and Frankie.”
“He’s the one we’re running from.” Romeo raised his eyebrows when Jules turned to look at him in surprise. “I’ve always hated him, and I was very vocal about it.”
“Can’t say I blame you for that.”
“By the time Tino was born, we knew there was something special about Nova.”
“Special how?”
