9.

LUCA

"What have you gotten into, Luca?"

I let my head fall forward for a second and then looked up at my mom. "You just have to talk to her, Mamma, and then you'll understand."

"Understand what? That you're willing to risk a friendship that has been important to you since you were a small child for her? That you're willing to risk going to war with the men who have helped you get into the position you're in now for her? That you're willing to throw away everything that we've sacrificed to make sure you could take your rightful spot in the family? In the state? In the world? For her?"

"Exactly."

Mamma's eyes got wide, and she put her hands up in front of her mouth as tears filled her eyes. My dad stepped away from where he'd been leaning against the wall and wrapped his arms around my mother. He slowly ran his hand up and down her back, trying to soothe her, and I wondered if I'd somehow broken her.

Usually, when she was this worked up about something, she paced with her arms waving as she loudly cursed in a mixture of Italian, English, and Bronx. That was a dialect in and of itself, and anyone who had encountered a true Bronx native knew that. But Mamma wasn't ranting now. She was crying, a situation that I'd rarely ever seen - usually only when someone close to her passed or one of her children had done something that made her . . .

"Are those happy tears, Mamma?"

"You love her, Luca," my mom wailed into Papà's chest. Papà frowned at me over her shoulder and then closed his eyes when my mom sobbed loudly. Like me, he wasn't sure what to do with this version of Mamma because even as long as they'd been married, he'd probably only seen it a handful of times. Mamma leaned her head back and looked up at Papà before she whispered, "My baby's in love, Carlo."

"You just can't do anything the easy way, can you?" Papà asked with a wry grin as Mamma collapsed against his chest again. He shook his head and laughed softly before he said, "I'm not sure why I should expect any different, but occasionally, I slip up and forget."

"I want to marry her."

"I'll help her plan the wedding, Luca," Mom promised. "We'll talk to Father Vincent on Monday and . . ."

"I want to marry her before I take her to Zach."

"What?Why?"

"If she's my wife . . . I don't want anything to happen to her."

"Oh, Luca," Mamma said before she sniffed back a fresh round of tears. "What have you done?"

"Nothing yet, but I'm going to try and convince her as soon as she wakes up."

"You should talk to your brother first, Luca. You can't do something like this behind his back."

"He'll argue."

"He's your other half, Luca. You know what I mean when I say that."

I nodded. Mamma was right. Matteo and I were two parts of a whole. We always had been. We were opposites in temperament, and that had always worked well for us. I was calm and rational when he was loud and erratic. I was the kind to sit back and think things through while he was the one that rushed headlong into any situation.

Well, that was usually how we were, but we'd apparently swapped positions recently.

"I can't tell him, Mamma. Not until it's done. That way if there are problems with the others, he can honestly say he didn't have any part in the deception."

"That's a horrible position to put him in, Luca," Papà said with a frown.

"And forcing him to be part of something that could blow up our entire life isn't? If he doesn't know, then he'll be able to stay at the table even if they don't ever trust me to sit at it again."

"You'd give all of that up for this woman?" Mamma asked as she pulled out of Papà's arms and walked toward me. She reached out and touched my cheek before she asked, "Is she that important to you?"

"I love her."

"You barely know her, son," Papà said angrily.

"I know that she's grumpy when she wakes up. I know that she does this little happy dance when she gets to eat the food she's been craving. I know that she sings off-key when she thinks no one can hear her and bows her head to say a quick prayer before every meal. I know that she works hard, harder than a woman in her situation should have to, and does it without a single complaint. I know that she loves her daughter more than life itself and has worked hard to give her the life she deserves even after her entire family abandoned her. I know that she loves those babies she's carrying even though they're not her biological children. I know that she's sacrificed her entire life to protect them from an evil she doesn't even understand."

"You do love her."

"I do, but she doesn't even know that. Tonight was the first time she let me get close to her, to be alone with her, and we ended up here."

"She has a little girl, Luca. You have to love . . ."

"I just met Ember tonight, but I feel like I've known her forever," I interrupted. "Lou talks about her all the time. She gets this light in her eyes every time her name is mentioned, and her smile is brighter than the sun when she talks about her. I want to get that light, too, and someday, I want us to share it when we have children of our own."

"Oh, baby," Mamma said with a sob. "La ami davvero."

"I do love her, Mamma, and when you get to know her, you will too."

"I saw how she reacted when she woke up in a strange place and didn't know what was happening to her daughter, Luca. I might not love her yet, but I understand her better than you may think."

My mom and dad had arrived at the hospital seconds before Storm Tabitha touched down in the middle of the emergency room. They'd witnessed a scene that was so chaotic, even I wasn't quite sure exactly what had happened.

I had been talking to Tabitha when she suddenly fell forward onto Ember who had been sleeping on the gurney between us. Tabitha's weight jostled Ember's injured arm, and she screamed and tried to get away. Tabitha woke abruptly and stood straight up. In the next second, her eyes fluttered, and her momentum took her straight back. Even over Ember's screams, I heard the loud thump when Tabitha's head hit the floor, and I was torn on who to help first - the little girl or the pregnant woman.

Luckily, the nurses had heard the commotion and rushed into the room. One of them helped me try to settle Ember down while the other squatted down beside Tabitha to check on her. The nurse had a vial in her pocket and squirted it into Ember's mouth when she opened it to let out another ear-piercing scream. The nurse assured me that she had control of Ember, so I rushed around the bed and picked up Tabitha and laid her on the gurney another nurse had wheeled into the room.

Mamma and Papà appeared, and I knew that my uncle had called them after he made arrangements for the orthopedic specialist to see Ember. The nurse was assessing Tabitha's head injury when she suddenly woke up again. Ember was still screaming, and this time, Tabby didn't pass out instantly. No, she blacked one nurse's eye, broke another's nose, and threw me to the ground, all in her quest to get across the room to Ember.

Three steps from Ember's bed, Tabitha went down again, but this time, I was able to catch her before she hit the floor and lay her down on the gurney. Just seconds after that, I looked up and found my parents still standing in the doorway, both of them clearly taken aback at the scene they'd just watched.

I laughed quietly at the memory of that chaos and looked over at Ember and then Tabby, sleeping soundly within arm's reach of each other.

"What's funny about any of this, son?" Mamma asked.

"Earlier this evening, Lou mentioned that she didn't know how to defend herself and asked me to teach her."

"That wasn't defending herself, Luca. That was defending her child. A mother can find strength she never knew she had when it comes to her kids. The most sane woman can turn into a psychotic animal in their defense," Papà explained. "I've seen your mother that way more than a few times over the years."

"She woke up to her daughter screaming, whether it was pain or fear, and the first thing she thought was that she had to get to her. It didn't matter who was in the way or what she had to do to help her. That tells me almost everything I need to know about the woman you claim to love."

"I want to protect them. I'm not sure why or where such a big emotion came from, but it's undeniably there," I admitted. "If I marry her, then they're part of us, and nothing can touch them."

"It could shatter your whole world if things go wrong," my mom reminded me.

"But I'll still have her in it and you and Papà too."

"And Matteo. He could never turn his back on you, Luca," Papà interjected.

"If it comes down to that, I'll make him. It will be my job to protect my family and his job to protect the family. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes, Luca," Mom said sadly. She sighed and then smiled at me before she asked, "You know what all of this means, don't you?"

"What?"

"I have a grandchild now."

"Beh, merda," Papà mumbled. When I grinned at him, he said, "She'll use your credit card for that, Luca, or you'll hear from me about it."

"I'll gladly give it to her."

◆◆◆

I saw Tabitha's eyes fluttering and whispered, "It's okay, Lou. No need to come up swinging this time." She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. For a split second, it seemed like she was going to smile at me, but then her eyes were filled with alarm, and her entire body tensed. "Ember's right here, Lou. She's sleeping."

"What happened?" Tabby groaned as she lifted her hand. She quickly realized there was a tube attached to it, and she stared at the IV needle taped there as she tried to remember what had gone down.

"You passed out and fell onto Ember. She woke up and started screaming. You woke up again and passed out just as quickly. We got you on a bed, and you woke up again and tried to get to her and then . . ."

"Let me guess. I passed out. That happened a few times when I was pregnant with Ember."

"It was a pattern," I said with a grin. "They gave both of you something to help you calm down."

"What about her arm?"

"X-rays show she did crack the bone. It's not a complete break, but her arm is fractured. The doctor set it in a cast, and we'll follow up at his office in a few days."

"Okay. Good. Now, why does my head feel like it's going to explode?"

"You hit it on the floor when you fell the second time."

"Did it crack open? I feel like it might have," Tabby mumbled as she lifted her other hand to touch the back of her head. She winced and said, "That's quite a bump, isn't it?"

"It is, but the skin didn't split, so you didn't need stitches."

"Good. I desperately need a haircut, but I'd rather not have it shaved. Am I going to get in trouble for . . . Did I punch a blonde?"

"You did."

"Am I going to jail?" Tabby whispered frantically.

"No. They tried to play it off as . . ."

"They? There was more than one?"

"You got a blonde and a redhead. If you add the fact that you knocked me down to the mix, I guess that means you got the trifecta. Most men I know would love to be able to say that but in a different scenario," I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Oh my God," Tabby moaned. "I'm sorry."

"I need to talk to you while we wait on the test results to come back," I told her.

"Test results? Is something wrong with the babies?"

"No. The doctor assessed you and said there were a few things that concerned her, so she drew some blood. Now we're just waiting for the lab to finish up so we can get your results."

"You're pregnant. Of course you feel like shit," Tabby said snidely as she imitated a man's deep timbre. "There's nothing wrong with you that birth won't cure."

"Did a doctor actually say that to you?" I asked.

"Yes. In more than one way."

"You had the wrong doctor."

"I had the doctor the clinic assigned to me that day. Maybe the next one I get will be a little more understanding."

"If she's not, I'll take care of it, and you'll get another one."

"Take care of it? Like with a bullet to the head or . . ."

"I'm not a fucking monster, Lou. Jeez."

"I don't even know who you are, Luca."

"We've been talking for weeks now, Lou. I've seen you almost every day, and when I don't get to see you in person, I talk to you by text or on the phone. You know me better than any woman ever has."

"If I did, I'd have known you are a mobster."

"I'm not Al Capone, Lou. I'm Luca."

"Luca Robono is the man I've gotten to know. Luca Russo is a whole different animal. If mobsters aren't that bad, then why do you have to marry me to keep me safe?"

"Have you been working with the Bovino brothers, Lou?"

"Who are they?"

"Frank and Geno."

"I don't know anyone by those names," Tabby insisted. Her eyes got wide and she said, "The liquor rep is named Frank and . . ."

"No, baby. Frank Bovino is connected to the mafia and has been gone longer than I've been alive. You've never met any friends of Simon's with those names? What about Darlene?"

"What do they have to do with anything?" Tabby asked in alarm. "Are they in danger?"

"How do you know Darlene, Lou?"

"I met her when I came to New York. She sat next to me on the bus and felt sorry for me, so she took me in until I could find Ember's father. Then I met Simon. He . . . uh . . . knew her through work."

"Simon was a prostitute?"

Tabby gasped and asked, "Why would you think that?"

I smiled at Tabby before I said, "The second Darlene saw me in the hall this evening, she knew who I was."

"Are you her boss?"

"We don't run prostitutes, Lou. We have nothing to do with anything like that and haven't for . . . since my brother and I took over the business."

"When was that?"

"Almost three years ago."

"And before that?"

I slowly nodded and said, "My uncle was in charge of the family and did things differently than my brother and I. That's how I met Darlene, but she wasn't as . . ." I cleared my throat and winced before I said, "Well paid back then."

"There was a change in management." I burst out laughing, and Tabby bit her lip and looked down at her hands. "That's when Simon started working at The Cork."

"Do you know who owns the bar? And the building where you live with him?"

"It's run by a management company."

"Yeah, but does he know the owners?"

"He talked to them on the phone last week, and that was the first time he'd ever spoken to them."

"And what did they say?" I asked. Tabby stared at me, and I asked again, "What did they say to him, Lou?"

"They asked him about me and the other girl that works at the bar. They wanted to know if we were pregnant."

"What did he tell them?"

"That we are. They asked how he met me, and he said I was a childhood friend that was helping him have children. That's our . . ." Tabby gulped and said, "That's our cover story. These are Simon's babies."

"Does Simon know the identity of their father?"

"Rebecca's boyfriend."

"My friend Zach's father."

"Yeah."

"Those children are your friend Brett's little brothers, too, Tabby."

"How do you know Brett?"

I smiled at Tabby and said, "She's living with Zach. She and the tiny terrorist moved in . . ."

"Coco?"

"Yeah. She's steadily been trying to kill Zach since the day she met him," I told her with a laugh. "She's a riot."

"How did Brett get involved with the mafia?"

"She asked us to help look for you."

"Oh."

"The Russians are looking for you too." I could tell by the tension in Tabby's face that she knew something about that. "Which ones have you met with, Tabby?"

Tabby looked up at me in shock. I always called her Lou, and suddenly, it seemed to sink in that I really knew who she was. "I've never met any Russians but . . ."

"But what? I need you to be honest with me, Lou. Put everything on the table. I can't protect you unless I know what's going on."

"I can't tell you," Tabby whispered as her eyes filled with tears. "You'll never understand and . . . I could be in big trouble."

"You're already in big trouble, sweetheart. It just hasn't caught up with you yet."

"I did something I'm not proud of, and I could go to prison forever." I stared at her, but Tabby wouldn't meet my eyes. "I don't know what happened after I left, but I had to go, Luca. I couldn't stay. I had to get Ember out of there and away from those people Rebecca was talking to."

"Who was she talking to? Frank and Geno or . . ."

"She mentioned a man's name, but it wasn't Italian. I think it was Russian. She was going to give him the babies once they were born. She was going to . . . I couldn't let her do that, Luca."

"What happened, Tabby?" She shook her head as the tears streamed down her face. I asked again. "Tell me. What happened?"

"I told her I was leaving, and she said I couldn't. She said she'd hurt Ember if I tried. The babies aren't mine, and she was going to take them. She grabbed Ember. I tried to get her away, but she hit me and I fell. When I got up, she was dragging Ember away by the arm, and I hit her. She started to fall, and I grabbed Ember and pushed Rebecca at the same time. She . . . she flipped over the railing and . . . I didn't mean to kill her, Luca. I was just trying to protect my daughter and the babies."

"And then you ran to Simon."

"Yeah. I told him what happened, and we came up with a story. I was going stir-crazy in the apartment, so he helped me get a new ID and then started letting me come downstairs and tend the bar."

"Your ID says you're Lou Painter?"

"Yes."

"I want you to marry me, Lou. I'll take care of you."

"But you're a criminal."

I snorted and asked, "And you're not?"

"I didn't mean to kill her. Technically, she was already falling and . . . I didn't actually kill her."

"Then how did she die?"

"Gravity."

I burst out laughing. "And you think I'm bad because I didn't tell you what I do for a living?"

"Is it a living, though?"

"Honey, it's more than a living. It's my life."