8. Vinnie

8

VINNIE

I ’ve created a new definition of nauseating awkwardness.

It’s sitting next to your grandfather in a huge-ass living room, across from the eleven-year-old girl you’re supposed to take as your wife seven years down the pike.

Declan McAllister sits next to his daughter, Belinda.

Belinda looks every bit the eleven-year-old girl. No signs of puberty yet. Just a little girl dressed in what can only be described as a pink party dress complete with ruffles and lace, white bobby socks, and black patent-leather Mary Janes.

All I can see is Savannah.

Savannah, who was ten years old when I left the country. She looked a lot like this little girl. No body shape yet, nothing to indicate she would one day be a woman.

Belinda sits with her hands in her lap, not looking at any of us, including her own father.

Grandfather and I are each nursing a bourbon. Declan drinks Irish whiskey. And Belinda?

A Shirley Temple.

Jesus Christ.

A Shirley fucking Temple.

Grandfather and Declan are discussing business. Nothing super detailed, of course. There’s a child present. Just a few odds and ends. I listen intently, acting as if I care.

I nod, give a grunt of approval every now and then.

When they’re finally finished, McAllister clears his throat. “We have a special treat for you, gentlemen. Belinda has just perfected the Chopin waltz in C-sharp minor. She would be honored to play for you.”

“Of course,” Grandfather says. “And we will be honored to hear it, won’t we Vincent?”

I force a smile. “Absolutely.”

Belinda rises from the loveseat where she sits next to her father and walks over to the black lacquer Steinway. She sits down on the bench daintily, and she closes her eyes for a moment. When she opens them, she places her fingers on the keys and begins to play.

I don’t know anything about music, but her playing is excellent, to my ear at least. She’s playing from memory, as no music is sitting in front of her.

I’ve heard this piece before. I’m not sure where, maybe from a commercial. It’s in a minor key, so it has a certain somberness to it. But it still has the lilting three-quarter time of a waltz. Belinda’s fingers, perfectly curled, fly over the keys as she plays a series of runs up and down the scale. Then the music shifts to a more hopeful major key for an all-too-brief moment, before another series of runs brings us back to the dark theme where we started.

Just like this damned business I’ve gotten myself into. No matter how good things can get—and with Raven, things got pretty freaking good—I always end up in the dark tonality of my grandfather’s shadow. Never escaping. It’s like Chopin wrote my fucking life story.

When she’s finally finished, she closes her eyes for a moment and then lifts her fingers from the keys.

McAllister begins to clap, and Grandfather and I follow suit.

Belinda rises, walks toward us, gives a short curtsy.

Grandfather nudges me. This means I’m supposed to say something to my future bride. This little girl before me.

Again I force a smile, although I’m not sure why I bother. She hasn’t looked at me once, and I can’t blame her.

“That was lovely, Belinda,” I say. “How long have you been playing the piano?”

“Since I was five,” she says.

I nod. “It’s pretty amazing. I don’t know much about music. But it sounds like you’re playing at a virtuoso level.”

“Oh, she is,” McAllister says. “Belinda is quite the prodigy. We don’t have any musical talent in our family either, so we were really surprised when her kindergarten tutor brought her talent to our attention.”

“Oh?” I say. “How did that happen, Belinda?”

Still standing in front of me but not looking at me, she says, “There’s a piano in all the classrooms at my private school. Or there used to be.” She looks at her feet. “I don’t go there anymore. One day, I just sat down at it and started to play something.”

“What did you play?”

“Just a tune I had heard on TV.”

“And you figured out which notes were the right ones? Without any training?”

She nods slowly. “It was like sounding out a word you don’t know.”

“That’s fascinating.”

“Indeed it is,” McAllister agrees. “We found out she has perfect pitch, and that she can play by ear. Simply hear something and then sit down and play it.”

“But how did you know which keys to use?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “I figured it out.”

Damn. This little girl has a talent. She’s a prodigy. And her father’s hope is for her to marry a man over twenty years her senior and be an obedient little Mafia wife.

So many things wrong with this picture.

“Mr. McAllister.” The housekeeper enters, interrupting us.

“Yes, Dena?”

“Lunch is served.

“Thank you.” McAllister rises and holds out his hand to Belinda, who curls her little fingers into it. “Come. Dena has prepared one of Belinda’s favorites. Shepherd’s pie.”

Shepherd’s pie? A hot meal during summer in Texas? Well, at least this house has perfect air-conditioning.

We follow McAllister and Belinda into the large dining room.

Four places are set. One at the head of the table, where I assume McAllister will sit. Then two on his left and one on his right.

Belinda scrambles into the seat next to her father on the right.

“Vinnie,” McAllister says. “You sit next to Belinda, and Mario, you’re here next to me.”

Awkward just got a million times worse.

But I keep my forced smile on my face. Am I supposed to hold up the chair for her?

Thank God McAllister does it.

It’s okay for a father to hold out a chair for his daughter.

For a thirty-four-year-old man who’s supposed to marry her once she’s legal?

Not so much.

It would just feel all…wrong.

Everything about this feels wrong.

Does Belinda even know that she’s supposed to marry me when she turns eighteen?

I could’ve asked Grandfather, but I try not to think about these things.

By the time Belinda is eighteen, I’m hoping my Grandfather will be dead and buried and this family legacy is burned to ashes.

Grandfather, McAllister, and I then take our seats. The butler—yes, McAllister has a butler, just like my grandfather—serves shepherd’s pie, Irish soda bread, and red wine from a decanter. From a separate decanter, he pours something that looks like apple juice into the wine glass next to Belinda’s plate.

This is just unreal.

Then, in what seems really out of place, McAllister takes Belinda’s hand. “Shall we say grace?”

Am I supposed to take Belinda’s hand?

God, please no.

But she grabs my hand, so what to do? I dart a glance toward McAllister, who takes my grandfather’s hand.

This is so very strange.

McAllister says a few words of gratitude for the meal, but I’m not listening. All I’m thinking about is how wrong this little girl’s hand feels in mine.

It feels like a child’s hand. Which of course is what it is.

When the prayer is over, Belinda releases my hand, but something feels…

I look down in my palm. Belinda has placed a piece of paper in it.

What’s going on?

I discreetly place it in my pocket. I look over at Belinda, hoping to meet her gaze to somehow tell her that yes, I got her message.

But she’s still not looking at me.

I won’t have a chance to look at the paper until we’re done with this godforsaken lunch.

“Dig in,” McAllister says. “Dena is an amazing cook.”

I draw a breath and place my cloth napkin across my lap, thinking again of the paper in my pocket.

I take a bite of shepherd’s pie and bring it to my mouth. Despite the fact that I’m not hungry at all, it is delicious. The whipped potatoes on top of the pie are creamy and flavorful, and the filling is savory and delicious.

I butter a piece of soda bread and bring that to my mouth next.

A little bland, but oddly hearty. I take a sip of water to get it down, and then I try the wine.

It’s good. A basic red table wine, Italian, I think. Not overly nuanced, but it pairs perfectly with the shepherd’s pie. I would’ve thought McAllister would pull out all the stops for this lunch, but he’s serving us basic red wine.

Which is of course fine with me.

Because God knows I need a fucking drink. The bourbon didn’t quite get me where I need to be to get through this painful ordeal.

Then again, I want my wits about me. Things could go south between my grandfather and McAllister at any time.

“Vinnie,” McAllister says, “how’s your golf game?”

Oh my God, seriously? We’re mobsters. We don’t play golf. Do we?

“Nonexistent,” I say.

He raises an eyebrow. “We’ll have to change that. The best deals are made over golf games, right, Mario?”

Does my grandfather golf? I should know that.

“I don’t think golf will be my thing, Declan,” I say. “I prefer to do business in an office. Or over a drink.”

“We all enjoy that,” McAllister says.

Belinda sits next to me, looking at her plate the whole time. She still hasn’t made eye contact with any of us that I can see.

She’s been trained well. Be a good woman and stay put and shut up.

But she’s also been trying to stand out as a piano prodigy.

The poor little girl. She deserves so much more than what she has been born into.

Thank God Savannah didn’t suffer this fate.

My own mother did. She was married off at eighteen. Grandfather’s only child, and he chose my father for her. I’m sure he had a reason for that, though he doesn’t seem to think much of my father anymore.

There’s a story there that I don’t know. A story I’ll need to ferret out. I need to find every skeleton in my grandfather’s closet if I’m going to take him down.

We finish our lunch with small talk among the three of us grown-ups while Belinda continues to be silent.

Our plates are clear, and dessert arrives. Simple vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce.

“Belinda’s favorite again,” McAllister announces. “The caramel sauce is homemade.”

“You have excellent taste, Belinda,” my grandfather says. “Who needs chocolate when you can have vanilla?”

“Belinda is allergic to chocolate,” McAllister says. “So we’ve learned to really love vanilla in this household.” He slowly moves his gaze onto me. “It was Miles’s favorite too.”

Dead silence.

Miles, who tried to rape Savannah, and he was ready to kill Falcon until my father killed him.

And here we all are, eating shepherd’s pie and ice cream, talking as if none of that ever happened. Like we’re just all the best fucking friends.

I can’t help turning to look at Belinda when her older brother is mentioned.

She’s tugging on her lower lip with her teeth. It’s the first time I’ve seen any kind of facial expression from her at all.

He was her big brother.

He may have been a rapist, a criminal, and a genuine piece of shit, but maybe he was nice to her. Who the hell knows?

Everybody has family.

Christ. Puzo had a wife and kids, too. He may have been a mobster piece of shit, but he had people who loved him and depended on him. Maybe his wife knew what he was doing to support their lavish lifestyle. But his kids certainly didn’t. And his nanny, apparently an old friend of Raven’s, couldn’t have known about his dealings.

I force the thought out of my head. He was a bad man. The world is better off with him gone.

More small talk as we finish our dessert.

Finally, the butler comes in to clear the table.

McAllister rises. “Gentlemen, would you like to join me for a cigar on the veranda?”

A young woman enters. “Miss Belinda, it’s time for your afternoon lesson.”

Belinda looks up at her father.

He nods slightly at her. “Go ahead, darling.”

Belinda rises from her chair, still not making eye contact with any of us. “It was lovely to meet all of you,” she says and then follows the young woman—her nanny?—out of the dining room.

Only then, while my grandfather rises and is otherwise engaged talking to McAllister, do I have a chance to pull out the note in my pocket.

My heart stops as I glance at it.

Please help me.