Bastiano Romano: A Standalone Mafia Romance Novel (The Five Syndicates Book 4) by Parker S. Huntington (26)

I didn’t see Bastian the following day. Probably for the best. I wouldn’t have known what to say if I had. I just wanted to finish my shift in peace and give myself time to think about turning in my badge to Wilks.

Turning in my badge.

I couldn’t believe it had come to this. I didn’t know much about myself, but I knew giving up went against my very nature, because every time I thought about it, frustration and anger and resentment would bubble in my throat, practically demanding I continue with my legend when my heart fought so hard against it.

When the bar closed, and everyone had relegated closing duties to me before I’d even had a chance to volunteer, Vincent Romano entered the bar alone. No security guards trailing behind him.

Just him.

I coiled walls around my mind, everything in me alert as the head enforcer for the Romano family strode my way. His bespoke suit and tailored button-down spoke of money, but he looked worn out.

Fine lines of wrinkles piled onto his forehead like rippled sand dunes in a desert. His cheeks had sunken in a little. He looked like my aunt after her cancer had sucked the soul out of her. Though he had vibrant dark hair, it had lost most of its fullness, and that fit body of his had lost some of its mass since I’d last seem him, too.

I shouldn’t have, but I lowered my guard. A little. It was the eyes. Vincent Romano had a hardened exterior, but when he looked at me, those clear blue eyes spoke of kindness. Putty. I should have been hard as a rock, but this cover had turned me into putty.

If I were being honest, I liked it. I didn’t want to be hardened or jaded. That wasn’t a way to live. Look at Bastian. I’d never met a man so on edge, and he seemed miserable.

I ran a rag along the bar top and gave Vince a slight smile. “It’s just me here. I think your nephew left a while ago. I haven’t actually seen him today.”

“I’m not here for him. I’m here for you.”

I froze and stared at him, doing my best not to look flustered. “Oh.”

“You’re pretty well-spoken for a Degory alumna.”

My lips quirked up. Who would have thought I’d be sitting alone in a bar, passing lighthearted jabs with the enemy of my family?

“That’s what people tell me. Can I get you anything?”

“A scotch, please, darling.” He coughed a little, and I considered getting him a glass of water instead. He really did look bad.

I poured a glass of top-shelf scotch and slid it his way, genuine concern etching my brows together as I set the bottle beside his glass and asked, “Are you okay?”

He let loose a long sigh. “I’m old.”

Not really. I’d say late fifties. Maybe just short of sixty. Not even retirement age in this country.

I stood there, waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, I tried to break the awkwardness I felt. “I’m just about done closing up…”

“Stay. Please.” He kicked the leg of the chair next to him, sliding the bar stool out for me.

I stared at him a moment, studying the tired lines under his eyes before nodding. “Yeah, okay.” I grabbed a bottle from beneath the bar. It was an old bottle of vodka I’d filled with water for when customers bought me shots, but I needed to stay sober. Topping a glass with ice, I capped it with the fake vodka and rounded the bar to take a seat beside him.

My marks usually let their guards down when they thought I was drinking beside them. I had no doubt Vincent Romano was always on high alert, but it didn’t hurt to be proactive.

“What’s your favorite thing about living?”

“Pardon me?”

“If you had to choose one thing to do before you died, what would it be?”

“I’m…not sure.” I floundered for an answer. I’d been asked all sorts of questions as a bartender but none like that one.

“You can’t think of a single thing?”

“I—” The compounded lies in my life compelled me to answer with the truth. “No. I’m still figuring myself out. What I like. What I dislike. My family’s gone, so I wouldn’t be able to spend time with them. I’m not in a relationship. Other than Tessie, I don’t really have any ties to people. And anything other than spending time with somebody feels unworthy of the last few moments in my life.”

“I knew I liked you.”

I let loose a laugh that I hoped didn’t sound as alarmed as I felt. “With all due respect, Mr. Romano, you don’t even know me.”

“For the purposes of this conversation, pretend I do.”

“Umm, okay…”

He laughed a little, and it shook his frame. He seemed so different than what I’d thought a head enforcer would be, from the awful stories my aunt had told me about Made Men and the damage they’d done to my mom’s life.

“I’m a grown man. I don’t pussyfoot. I’ll say it. I like you. No, not like that. I like you as a person.”

“Why?”

I didn’t even like myself.

I mean, I liked the vain things—how I looked, my intellect, the way I cared for other people and animals, the weird skills I’d acquired under my various covers. But the darker parts of me, the parts that could betray others like they meant nothing… they were not worth liking.

“My son, Asher, got married today.”

That was why I hadn’t seen Bastian today.

Thank you, Asher Black.

Words I’d never thought I’d feel let alone think.

Vince practically inhaled the rest of his scotch before he continued, “His wife Lucy is wonderful.”

“Congratulations.” It sounded like an unenthusiastic question, so I repeated my congratulations and tacked on, “Asher must be so happy.”

“He is. So am I. When I leave this world, I want to know my family is okay. Asher… he’ll do great things, as will Lucy. They’ve both got great heads on their shoulders.”

“I think some would say Asher has already done great things.”

Black Enterprises was a Fortune 100.

“They’d be right, of course. But now he’s found someone, and that makes all the difference to the parts of his life that truly matter. You were the one who said it seems insignificant to spend the last moments of your life without someone.”

“I did,” I allowed, feeling uneasy at having my loneliness rubbed in my face. Not that I thought he’d meant it like that. It just never got easy to swallow my solitude.

Vince poured himself some more of the scotch. “I’m not married. Never have been. That’s a lonely life. I’ve loved a woman, but we never married. I’d rather Asher live a humble life with someone who made him happy than the life of a billionaire entrepreneur with every material object at the tip of his fingers except someone who matters. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to choose between the two because he found Lucy.”

I didn’t know where he was going with this, so I nodded my head, took a sip of my fake vodka, and said, “Mhm.”

He matched my sip with his own. “My brothers…They’re of a different generation. Jumping from woman to woman and living an emotionally distant life doesn’t make them unhappy. Their goals are different. I don’t have to worry about them in that way. This lifestyle was meant for them, not my nephews and sons. Not Bastian.”

My eyes jerked to his. “Bastian seems miserable, but it gives him no right to project that misery onto others. He’s not a nice person, and it makes him unpleasant to be around unless Tessie is there as a buffer. Even that is debatable.”

He nodded, but a fond smile spread across his face. “You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who disagrees with anything you just said.” He turned to stare at me. “Has he told you about Elsa?”

“No.”

I hadn’t heard her name from the files either.

“Ask him about Elsa.”

“You won’t tell me?”

“It’s not my story to tell.”

“It’s not my business anyway. I’m just an employee.”

“We both know you’re not.”

My eyes darted around the room. I didn’t know how to take that. What the hell did that mean, and how would Vincent Romano know anything about me and Bastian? Bastian and I weren’t anything to know about in the first place.

I settled with a question. “Why are you here?”

“Closure.”

“What closure can I offer you? I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t know you.”

“Word of advice, darling—it’s never too late to get closure. Life happens. You live one second; you die the next. If there are loose threads when that time comes, you’ll take them to your grave, and everyone you know and love will hurt for it. If you care about the people in your life, you handle your business when you can.”

“I don’t have anyone in my life.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“Tessie told me about you and Bastian.”

“She’s a kid. Eight.”

“And she’s bright, but she’s not my only source of information. I have eyes and ears everywhere, little De Luca.”

I stiffened like a corpse, unmoving as I took in the way he said my last name and what, if anything, his intonation implied. Swallowing my uncertainty, I asked, “What do your eyes and ears tell you?”

“That there’s something between you and my nephew.”

“He’s not a nice person.”

“Bastian isn’t a nice person, but he’s a good one.”

“We don’t… We’re not…”

“I know.”

I turned to face him. “You know?”

“I know who you are, Miss De Luca.”

It was reflex to reach for my hip, where my weapon would have been holstered if I wasn’t undercover.

Vince’s lips tilted up at the movement, and he gave me a knowing smile. “I wouldn’t be who I am if I didn’t have eyes and ears everywhere. I knew who you were the second you entered this bar. In fact, I knew who you were before that. Not much happens in the syndicate world without my knowing, including the mistress of the De Luca boss giving birth to a baby girl named Ariana De Luca.”

“I-I—” I couldn’t form words as I struggled to accept the information he dished me.

Was this where I begged for my life? Did he want me on my hands and knees, pleading for mercy? Fear strangled me, and I gasped for breath.

He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Breathe.”

His touch only made it worse, and I coughed, hacking air out of my lungs in my struggle to breathe.

Breathe, Ari. He’s right. Just breathe.

He knew I was a De Luca, but that didn’t mean he knew I was an FBI agent. I could make him see reason about my family ties. The De Luca family and the Romano family didn’t have a blood feud like the Andretti family did with them.

And blood feuds… they could only be paid in kind. An Andretti caporegime had died, which meant a Romano caporegime had to die to end the feud. That was Gio, Eli, or Vince. I couldn’t see any one of them dying, so the feud would never end. Generations and generations of unborn Romano and Andretti children, destined to fight one another until their dying breath. It was sad and pointless.

“I’ve never…” I swallowed my hesitation, wishing yet again that I had more practice in the field, more practice guarding my fear and emotions. “I’ve never met a De Luca.”

“I know.” He paused a beat. “You have a brother.”

“My aunt told me he’s about my age.”

“Yes. He’s taken over the De Luca syndicate from your father.”

I knew this thanks to the FBI files, but of course I couldn’t say that, so I nodded my head and kept my mouth shut.

Vince continued, “He’s not a bad kid. He’s rebuilt the syndicate in ways your father never could. Years of neglect are hard to unravel, but he’s done a great job. He has a good head on his shoulders.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Have you ever considered visiting him?”

Have I ever considered dying?

“No.”

“He wouldn’t hurt you.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“For one, it’d be stupid to harm an FBI agent. Too much heat.”

I froze once again, shocked by his knowledge. My identity had been wiped, like it was each time I entered a new legend. The only way he could know that was if there was a mole in my division.

I laughed a little, forcing out bits of noise I hoped sounded amused. “You’re funny.”

“Yes, I am, but I’m not right now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’d think a legend would be better at lying, but I suppose you’ve only had small legends up until now.”

Oh, god. How much did he know?

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I felt stripped to the core by a man who looked so fragile right now but could tear me apart and feed me to the whales in the Hudson River.

He drained the last of his drink and didn’t pour himself another one. “I’m an old man. My time has long come. It’s not in my interest to harm you when you’ve yet to harm my family, and I know you wouldn’t.”

He couldn’t possibly know that. I’d only just come to this decision. I needed an extraction now. I needed to fumble out an excuse to leave, call Wilks on the emergency burner phone, and beg for an extraction team to save me.

“Sometimes,” he continued, “the people furthest from a situation see it clearest. I’ve been watching you since you came to L’Oscurità, and I’ve been watching my nephew. Have you heard of Jupiter and Ganymede?”

He didn’t wait for my answer. “In Roman mythology, Jupiter captures Ganymede and makes him his lover. I know my nephew. I know he seems difficult to love, even like, but he isn’t. And you may not want to admit it, but there’s something there between you two. You feel like he’s captured a piece of you, and you can’t shake it off. You’ve tried because of your last name, because of your duty to the FBI, but no matter what, you can’t shake it off. Do you want to know why?”

“Why?” I breathed out, too breathless, my mind reeling, trying to contain everything bubbling near the surface of my heart.

Fear.

Truth.

Warmth.

“Because he didn’t capture you, little De Luca. You captured him. You are Jupiter, and he is Ganymede. He revolves around you, whether he knows it or not, transfixed by the way you’ve captured his attention, by the way you fight back, by the way you differ from every woman he’s ever loved or hated or been betrayed by, by the way you are with Tessie, and by the way he wonders how you would be with Everett.”

Everett.

Who was Everett?

I couldn’t process his words. There were too many things packed into them. I didn’t love Bastian. I didn’t even like Bastian. We fought and volleyed insults back and forth until our only truce came along in the form of Tessie, yet another thing we couldn’t agree upon.

But you told him about your mom, and he told you about his pain.

I ignored my thoughts and breathed out the only question I could latch onto. “Everett?”

Vince ignored my question. “You are Jupiter, and he is Ganymede, revolving around you like you are his planet, and he is your moon.”

“Jupiter is a man.”

“You’re finding shallow excuses to deny something you know in your heart is true.”

“Why? Why are you saying this to me?” I didn’t want to push my luck, but I needed to know. “Why aren’t I buried in a shallow grave or whatever you do with people like me?”

“I just wanted you to know, when all is said and done, you have my blessing.”

“For what?”

“To heal him. To save him. To cure him. To be his family when I cannot.”