Funerals were not usually events that Mac liked to attend. But who did, really? This particular funeral was not quite the same.
He had more reasons than he could count for why he needed to pay his respects to Neeya Pivetti.
Mac opened the back door to the town car, and offered his hand to his wife. Melina still wouldn’t ride in the back of a limo after everything, not that Mac blamed her. She stood at her full height by his side. Her hand smoothed down the black Versace dress she wore, while her other tipped the wide brim of her sun hat down just enough to hide her face from the people who turned to look at them from the gallery.
He could still see her face, though.
And it kind of broke his heart.
“You okay?” he asked.
Melina nodded. “It’s harder than I thought it would be, that’s all.”
“What is?”
He didn’t know what she would say.
Melina didn’t fail to surprise him. “You say goodbye, and it’s final after this. I’ve had very few people in my life who I would rather not say goodbye to. Neeya is one of them.”
Mac supposed his wife’s large brim hat made a lot more sense, in the grand scheme of things. Or rather, he better understood why she was wearing it. Melina was—always—strong, resilient, in control, and detached even in her highest emotions. She had learned to be those things, and today, perhaps she was struggling in those departments.
“It’s meant to be a short ceremony, doll. We will be out of here before you know it, and back in the privacy of our home.”
Where she could do whatever she needed without people watching her. Cry, grieve, or be sad and quiet. Whatever.
“I wish that helped,” she murmured sadly.
So did Mac.
“Come on, Melina.”
She took his arm, and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow as they walked towards the crowd gathering on the steps of the church. As far as Mac knew, because rumors traveled through the grapevine of made men, Neeya’s father had taken care of the funeral arrangements. There was word the man had also visited with Luca, too, but Mac hadn’t been able to confirm that was true, or get a meeting with Massimo to ask.
The man likely was busy.
Mac let it drop, though he also wanted to speak with Luca, or someone who had spoken with the boss. Especially after seeing Anthony at the prison. Massimo, however, did not answer to Mac, or any other made man, for that matter. He couldn’t demand the man’s presence and expect a result that would be in his favor.
Neither Mac, nor Melina, bothered to stop and speak with some of the familiar people on the church steps. He kept his wife close, and directed her through the parting crowd, before they entered the church. Hints of vanilla and incense clung to the air, and a sea of black clothing moved all around them.
Mac wasn’t paying much attention to any of that, as his attention was snagged by his stiffening wife, and the way her gaze darted to the very front of the church. A shined, black casket sat high on the altar, closed up tight, with a large arrangement of lilies, roses, and gardenias covering nearly the entire top.
The style of the flower arrangement matched the ones connecting shimmering tulle between each pew.
Mac reached for one of the arrangements, curious why someone would want such delicate, pretty arrangements for something like a funeral.
A voice from behind stopped him.
“Careful with those,” a male voice said, “they’re not meant to be played with before it’s time.”
Mac turned to find an unfamiliar face watching him and Melina. Still, he had heard enough about the man, and Melina described him well enough, for Mac to know he was staring at Neeya’s father—Massimo.
With a deep olive complexion to speak of his Italian ancestry, standing just an inch taller than Mac, and dressed in all black, Massimo smiled.
“It’s Mac, Mac Maccari, correct?” Massimo asked
“Or James, depending on who’s trying to piss me off that day,” Mac replied.
Massimo’s stony features cracked with a smile. “I was told your friends call you Mac.”
“Which friends are those?”
“The only ones that should matter.”
Touché.
Mac nodded to the bushels of flower arrangements on each pew. “I was thinking those seem more appropriate for a wedding than a funeral.”
“Neeya’s favorite flowers,” Massimo supplied, “and it’s a time to celebrate my daughter, not grieve.”
“Good point. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Most don’t. Society would rather us mourn our dead. We should celebrate the joy they brought into our lives, before we send them off with a smile. We’ve been taught it’s not appropriate to be happy in times like these, only sadness and solemnness will do. I won’t have that for my Neeya.”
“How are the girls?” Melina asked, stepping into the conversation for the first time.
Massimo’s gaze swung to her instantly. “Better, thank you for asking. We were lucky enough to get them a private sitting with their father before the funeral, so that’s why they aren’t here just yet.” He glanced down at his watch, adding, “They’ll be coming anytime, now.”
“And how is Luca?” Mac dared to ask.
“Like his daughters, I suppose.”
“Better, then?”
Massimo shrugged. “Better than he was.”
“So you have spoken with him,” Mac stated.
The man’s dark eyes lit up with some unknown emotion, mixed with a touch of mirth. As fast as Mac had seen it appear, it was gone. As though it had never been there to begin with.
“It was nice to meet you, Mac.” Massimo nodded at Melina. “And you, Melina. Very nice to see you again. Please, though, leave the arrangements alone, lest we start something earlier than we intend to.”
Mac had no idea what the man was talking about. Massimo didn’t intend to explain it, apparently. He walked away before Mac could even bother to ask.
“He’s a bit strange, isn’t he?” Melina asked.
Mac looked at the flowers again, curious and bothered at the same time. “Strange is one way to put it.”
“There are a lot of flowers, though.”
Mac agreed.
The things were everywhere.
In pots, on the ends of every pew, damn near covering the altar, and strung in garland along the stained glass window sills.
Everywhere.
Yet, all he could smell were the vanilla and incense.
Were they fake flowers?
What did it even matter?
“We have to find a seat,” Melina told him.
Mac let his wife find them a pew, and put the flowers and the strange feeling he had, out of his mind.
For the moment.
Once they were seated, Mac carefully looked around to find faces he recognized. Their pew was only two behind the very front, where Enric sat in the inner aisle, likely waiting for his half-sisters to join him. Towards the back, Mac found several Capos, and one in particular that made his irritation swell when he found the man was looking at him, too.
Anthony.
The bastard.
Mac greatly disliked the image of Anthony sitting surrounded by made men, as though he had created a wall to protect himself with. It bothered Mac more than those same made men had, for whatever reason, chosen to align themselves, even if only visibly, with Anthony.
Especially at Neeya’s funeral.
For now, Mac would have to let it go.
But he wasn’t leaving it that way for long.
“They do look better,” Melina said, drawing Mac from his thoughts.
“Hmm, doll?”
His wife gestured subtly towards the three girls making their way towards the front of the church. Mac hadn’t even noticed the Pivetti principessas’ entrance. They only nodded and said quiet hellos as they passed, but never stopped to actually greet anyone. Mac had to agree with his wife’s assessment, though, as the girls did look to be in better emotional states than they had the last time he saw them.
Perhaps their grandfather’s presence brought along with it some kind of magic to make them smile through the hell this day was sure to be.
Mac didn’t know.
It was only the rattle of chains that made Mac look away from the girls, and back towards the entrance of the church. Shackles, actually.
Luca Pivetti had been allowed to dress for the day, apparently, but that was about as far as they let him go. He was shackled around his ankles, his wrists, and the chains looped around his waist under his suit jacket. Two guards escorted him down the aisle; their hands, one on Luca, one on their weapons, were steady and ready. Although Luca didn’t seem to pay anyone a bit of attention, as all eyes turned on him with each step he took.
In fact, he didn’t look away from his wife’s casket.
Mac couldn’t bring back a single time when he had seen his boss look as dead as he did in those moments.
So gone.
Lost.
A deafening pain that left him numb.
It was shocking.
And Mac understood completely.
He couldn’t empathize, of course, but he understood why.
Mac relaxed slightly when Melina’s hand touched his shoulder, and pressed lightly. It was as though she was silently telling him he was okay, she was okay, and they were okay. Like she could read his mind.
Luca was escorted by his guards to the front of the church, and it was only then that the man finally spoke, and his stony façade cracked. He said something to the one guard, gesturing towards the casket with opened hands, but not quite loud enough for those around him to hear what he was asking for. The two guards looked between one another, spoke quickly and quietly, then finally nodded.
“Thank you,” Luca said, although Mac barely heard the words.
Mac finally understood what Luca had asked for as the man stepped towards his wife’s casket, and the guards stayed behind. He swore every eye in the church was on Luca while the boss approached the black casket with outstretched hands, still chained in shackles.
And maybe that was the point, Mac thought.
Maybe Luca was the best possible distraction.
Because no one except for Mac seemed to notice Massimo heading towards the entrance of the church, and pulling a small, black item from his inner jacket pocket at the same time. It was too far away for Mac to discern what exactly the item was, but he couldn’t miss the unmistakable action of Massimo pushing down on it with his thumb, as though he were pressing a button.
Mac finally understood why there had been so many goddamn flowers, then, and exactly how strategically the bushels had been placed throughout the church. Each bushel linking between the pews exploded in color, sending out plumes of smoke and a powdery substance of neon colors.
And the sound.
The sound that accompanied the exploding bushels came off like a screeching war cry.
The noise, mixed with the explosions of color, smoke, and flying petals, sent the attendees flying to the floor. Some were likely too scared to move, worried that this was another bomb incident. Others probably reacted out of instinct alone to get the fuck out of the way of whatever was happening.
It was fucking pandemonium above their heads as Mac stared upward.
Plumes of colored smoke, a catacomb of noise, and the shouts of frightened people.
Distractions, he knew.
But he couldn’t see through the goddamn smoke to know for sure what was happening.
“Mac,” Melina said, her fingernails cutting into his arm through his jacket, “what is fucking happening?”
He didn’t know how to answer her.
Through the colored smoke, and the suddenly moving people, Mac was sure he saw Neeya’s casket toppled over. Its top looked to be open, and white satin had spilled out, stained by colored powder from whatever had been stuffed inside those bushels of flower arrangements.
Except …
There was no body.
It was empty.
Luca wasn’t standing there anymore, either.
The guards—
Mac couldn’t see the damn guards standing just a few feet away like they had been only moments before, but that was because the two men were now lying face down in the aisle, with bullet holes in the backs of their heads.
What is happening?
Just as the smoke began to clear, the sounds started to die down, and the colored powder seemed to be falling and settling, more bushels popped off on the opposite sides of the pews, sending people scattering in a different direction. Mac turned his head just in time to see several flower arrangements by the entrance explode as well, swallowing running guests in color and clouds of smoke they likely couldn’t see their way to get through.
Holy shit.
“This way,” Mac heard a familiar voice say. “Hurry up, now. Move.”
“What in the hell did you do?” Mac asked, barely able to see a foot in front of his face. The church was ruined, likely.
Massimo laughed in the smoke. “Only giving them a proper send off, as I should.”
Melina coughed, and then tucked her face into Mac’s jacket as they tried to stay as close to Massimo as was possible. The man moved through the mess like he knew exactly where he was going, as though he had walked it a hundred times before this day in preparation for this moment.
And perhaps he had done just that.
Mac wouldn’t be surprised.
“Here we are,” Massimo said, “deep breaths once you’re in the fresh air. Don’t question the driver in the car, and try to be nice. It’s a bit of a drive.”
“What?” Mac asked.
Massimo answered nothing, simply shoved Mac, which sent Melina with him, out a side exit door of the church.
A black car was waiting.
A man stood there with a door opened for them.
Melina sucked in a huge gulp of air, and Mac did the same, needing to cleanse his throat and lungs of that awful powder.
“Get in,” the driver said, offering nothing else.
Melina looked to Mac, and he shrugged.
What else could he do?
Friends, Massimo had said. Mac’s friends called him one thing only. It was only a friend who could have told that to the man, and made sure it was important enough for him to repeat.
Don’t question the driver.
“Get in, doll,” Mac said.
Mac climbed in behind his wife without a single look back.
“My dress is ruined,” Melina muttered.
She tried again—a futile effort—to wipe the bright colored powder from her black dress, and sighed when it did nothing to help. His suit was ruined, too, but he couldn’t find it in himself to give a shit at the moment. He had more important things to consider.
“That’s the first thing you’re considering right now?” Mac asked, chuckling.
His wife shrugged. “I have to think about something, don’t I?”
“The three black cars we’re suddenly driving with aren’t one of them?”
Melina glanced out the windows, taking note of the vehicles Mac mentioned. “What is happening?”
Mac kept asking himself that, as well.
“I have no idea, doll.”
“Also, I lost my hat.”
Mac pressed his lips together in an effort to hide his amusement at Melina’s pout. “I will get you a new one.”
“I liked that one, though.”
“And you’ll like the new one, too.”
Melina stared out the window again. “How long have we been driving?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“Did you see the guards on the ground?” she asked quietly.
Mac passed a look at the driver, who had not once even looked back at them during the drive. “I did. And how Luca was gone.”
“So, that whole show …”
“Was clearly planned,” he supplied.
“I’m not sure Neeya would appreciate her funeral being used as an escape plan for her—”
“I’m not sure that was a funeral at all,” Mac interrupted, remembering something else he had seen through the smoke and distractions. “But what do I know?”
“Pardon?” Melina turned to him with confusion written heavily across her beautiful face. Mac didn’t want to explain what he had seen—or rather, what was missing—inside a toppled over casket. He didn’t want to tell her something, give her that hope, and then take it away. “What does that mean, Mac?”
He pulled his wife closer in the back seat, pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and watched the black cars move slightly closer to theirs all the way around. “Let’s just wait and see, doll. I think something big just happened, and someone clearly intends to let us in on the secret, considering what’s going on now.”
“Except we don’t know what’s going on.”
“Shit, it can’t be any worse than everything else we’ve already dealt with.”
Melina laughed, pressed a quick kiss to his lips, and settled back against the seat. “Massimo said it would be a bit of a drive, didn’t he?”
“Apparently.”
“You should call your mom for Marquise. Let her know we might be late.”
Mac was already pulling out his cell phone before his wife could finish her sentence.
The helicopter sat waiting and ready, in the middle of what appeared to be a private airstrip that had little life, and likely hadn’t been used in a long while. The chopper’s blades circled fast, and Mac could see a pilot waiting inside as their car came to a stop a good fifty feet away.
It wasn’t the strange place that took Mac’s attention. Nor the helicopter, or the other vehicles stopping alongside theirs.
No, it was the woman standing just outside the chopper. The flowy skirt of her red dress blew wildly in the wind of the chopper’s blades; her straightened, jet black hair billowed out behind her.
Yet, she stood still.
Like a statue.
Waiting.
Entirely unmoved.
Mac blinked a few times, just to make sure what he was seeing was actually real. Each time, the woman still stood there, frozen as stone, and surveying the cars. Her hands folded together over her middle, as calm as ever in her posture, yet her gaze was where Mac found the truth.
Wild and worried.
Melina sucked in a quiet breath; her hand on Mac’s thigh tightened to an almost painful point as she too realized who she was looking at. “Neeya.”
Very much alive.
Very real.
“You will have a few moments,” the driver said, his first words to them since the church, “and then I will return you to your own vehicle where you left it.”
Mac opened his mouth to ask the man a question—several, maybe. Like who in the fuck was he, who had hired him for this, what was happening, and why. So many questions.
Massimo’s request clung heavily in the back of Mac’s mind.
Mac questioned nothing.
“Thank you,” Mac said.
“You may exit the vehicle,” the driver said.
Damn near at the same time the driver said those words, Mac saw the back doors open to the three other vehicles that had been with theirs the entire drive. From one, Massimo stepped out. From another, the three Pivetti daughters. From the final car, Luca stepped out, still shackled and like everyone else, a mess of powdered color but with a smile on his face.
Mac grabbed the car door to push it open, but hesitated when Melina didn’t follow him immediately. “Doll?”
A hesitance stared back at him from his wife. Something else lingered in her eyes, too. Something he hadn’t expected—betrayal, maybe.
Mac knew exactly why.
Melina had allowed herself to grieve for Neeya. She had been affected by someone she let close to her heart. Only now, it seemed those feelings had been for nothing.
“Ask her why,” Mac urged. “You’ll never know whatever it is you’re wondering about unless you ask her, Melina.”
“She could have told me, Mac.”
“Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe this was all a big what if. What if everything single thing went right and it worked? You don’t know any different.”
“Unless I ask,” Melina whispered.
Mac nodded. “Yeah, doll. But we’re here, right, so someone asked for that. Luca, her … someone asked for us; that means something.”
They stepped out of the car just as the shackles keeping Luca contained were snapped off with massive bolt cutters. The man who had removed the chains tossed the tool back into his car, then disappeared out of sight without as much as a word after Luca thanked him.
Luca passed a look to Mac, then to Massimo, and quickly to his daughters. His gaze lingered far longer on his wife still waiting by the running chopper. The noise was loud, but Mac still heard the quickly spoken words between the boss and his father-in-law.
“Go ahead,” Massimo said, “you can thank me in a minute; I think she’s missed you a great deal. She’s never asked me for anything, after all, except for you, Luca. Then and now.”
Luca gave a short nod. “Me, too.”
Mac kept Melina close as Luca passed by his three daughters, though he gave each one a quick kiss. Neeya met her husband half way across the old, cracked tarmac. The way Luca hugged his wife, picked her up until her feet didn’t touch the ground, and held her there was enough to make Mac look away.
Privacy, he thought.
Every man needed it in moments like those.
“I don’t think I need to ask anything,” Melina said quietly.
“Why not, doll?”
“Some things are just bigger than me, Mac. This is probably one of those things. I don’t think it needs to be made about me, you know?”
Yeah, he did.
“Who got the guards?” Mac asked when Massimo’s gaze drifted in their direction.
The old man cracked a smile. “Someone sly enough to not be caught, I suppose.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“Like father, like son, Mac.”
Mac stiffened. “Enric?”
Massimo tipped a hand high as if to wave off any concerns Mac was thinking to say, but he still thought and felt them nonetheless. Enric had, for a long time, led Mac to believe he was in the same position as his Capo where Luca was concerned. Unable to see his father. Disallowed visits. Refused calls.
How much of it had been lies?
How many people all around them had been lying for this?
Melina tugged on Mac’s suit jacket, drawing his attention to her again. He swore she could read his mind just by looking at him, and she repeated her earlier sentiment again in a new way. “It’s not about us, Mac. It’s about something bigger than us.”
Luca was still hugging his wife.
Neeya’s feet still hadn’t touched the ground.
Mac remembered those words Luca had told him about his wife many months ago. There is only one thing in this world other than my surname and the legacy it holds that belongs only to me now. Neeya knows what that is—she has always known. I’ve never doubted that.
Mac realized, Luca had been talking about Neeya.
And maybe—just maybe—Mac could empathize with that. Because had it been his wife, had a second chance dangled in front of them when everything else seemed hopeless … fucking hell, Mac hoped Melina would take it for them because he would take it for her.
No matter the cost.
“I want to ask how this was done,” Melina said, shaking her head.
Massimo laughed. “Don’t bother. I won’t give an answer.”
“Why isn’t Enric here, too?” Mac asked. “We’re here to say goodbye, right? I got that much. Everyone else is here—his daughters, us, and you. We’re going to say goodbye, so why isn’t Enric here to do the same?”
“The wheelchair made it a bit difficult, and Enric chose not to risk it. I pressed, the young man made his choice. Besides, he had a job to do, and he wanted to do that well. He’s a lot like his father in that way. Sometimes, at the detriment of one thing, you perfect another. He knew that meant he would make sacrifices elsewhere.”
Well, then …
“All right,” Mac said, his attention going back to the two people now approaching them.
“Massimo,” Luca called out above the sound of the chopper blades, “I don’t know how to thank you for all of this.”
The older man tipped his hand in that dismissive way again. “No need to bother, Luca. Anything for my Neeya. We agreed on that long ago, didn’t we?”
“We did.”
Mac and Melina stayed back while Luca and Neeya chatted with their daughters and Massimo. He figured the private conversation wouldn’t be appropriate for them to listen in on, anyway, and the chopper’s spinning blades helped to muffle the conversation.
It wasn’t long before Luca’s gaze turned on Mac, and the man came closer.
“Melina, could we chat?” Neeya asked.
Mac wasn’t surprised that his wife stepped away from him without hesitating.
“Boss,” Mac said when Luca stopped in front of him.
“Not anymore,” Luca replied with a smile.
A kind smile.
Mac didn’t think he had ever seen that from Luca before.
“Someone’s gotta be the boss,” Mac joked, “and for all purposes, it’s—”
“Not going to be me,” Luca interjected. “Not after today.”
“I didn’t realize I was important enough to get a meet with you before you head … where is it you’re going, anyway?”
Luca lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know yet. Those weren’t a part of my requests. Probably somewhere warm. Somewhere with lots of sand. Neeya loves that kind of place. She’s been the Pivetti Queen for two decades—steadfast and always at my side. It’s time for her to relax, so I don’t give a shit where we go as long as she’s happy about it.”
Mac cleared his throat. “And your girls?”
Luca cracked another smile. “Just like their mother, but with enough of me to color them up. They’re smarter and stronger than anyone has ever given them credit for. They’ll be fine, and we’ll meet up again someday. Neeya won’t stay away forever. They have Enric to look out for them. Their grandfather to fall back on should they need him … and you, too.”
“Of course, b—”
“Not anymore,” Luca repeated firmly. “And unless you don’t care who you give that title to, I suggest you quickly figure out how to get the rest of the family to call you by that name, Mac.”
He froze on the spot. “I—”
“Some bosses are born, Mac, but far more are made. It’s a position you tend to learn better once you’re in it.”
“Funny, I seem to have a man who has gained far more allies in the family than me lately.”
Luca tipped his head sideways a bit. “Anthony.”
It wasn’t even a question.
“Why did he go to the prison the day we thought Neeya was killed? Why did you let him in to see you, but not me?”
“Snakes are predictable,” Luca said simply, “in the way they will slither to the closest warm thing if they believe it will benefit them to do so. See, that’s why we tend to step on the snakes before we see them. Men rarely realize that they’ve been struck by a snake until it’s too late.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Luca.”
“Anthony is a snake. He thought I was an opportunity. Given the situation, I allowed him to think we were on the same page. I couldn’t very well explain to him that my wife wasn’t actually dead if I wanted to continue on with my plans, could I?”
“You still could have seen me.”
“You’re not thinking beyond that moment, Mac. Consider those you think are allied with him are currently in a state of panic. When all that smoke and dust clears, a boss will be gone, a dead wife will have risen, and Anthony will have no answers. A man who should know—yet he won’t. Someone will, now, but he won’t.”
“He’s been working on your seat since you went into lockup.”
“And you’re the only one who saw it happening,” Luca said with a grin, “so make sure your ass sits down in my seat long before his does. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Sound a little more sure, Mac.”
“It’s been a big day to take in.”
“Tomorrow, it’ll be over,” Luca assured.
Mac wasn’t so sure about that.
For Luca, yes.
For him?
It felt like the world was waiting.
What the fuck was he supposed to do?
Wink and wave at it?