Antony (3 page)

“How much is
a little over
?”

“Twenty grand.”

“Fucking hell.”

Antony wondered why his grandfather had brought the debt up at all in his presence. If Paulie owed it for the last four years and Antony hadn’t heard of it once, there had to be a reason why Andino let his grandson in on the secret.

Like maybe because he wanted Antony to take care of it.

Andino was sly in that way.

“One-twenty?” Antony asked to be sure.

“Yeah, but—”

“How much are you supposed to be paying him a month?”

“Twelve-hundred.”

Antony nodded, his decision cemented. “Your debt to Andino is cleared. I’m taking it over. Five-hundred a month, Paulie. Don’t ever be late on a single payment. There will be no extra added onto the debt and I don’t want interest, but if you’re late, I’ll take the cash in blood instead. Got it?”

“I’m going to owe you for the next twenty years, Marcello.”

“Oh, well. I know you can handle my payment. Succeed, and you can pay it off faster.”

Paulie nodded sharply. “All right.”

“You want to work for it, then fucking work for it.”

PART TWO: L’AMORE

Chapter Four

Easter, 1984

“Fucking huge, huh?” John asked.

Antony nodded, glancing up at the forty-foot high ceilings of the Catrolli mansion. His family came from money, sure, but the Catrolli’s were goddamn well drowning in it. It was kind of sickening how every inch of the home dripped with cash.

This was his first time being invited as a made man to his boss’s home for a dinner. Antony couldn’t refuse the offer even if he wanted to as that would have been rude. Chances were, there would be several more dinners and invitations yet to come.

“Where’s Kate?” Antony asked.

John scowled. “Somewhere doing something.”

Antony eyed his friend, wondering what in the hell was up with him. “You said yes to marry her, John.”

“I know, but Christ …”

“What?”

“She’s dirty, man. Vicious with her ways. You can’t trust her with an inch, I swear to God.”

Antony set his glass of cognac to the table. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I tried, okay. I thought maybe if it didn’t feel like an arrangement, I could make it work. She plays head games and lies all the damn time. About stupid¸ unimportant shit. And she likes to see other people hurting, Tony. Kate Catrolli is one of the most manipulative women I have ever met and that doesn’t make for a good wife.”

He had a point.

In their business, women needed to have a certain air and attitude about them. Life wasn’t a game or soap opera for them to script out at their will and choosing.

“How am I supposed to build a family with someone like her? Is she gonna use my kids against me or to hurt me? Do I even want a woman like that as a mother for my children?” John shrugged, taking a huge gulp of his cognac. “She’s insane.”

Antony hadn’t spent a lot of time near or around Kate Catrolli, so he couldn’t say for sure if John’s words were fact. Vinne kept both his daughters locked up tight. So tight, in fact, that Antony had yet to meet Vinnie’s oldest girl. What Antony did know of Kate came in the form of whispers from others in
la famiglia
.

Their opinions essentially followed along with John’s.

“Kate’s young, too,” Antony said. “Twenty, right?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe she just needs—”

“A padded room and a diagnosis,” John muttered.

Antony laughed under his breath. “You agreed.”

“Stop reminding me. And then there’s Lina, too,” John added.

Antony held up a hand, stopping his friend. “Don’t want to know, man.”

“Tony, listen—”

“No, I don’t approve of mistresses, John. I’m sorry. Keep me the fuck out of it.”

“She’s more than that,” John said, anger heating his tone. “You talk like she’s nothing more than my whore, man.
Vaffanculo
with that shit, huh. It’s just rude.”

Guilt chewed away at Antony’s insides. He knew John had a point. The woman John had a private relationship with had been his lover and friend for longer than he had ever been engaged to Kate Catrolli. John’s father didn’t approve of the woman’s lower economic status and her half-Italian bloodline.

John didn’t know how to tell his father to fuck off.

“You’d like her,” his friend said quietly. “She’s sweet, quiet, humble and down to earth.”

“And sleeping with a man who’s engaged to be married, John.”

“She’s more than that, Tony.”

“Listen, if Kate’s as awful as you say, you should be careful,” Antony warned.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Seriously, don’t let her find out you’re running around with somebody else.”

John glanced away, sighing. “It’s not her place to question what I do with other women, anyway.”

“You sound like a dog, John. You’re just missing the collar.”

And a made man.

Antony hated that more than anything.

“I love Lina,” John murmured.

“Keep loving her and you’ll have her fucking blood all over your hands. Mark my words.”

• • •

Antony barked out a bitter laugh when he turned the corner and came to another hallway that looked like it led to a dead-end. How many damn wings did this place have, anyway? He’d excused himself after dinner to explore the house a little bit and somehow managed to get lost in the process.

Now, he really had to take a piss but he didn’t want to start randomly opening doors until he found the right one. Someone might not be all too pleased about that.

Great.

Just perfect.

He should have laid off the cognac.

The softest sound of music floated down the hallway, letting Antony know there might be someone who could direct him to the closest bathroom and then back to the party. He made his way down the hallway quickly, stopping mid-stride at the voices coming from an open doorway.

“You’ve got another three years to get all this figured out,” a sweet, feminine voice said. 

“Might as well have Daddy start fishing out money now. Besides, the quicker I’m out of this house, the better.”

Antony did recognize the second woman’s voice. Kate.

“What about this?” Kate asked.

“It’s …”

“What?”

“Really white,” said the first woman.

“So? What’s wrong with white?”

“Like all white?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Because you’d be lying,” the first woman said.

“Just because I’m not a prude like you—”

“I’m not a goddamn prude, Kate, I just don’t go around having sex with every guy who looks good and pays me a bit of attention.”

Kate scoffed. “Cecelia, come on. You’re as lily white as they come. Have you even seen a cock before?”

Cecelia
.

Antony recognized that name as belonging to Vinnie’s twenty-one-year-old daughter. He’d wondered where she was during Sunday services as the only people sitting in the pew next to the Don that morning had been Kate, his wife, and Johnathan.

“You’re a bitch,” Cecelia spat. “Get out of my room.”

Kate laughed rudely before she said, “What are you going to do on your wedding night, Cecelia? Hide in the corner with your legs tied together? Will you even have the light on?”

“No. I’m going to give my husband something you clearly can’t give yours. Get out, I said.”

Antony didn’t have time to find a place to hide before Kate appeared in the hallway. She grinned and flicked her sister with the middle finger from the doorway, clearly not noticing Antony standing ten feet away.

“Don’t worry, Cecelia. It only hurts for a little while. Grin and bear it like you do with everything else. Besides, you might even like it. God knows you hate Vinnie as much as I do, so I bet you’ve got some kind of daddy issue hidden in there somewhere. Maybe if you let a man find it, you wouldn’t be so fucking frigid.”

“Get out, Kate!”

Kate just laughed.

Was this how she acted to everyone?

If she could be this awful to her sister, what was she like with John?

Antony barely contained his disgust.

Kate turned, still giggling, and took a few steps forward toward Antony before she noticed him standing there. She didn’t say a thing about him eavesdropping as she passed him by, and he was grateful. She did, however, raise her hand up in a teasing wave and wiggled her fingers at him.

“Hey.”

That was all she said.

Hey
.

Antony frowned as Kate disappeared around the hallway corner.

Poor John.

Unfortunately, his urge to piss made itself known again. Painfully so. Antony had no desire to chase after Kate and ask her for directions, so he walked down to the opened doorway that lead to a large, beautifully decorated bedroom.

A young woman stood in the middle of the room with her back turned to Antony. He could tell by the straightness in her spine and the way her arms crossed that she was pissed.

Antony rapped on the door with two knuckles and took a step inside. That was probably the biggest mistake he ever could have made.

Cecelia turned fast on her heel to face him.

She was beautiful.

Crazy beautiful.

So fucking beautiful it ached.

Her hair was the color of caramel and fell in loose waves over her shoulders. Deep green, like the color of a forest flecked with rays of sunlight, eyes widened back at him. Her lashes fanned her cheeks as her pink lips popped open in surprise.

Antony was stunned.

Straight up, completely and utterly stunned.

He expected Cecelia to look like her sister, and she did share similar features in some ways, but she was also completely different.

Sure, Kate was a pretty girl. Antony didn’t deny that, but she wasn’t the kind of beautiful this girl was. She didn’t knock the air out of his lungs with a single blink or make his heart stop with a cock of one brow.

“Uh, hello,” Antony said.

Cecelia stilled. “Who are you?”

What?

“Um …”

What
?

Why was he acting like such a
cafone
?

“Antony Marcello,” he finally managed to spit out.

Cecelia’s gaze narrowed like she recognized his name. Antony supposed she would know his grandfather given he was her father’s consigliere. “Get out of my room.”

Antony didn’t move. “Excuse me?”

“You are in my bedroom, you shouldn’t be and I don’t want you in here, so get out.”

“But—”

“I swear to God, I will shoot your foot off if you don’t remove yourself from this space.”

Antony laughed, not believing her for a second.

Cecelia’s cold stare didn’t waver.

He sobered.

“I can’t find the bathroom,” he tried to explain.

“Three doors down,” Cecelia said.

Oh
.

“And keep turning right at every corner,” she added. “You’ll find the main floor again.”

Antony nodded, still watching Cecelia like she might jump out at him. He still couldn’t breathe all that well and his chest hurt something fierce.

“If you think I’m joking about shooting you, I’m not,” Cecelia said with a stone face and a serious tone. “Why are you still standing there?”

Because he liked her. He wanted to know her. She had balls.

She was also the boss’s daughter.

• • •

Paulie sidled up beside Antony in the corner of the too large living room where the majority of the guests had gathered.

“Where’d you disappear to, man?” his friend asked.

Antony shrugged. “Had to find a bathroom.”

Paulie looked him over and Antony sighed, knowing his friend was picking up on his odd mood. He’d hung around with Paulie ever since the two were young enough to still be potty training. Good friends like that were hard to find, not that Antony had a lot of friends to begin with. The ones he did have, he wanted to keep.

“What’s up?” Paulie asked.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

Antony watched Vinnie twirl his youngest daughter in the middle of the room to the music as he held a glass of vodka in the other, not spilling a drop.

“How come he didn’t marry off the oldest one?” Antony asked.

“Cecelia, you mean?”

“Yeah, that’s the only other kid he’s got, right?”

“It is. Not sure. Maybe he wanted to curb Kate’s nonsense and this was one way of doing it.”

Antony’s heart thudded hard in his chest, the words slipping out before he could stop them. “I met Cecelia earlier.”

Paulie turned to face his friend. “Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“So?”

“I like her,” Antony admitted.

Paulie coughed on his shock. “What?”

“She threatened to shoot me. Well, my foot, but it’s the same thing. She didn’t even blink when she said it. She’s beautiful, too. Now, I’m wondering if he’s trying to save Cecelia to marry her off to someone else for whatever reason. He did it to Kate. It’s possible.”

“You’re not making much sense, Tony.”

Antony didn’t believe in love at first sight.

His father had.

A lot of Italians did, actually.

Antony didn’t know what to think, now.

You’ll know when you see her
, his father had once said.

You’ll know, Antony
.

You just will.

“I think that’d be a damn shame if he married Cecelia off like he did to Kate.”