Page 82 of Dominance

How long has it been since I went to confession?

Staring at her name, my father’s name, the date, makes me think of my future with Gloria. What we are compared to them. To Alessandro and Isabella.

“Ma…what would you say? About Gloria? What does Dom have on her?”

Her eyes soften, her fingers tussle my hair. It’s the only clear memory I have of her face.

“Adri, you think too hard.”

I was nine. I hadn’t been sleeping because I wanted to help my dad and Alessandro. They always seemed stressed out. Busy.

In retrospect, I see why.

Dad was supposed to take over for Giancarlo. Was getting ready to start taking over some of the responsibilities.

He and Mom and Aless’s fiancée went on a vacation. Aless was supposed to meet them.

The boat went down in a storm.

So my great-uncle Giancarlo stayed on. Raised us. Him and Alessandro.

Then he made my brother his heir, his replacement. He retired. Aunt Eva, his wife, died.

We thought he followed her shortly after. But we found out it was Dom. And it started the series of events leading up to him swooping in, kidnapping the other elder’s kids, grandchildren.

“Did you see this coming, Uncle Gio? Did you know who Dom was all that time?”

Or was it something else?

So many times over the past several months I’ve wondered what the missing piece was, what kept Giancarlo from choosing Domenico, the man he seemed to be grooming to be don. Where Dom went when he vanished, how he got the funding he needed to take us down.

“He was a good man, your uncle. As far as mob leaders go.” The voice startles me, the presence behind me appearing without so much as a scuff of footsteps.

“He was a brutal son of a bitch, if you knew him at all,” I reply, not bothering to turn around, not giving away my surprise.

“Brutal, sure. When he got mad. Guy sure knew how to tell a joke, though. Even better storyteller.”

“If you could understand him with that accent.”

“Accent? That is what he calledit. His mouth was fucked-up from bare-knuckle boxing when he was young.”

This guy’s clearly a New Yorker.

Removed for some time. DC?

“That’s why he never grinned, just smirked.” I nod, a little smile of my own pulling at my lips. “You clearly know who I am. Got me at a disadvantage.”

“Never known a Diamante to have any of those. Jim Weller.”

At that I finally glance back, the name itching at something in the back of my mind. He’s familiar somehow. Can’t place it. Bald. Weathered. Late forties, maybe fifty.

He’s absolutely a fucking cop. More likely something higher.

“Do a lot of feds come to pay respects to the people they put in the ground?”

“No. Just the ones I called friends.” Weller’s stone cold, his expression never wavering under my gaze. Still, he doesn’t seem to be a threat. Not yet.

“Pretty crazy how many of my fellows buried out here could credit your family with their headstones,” Weller muses, his tone wry.

---