Forty-one:Cesare LunaThe man that had taken me from the hospital took me to a diner to get something to eat. That was where the two of us were at that moment. He was drinking coffee, but he wasn’t eating anything. He hadn’t said a word since he had told me that we were stopping to get food. “Who are you?” I asked.“I’m Marco Abelo. Your wife’s mother sent me to come save you. She’s been keeping an eye on her daughter for a while now.”I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have a wife.”Marco took out his cell phone and showed me a picture of a pretty girl. A name came to my mind again. “Emmilia?” I asked.He nodded. “From everything I’ve heard, you two have a daughter together. But she kept it a secret because you’re from rival families and you killed someone that she loved. Except that man isn’t dead and he tried to kill you. But then Emmilia disappeared and so did your brother.”At the mention of a brother, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I stopped eating the sandwich that I’d b

Forty-three:Cesare Luna“A body found in the Luna family restaurant was identified as Octavious Luna. The Luna family has had problems with the law before, as his brother was arrested previously for issues with taxes.”“Fuck!” Marco pulled over to the side of the road.“What’s going on?” I asked.“That’s your father,” he said, “the man that was killed.”I looked at the radio, then back at Marco. I should have felt something. But I was still struggling to remember my past. I remembered the important things. I knew that Emmilia Vitore was my wife. I knew that I had a daughter with her. That my brother was obsessed with her and working with her uncle, who was also obsessed with her and had the delusion that Emmilia was his daughter. I should have felt sad about the man that was my father being dead. But when Marco said the words, I felt nothing. “Oh,” was all I could say.Marco looked at me. “Well, that’s an appropriate reaction. But you know this is going to derail any plans for you ha

Forty-five:Cesare Luna“Why are we doing this again?” Marco must have thought that I was crazy. We were standing on the side of the road, about a mile from where I thought my family safe house was. A memory had come to me while we were driving there. It was Luna tradition that we had to fire a gun before we arrived at the safehouse. It was a way to let people know that we weren’t a threat.“Because, Luna tradition dictates it.”“You forgot how to use a fork at breakfast this morning,” Marco said, “but you can remember this?”“I have a concussion from being almost killed,” I reminded him, “I still remember the important things. I can’t remember the pin number to my credit card, but I---for instance----remembered that I’m not married to Emmilia.”Marco frowned at me. “What?”I looked at the side of the road that led up to the big, modern style mansion that was up on the hill, guarded by a gate. “I was going to marry Emmilia. We weren’t able to get married before my brother went psycho

Forty-seven:Cesare Luna “How did he seem?” I asked my sister after she had made the call. “Like most Luna men,” Laura said, “he behaved like a cold asshole.” Vera, my mother, glared at her. “Laura, that’s a little too harsh. We’ve all lost your father and---” Laura glared back at our mother. “Mom, dad’s dead. You don’t have to defend him anymore. You certainly don’t have to defend Galileo. I’m pretty sure that he’s the reason why we’re all in this mess to begin with. I think he made some kind of twisted deal so that he could marry Emmilia instead of Cesare and now he’s completely lost his marbles. For all we know, he’s the one that killed dad.” Vera laughed. “Oh please, Galileo isn’t cruel enough to kill your father. All he wanted to do was to be a chef but his stupid feud with his brother wouldn’t let him. He became obsessed with Emmilia because he’s a petulant child who isn’t used to not getting what he wants because we ga

Forty-nine:Cesare Luna To get someone that was a fixer out of hiding was not an easy thing to do. Titus Vitore showed up when he wanted to, where he wanted to, and half of the time you never knew if he was alive or dead. Given how I had ended up nearly beaten to death after our last meeting, I was surprised that he wasn’t dead. But my mother, Vera Luna, had dealt with men like my father all her life. Which meant she knew how to find people to clean up messes. People like Titus. So, we put the word out. And we waited. I didn’t like the idea of waiting. It meant that time would pass. I had no idea where Emmilia was. I didn’t know what my brother was doing with her. And I had no idea if my daughter was okay. Titus was the key to helping us find that out. Laura had made a call to Galileo. She knew that he would answer her calls still. She told him that father was dead and that I was too. It was all a ploy to try to get him to come back to Boston. Hopef