Page 28

Tito

I paused and my gaze met Valencia’s.

She said not a word.

Damn, I hated secrets. Look at what had been kept from me. My father had been murdered over a damned will. Then my brother and uncle took out a family member who had actually hired a hitter to kill our dad. And I never knew about any of it.

“Then if you remember,” Rocky mentioned. “Mama ended up giving that inheritance to Aunt Stella after her husband ran off.” He shook his head. “I almost choked on my drink when she announced that. Mama gave it to her and she said that our father would have done that anyway.”

“Oh, wow,” Valencia murmured. “So he died—”

“For no good reason,” I cut in. “And I agree he would have given it to Stella anyway. He was generous like that. He also had his own money. Too bad Marco was such a self-centered prick that he never thought of that.”

Rocky agreed with me as he nodded. “Marco had been destined to end up badly. He wasn’t a nice guy at all.

From what I remember of him, I never heard him laugh or saw him smile.

I remember Uncle Stephano looked incensed when Mama made that announcement.

But I really don’t think Stella was in on it.

She was so torn up by our dad’s death. She loved him.

I only met her a few times, but she just wasn’t like that.

Now her son and daughter have the winery and the estate.

And thank God, they are nothing like Marco.

They’re good people and they have no idea about the past.”

“And sometimes that’s good,” I said as I looked over at Rocky.

“But you can imagine my shock when we discovered that the girl’s dad was our dad's best friend Tommy. Man, I remember the stories our dad told us about him and Tommy. I never knew that anyone could have so much fun in a small town, in Italy of all places. Then the bigger shock came when Tommaso asked me if we ever found dad’s killer. ”

Rocky slowly shook his head. “I bet that wasn’t easy.

But damn, brother… I never thought about it much after so many years passed.

I mean it was just safer to keep it quiet.

I put it out of my head and just lived my life.

I also knew if it ever came out suddenly…

Well, Mama doesn’t need to have all that opened up again. ”

“I get it and I forgive you.” I smirked at him.

Rocky smirked back at me and said, “I never asked for forgiveness, brother.”

“Well, you should have.” I sniffed arrogantly.

“Maybe but I happen to know for sure that there’s lots of shit you never told me,” he accused.

“The hell you mean?” I exclaimed.

“Like where you got the answers to that driving test, that you could not pass the first and the second time. Cause I knew you could not have aced that damned test. Then for the love of God…how did you manage to talk Uncle Stephano into letting you use that limo for your senior prom? How did he ever trust you to bring it back in one piece? Then why did Romeo do your chores for a full summer, right after said prom? What did you have on him? To this day, he will not give me an answer. Then there’s that time when that girl Lana—”

I held my hand up at him. “Whoa!”

Rocky laughed at the panicked look on my face.

I laughed a bit nervously, but I did not want to explain most of this in front of Valencia. “Damn, you have a longass memory, brother. I mean all of that is as old as hell. Why aren’t you interested in the new stuff?”

Rocky stopped chuckling and turned his head to stare at me. “What new stuff?” he asked very seriously.

Valencia laughed.

“Sure,” I replied. “I know new things that would make your hair curl and your toes bleed.”

“My hair…” Rocky shook his head, then he asked, “Toes bleed?”

Again, Valencia cracked up.

I glanced over at her and then shrugged. “Maybe it's, make your nose bleed ?” I looked up at my brother and said, “I forget what that saying is. But I know the secrets of the universe now.”

Rocky scoffed. “I don’t care about that cosmic shit. I just want to know things like how you got Mrs. Jackson to change her mind about suspending us in junior high.”

I laughed.

“What did you guys do?” Valencia asked.

“I’m not sure you wanna know,” I told her.

“Oh, yes. Definitely.” She nodded her head. “I wanna know.”

“We pulled the fire alarm.” I shrugged.

Valencia paused and said, “That happens a lot in school.”

“Not the way we did it,” Rocky replied.

I nodded. “Yeah, we pulled it then waited for everyone to get on the front lawn.”

“Then we turned the sprinklers on,” Rocky added with a regretful shake of his head.

Valencia stared at him then she laughed.

“I mean I’m not sure why they were mad,” I mused innocently. “The students were laughing, slipping and sliding. It was like a summer swim party. Without the bathing suits, of course.”

“It was November at the time and most of the teachers were not happy,” Rocky reminded me.

“The cool ones were.” I nodded.

“We had like what? Three of those.” Rocky scoffed. “But I will never forget Ms. Madisons’ laughter. She thought it was awesome. She kept trying to get up then she would fall. So she just sat there in the grass, soaking wet. Now that lady knew how to live.”

“She was like all of twenty five,” I reminded him. “And what you liked was what happened to her white blouse after it got wet.”

He whistled. “Whoo-hoo! Did I ever!”

We all laughed.

“You two are so funny together,” Valencia noted with a giggle.

Me and my brother looked at each other and nodded.

In our business, we’d better be good together.

It literally could mean life or death. There had been times when we were so in sync, we were like one large protective wall of muscle.

People on the Council asked Stephano to allow us to protect them exclusively.

Like a prestigious Mademan, Wiseguy level of success.

He told us about it and what salary we would get.

The money was astronomical for bodyguards, but we didn’t want that.

We’d rather protect our own family. Uncle Stephano gladly told them no.

“So, we good, bro?” Rocky asked me.

I nodded. “Yes, I can see why you never told me.”

“And now we don’t have to ask Stephano about who and why,” Valencia said with relief in her voice. “I don’t wanna ask that man about anything.”

“Yeah, not a good idea,” Rocky said. “Unless there is no other choice.”

“There is one more thing though,” I told Rocky. “But I’m not sure if you can answer this one.”

“What is it?”

“Tommaso and his wife seemed scared of Uncle Stephano,” I explained.

“Scared?” Valencia scoffed. “Try frightened out of their freakin’ minds.”

I nodded. “Yeah, they looked really spooked. They wanted to visit Mama then when we told them she lives here with Stephano, they freaked out and ended the Zoom. And I don’t get that, I mean they know he’s her brother.”

“Man, it’s all in the history,” Rocky replied. “You need to ask Uncle Stephano.” He shrugged. “He will tell you…” He paused. “Unless…”

I stared at him. “Unless what?”

“Unless it’s a secret.” Rocky laughed.

I rolled my eyes and grabbed Valencia’s hand. “Ok wiseguy whatever. It’s time to get going. Well, we're not going out anywhere. I cannot wait for this lockdown crap to be over with.”

“Yeah, maybe lockdown will be lifted soon?” Rocky suggested.

I paused and turned to look at him. “What makes you say that? And don't give me the secret crap again.”

He raised his hands at me. “Maybe you need to ask Uncle Stephano about it.”

Valencia gasped. “Deacon?”

He slowly shook his head.

“He’s not gonna say,” I told her, knowing my brother only too well.

A knock on the window startled us.

Rocky tapped a button and the window went down next to me.

Oscar leaned in.” You guy never called me.”

We stared at him.

Oscar had been our driver for five years and he was brave, educated and loyal. He’d taken bullets for this family.

“We aren’t going anywhere, Oscar. It was a meeting.

The driver gasped and yanked his head back. “I’m so sorry!” He raised his hands up at us.

“That’s ok,” Rocky replied. “It’s not like we do this a lot.”

Oscar gave him a nod then turned and rushed away.

Valencia snickered. “Well damn, he’s a shy one. Isn’t he?”

“Yeah, but in a car chase or an attack on the limo,” I told her. “You want him to be driving.”

Rocky nodded. “Like when we were escorting Legend and Glory from Texas. Oscar stayed calm and cool and kept that limo on the road, no matter what those guys tried to pull.”

“Of course, Glory made us look bad,” I grumbled.

“What?” Valencia asked.

“Nah, it wasn’t like that,” Rocky disagreed.

“She blew out that truck’s tires and it wrecked. Then she took shots at the rest of the attackers and they crashed as well.”

….So I told Valencia the story of what happened.

Two months ago on the freeway…

Suddenly, the limo swerved to the right then back to the left. Oscar barely kept a hold of the wheel.

“The hell?” Rocky said as he tapped the button to lower the window between the front seat and the backseats.

We saw Glory scooting over to tap her window button. After it went down, she rose up and leaned out of it.

Legend looked like he might have a heart attack as he yelled, “Glory! What are you do—” The car swerved again, cutting him off.

“We are under attack!” I called out to them as I watched what was happening on the road. “They're shooting at your enforcers. Stay down!”

“Motherfuckers!” Glory swore as she tossed a bottle out the window at them.

Legend rose up, wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back inside.

“Let me go, Legend!” she seethed.

“You’ll get hurt!” he told her.

“They need me…let go!” she screamed at him.

He shook his head then released her.

Diving back over, she grabbed her gun from her waistband and leaned her torso out. Shots rang out as she emptied her Magnum at whatever target was out there.

We were in the front seat doing the same, sticking our guns out. We worried she might catch a bullet just as a screeching metallic sound nearly deafened us all. We looked into the rearview mirror and saw a car rolling as it hit the guardrail running along the freeway.

“Yeah, die, fucker!” Glory yelled out the window.

Our car again swerved a bit as she grabbed another clip from her back holster. Expelling the old one from her gun, she shoved the new one in. She then leaned back over to the window, looking back and forth.

We had just reloaded too and we tried to get some hits in. Then a roaring sound came up close to the limo. A huge monster-like truck on high tires came at us now and rammed the back of the limo.

The violent lurch knocked me and Rocky forward as we almost ate the dashboard.

It didn’t move Glory though as Legend had a hold of her lower body. Now, she shouted from the open window, “Oh no, you didn’t!” She took aim and shot at the big truck until her current clip was empty too.

In the front, we climbed back up as I leaned out the window to take shots until I ran out of bullets. We didn’t hit much as we were at the wrong angle.

Turning to look over at Glory, Rocky exclaimed, “You got ‘em!”

“Yeah,” I had to agree. “Damn, Miss Glory, that was a helluva shot. You wrecked that monster truck.”

“Are Duke and Steel okay?” Legend asked us about the two Requiem bikers from his MC.

I was looking at them coming up beside us in the lane as he asked me this and I told him, “Si, they managed to shoot back and not wreck their motorcycles. But Miss Glory literally saved their big asinis.” I laughed.

“Amazing!” Rocky added.

“Oscar, you did great outmaneuvering those assholes,” Glory told our driver.

He shook his head as he still white-knuckled the steering wheel. “Wasn’t hard after you blew them to hell, Miss Glory.”

I nodded my head at Valencia as I finished my story, “Glory is a badass.”

“She was raised with four brothers and an MC though,” Rocky pointed out. “So, that’s why she’s badassy.”

“Badassy?” Valencia asked as she laughed. “I can tell you and Tito are brothers.”

He and I laughed.

“Come on, let’s go find my uncle.” I scooted over on the seat and opened the door. I exited then helped Valencia out.

“Well, at least we didn’t have to hit the whiskey,” Rocky said with a chuckle.

“Hey, I may still hit it after a visit with Uncle Stephano.” I grasped Valencia’s hand.

Rocky got out of the limo on the other side and said, “Yeah, the man doesn’t like being questioned.”

“It’s the secrets,” I told him. “Can you imagine how many he has?”

“Nooo…” Rocky shut the limo door. “I bet I would have to hit the whiskey a lot if I knew what all that man keeps hidden.”

“The Dark Moon, remember?” I told him.

“The Dark Legend.”

We both looked over at Valencia, who had said this.

She stared back at us and shrugged her shoulders. “Deacon used to say that.”

Rocky and I shook our heads.

“We guarded him when he was here,” Rocky said. “And I noticed that Deacon had no fear of Uncle Stephano.”

I shrugged. “He had no fear of us either.”

“I watched him for years and I think it was partly our mother’s teachings and partly the FBI training?” Valencia told us.

“Yeah, I can imagine why he turned out the way he did. I mean that’s a helluva upbringing,” Rocky observed then he paused. “I’m sorry. I know he’s your brother…”

We both looked over at Valencia.