“Salvatore finally figured out what was going on. Roman—hell, Roman had been looking for shit all along, I have no doubt of that. Anything to discredit me. Although, it’s not like I needed much help with that.”

“From the beginning. Please.”

“Salvatore and Roman figured out I was the father of Isabella DeMarco’s little girl, Effie. The DeMarcos were our biggest rival then.”

He paused, giving me a minute to absorb.

“We’d met when we were both young—well, she was young, and I was stupid. Didn’t know who she was at first, and she didn’t know who I was. She got pregnant, and the night we’d agreed to tell our families, I chickened out. She didn’t. She told. And then, she disappeared. It was either that or old man DeMarco wanted her to get rid of the baby.”

“I remember the war between your families.” It came back vaguely. I’d been too young to really pay attention all those years ago. “Lucia was given to Salvatore like she was restitution or something.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“It would have been her older sister if you hadn’t gotten her pregnant?”

He nodded.

“Well, they figured it out,” he continued. “Luke, her cousin, an imbecile if you ask me, managed to get himself shot by another imbecile. It’s what triggered everything. Roman, my fucking uncle,” he spat the words, “tried to pin it on me, but Salvatore, my brother who can do no wrong, just wanted peace. Well, fuck peace. This is the fucking mob. You don’t get to choose peace.”

He stopped shampooing for a minute and looked off into the distance. I was glad for it. In his growing anger at his family, the massage had turned a little rough.

“You know what you get if you’re the last-born son in a mafia family, Gia?”

I waited, eyes on his when he turned back to me.

“Nothing. You get nothing.”

He picked up shampooing again, and I bit my tongue to keep quiet and let him tell his story.

“And if you’re a bastard—”

“Bastard?”

“I was pissed that night. Salvatore, he could never be boss. Never. Hell, he didn’t even want it. But he was getting it. He called a meeting at his house, and my uncle dragged me to it. I admit, I was half drunk when I walked into the dining room with a loaded gun.” He shook his head. “Then my father called Isabella a whore. Called my mother a whore. I couldn’t take it.”

He swallowed. I watched his throat work.

“It was always about Sergio. About Sergio’s kid. Well, he had another grandchild. It was time he acknowledged that.” He shook his head. “But he had another card up his sleeve.”

Dominic grimaced, his eyes distant as if he saw it all again.

“Always did have the last word, Franco Benedetti.”

“What—”