Chapter 37
Lucia was smart.
She was also a bitch –
But she was smart, I’d give her that.
She’d deduced the one inconvenient fact behind the entire shitshow of the last 24 hours:
That ultimately, my brothers and I were the reason behind everything that had happened.
The attack on the palazzo…
The kidnappers at the university…
The two of us being forced to go on the lam.
Now, I took it for granted that murder and mayhem were just part of being in the Cosa Nostra.
(And of having treacherous relatives, although that was a different matter.)
The Widow certainly didn’t seem to blame us for bringing a war to her doorstep…
But I couldn’t deny what Lucia had said.
There was a 99% chance that none of this would have ever happened if I hadn’t flown to Venice yesterday morning.
So I could understand Lucia being angry…
But I was angry, too.
I’d risked my life any number of times to save both her and her grandmother.
But…
That argument didn’t hold much water when it was me who had put them in danger in the first place.
I didn’t feel bad about that. Like I said – part of being in the Cosa Nostra.
The Widow knew the risks and the downsides.
And Fausto and Aurelio were ultimately the ones to blame.
But it wasn’t like I could feign total innocence in all of this.
Still, Lucia’s attitude rankled me…
Maybe because I knew she was right. Or at least partially right.
One good thing about her figuring it out, though:
She didn’t talk to me for the next two hours. Not even to complain.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.
So there was a huge upside to her being a bitch, for once.