I focused on him. I did it intently and with some annoyance I didn’t bother to hide because it was annoying that he knew I was plotting.

He grinned at my reaction and kept talking.

“Like I said, bein’ straight up, Frankie. You should know I’m not fallin’ for your shit. So whatever girl you got lined up to help you make your getaway, get that shit out of your head. Old lady Zambino saw what you did on TV. She knows you took one for family and she’s all over keepin’ you safe and settled, recuperatin’ at my house. Probably half a second after my chat with her enlisting her officially in the cause, she was on her phone with that bowlin’ posse of hers and, swear to God, I saw one of those women in her Chrysler, cruisin’ the alley when I got home. You’re stuck. Give in to that and this’ll go a whole lot smoother.”

Old lady Zambino lived across the street from Benny. Old lady Zambino was Italian. Old lady Zambino was nosy. And if she knew anyone referred to her as “old lady Zambino,” she would hire a hit on them.

She was in her eighties, but she looked like she was in her fifties. She had peachy-red hair she wore up in a puffy ’do fastened at the back through curls. She was trim and fit. She wore jeans, nice blouses, and high heels. She had weekly manicures done to her talons and was never without one of her signature nail polishes: gold or wine red in the winter (scarlet red for the Christmas season); silver or fuchsia in the summer (pale pink for Easter). Her face was always made up perfectly, and she was the poster child for a good skincare regime because she had wrinkles, just not many of them.

She power walked daily and she did this in sporty athletic gear that many would say she should leave to the twentysomethings, but she worked that shit like no other.

She also played with a team of old lady bowlers in three different leagues and they took that shit seriously. If there was a senior ladies tour, she’d be the champion. Her famed ball was a marbled black with hot pink, gold, and silver veins, and she carted her ass and that twelve-pounder from alley to alley without effort and with a great deal of determination.

If she and her bowling buddies intended to keep me at Benny’s, they’d succeed.

In other words, it was time for me to act on the fly and hatch a different scheme.

So I did it.

“Does it bother you in the slightest that I don’t want to be here? That I don’t want this talk you wanna have? That I don’t wanna let Theresa have a sit-down with me? That I don’t want your dad to say his words to make amends? I just want to get on with my life after seven not-very-great years, and before that, six years with Vinnie that I realized too late weren’t real great, all of that ending with me running through the forest with a woman I did not know, and a grand finale of blood and bullets and a fair amount of gore. Which, luckily, wasn’t all mine, but watchin’ Cal blow a hole in that man’s head was not fun, even though I hate that man and I’m glad he’s rottin’ in hell.”

“Frankie—”

I shook my head. “No, Ben. I’d really like to get in your truck and for you to take me home, then leave me alone. I think I made the leavin’-me-alone part pretty clear the night I got shot because I told you that, straight up. Then I made it clear a more subtle way, hopin’ you’d get it, fakin’ sleepin’ every time you or one of your family showed at the hospital. Now you’re bein’ straight, I’ll be straight right back. I do not want what you want; I want to be left alone.”

I should have known by the look on his face that I liked way too much that what would come next would be a blow, but I stupidly didn’t brace.

So when he whispered, “But…you’re family, baby,” it was a blow.

Because it was the wrong thing to say.

It hurt. Too much.

Emotional pain was far worse than a gunshot wound and I was in the position to know.

I’d wanted that…once. I got it…once.

Then they took it away.

“Family doesn’t turn their back on family for seven years, especially doin’ that shit when one of their own loses the man in her bed.”

I saw his flinch. He tried to hide it, but I saw it.

He recovered from my hit and his voice was gentle (and, thus, beautiful) when he asked, “So you know what family does, cara?”

“Uh…yeah,” I snapped. “I know what family does.”

“Then where’s your ma?”

I clamped my mouth shut.

“Where’s Enzo Senior?” he went on.

I glared at him.

“Where’s Nat, Cat, Enzo Junior? Talked to Cindy and the girls at the nurse’s station. Not a visit. Not from one of them.”

“Ma’s in Florida,” I reminded him.

“Babe, you were shot. The only excuse she can give not to be at your bedside after that kind of shit happens is she’s on the f**kin’ moon and NASA declared there’s no safe reentry without burnin’ up.”

“You know Ninette is not the bedside-vigil type of mom,” I reminded him.

“I know not one of those folks you count as blood is the bedside-vigil, takin’-care-of-their-girl type at all. That is not family, Frankie, and it proves my point. You don’t know family. You did, you’d know that shit is not right. Fuck, your dad, Nat, and Cat all still live in the city and they didn’t haul their asses to the hospital to see you.”

“Nat works nights,” I pointed out. “She has to sleep during the day.”

“She works as a cocktail waitress,” Benny returned. “She’s not an ER doc who takes the night shift and has to get her shuteye in ’cause, if she doesn’t, she could make a mistake the next day that might cost someone their life.”

He’d been annoying me.

Now he was pissing me off.

“Why are we talking about this?” I hissed.

“Because, for some fool reason, you’re denyin’ yourself somethin’ you want.” He shook his head. “No, somethin’ you need. Somethin’ I’m handin’ you and you refuse to reach out and take it.”

“What I’m tryin’ to get through that thick head of yours is I don’t want it, Benny. I definitely don’t need it. I want to move beyond it.”

“That’s a straight-up lie,” he shot back.

“It is not.” My voice was rising.

Suddenly, his face was in my face and all I could smell was his aftershave, all I could see were his eyes. “So you’re sayin’ I kissed you right now, you would not want that?”