He laughs at that.

Laughs.

"You didn't come around here for years. Years. You didn't care how I was doing when you were out running these streets, causing problems. Didn't care how it affected anyone else when you were making these enemies. Why should I believe you suddenly care now?"

"I've always cared."

He turns around, using the knife to point at me. "Bullshit. The only people you ever cared about were the people who could do things for you, so tell me, Ignazio… what do you need from me?"

My skin prickles at that accusation.

I don't like it.

It might be the truth, I don't know, but it feels like a lie.

I certainly care about Karissa. Maybe, at the start, it had been about what she could do for me, but it's more than that now. A lot more. Even when she wasn't giving me the time of day, when she wanted nothing to do with me, I cared about what happened to her. I worried about her. And not because I knew it would destroy me to lose her… because it would. There would be no coming back from that. But when it came down to it, I worried for her, because of her. I didn't want her to get hurt. I would've sacrificed myself to make sure she walked away unscathed.

And I did.

I let her go.

I told her to walk away.

But she came back.

"She says you're different, you know," he continues, turning back around to continue slicing his tomatoes. "I've been trying to see it… to see what she sees… but you don't seem any different to me."

I want to tell him it's because he's not looking hard enough, but that's a lie and I know it. The problem is, he's looking harder than Karissa is. She thinks I'm different because she wants me to be. And I'm trying to be. But I'm still me.

I can't be anybody but me.

At some point, every part of me became every part of that. The life isn't just something I lived… it was how I survived. It infused itself into every one of my cells, infecting every mitochondrion. It's in my blood and my bones, and unless you drain me dry and rip me to pieces, you'll never rid me of all of it.

It's like expecting a man to survive without a beating heart in his chest.

Expecting him to breathe without lungs.

Expecting him to fight when he has no reason to live.

It's like expecting a man to still be a man after taking away everything that makes him who he is.

I can be good to her.

I might even be good for her.

But that doesn't mean I'm good.

My father knows that.

"I love her."

"I know you do."

That wasn't the response I expected from him. Figured he'd fight me on that, say I wasn't capable of loving anybody.

"You do?"

He nods. "Figure you must, since she's still alive."

Hearing him say that makes my chest tighten. "What makes you think I ever planned to kill her?"

He shoots a look over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed. "I never said you did."

Huh. I suppose he didn't.

I can tell by the look of disgust that crosses his face that I just gave a key piece of information away. He thought I'd get her killed. Hell, he still thinks I'll get her killed. But until now, he never realized I'd sunk so low that I would've killed her myself.

"People started shooting and the first thing you did was throw her out of harms way," he continues, turning back away from me. "Then you stood there, where they could see you, because you knew who they were after. You knew you were the target."

"We were safe," I say. "I knew the glass was bulletproof."

"Doesn't matter," he says. "It was instinct, and it wasn't the first time that kicked in. You killed Angelo last year. You always said he was a father to you… more of a father than me. But you killed him, for her… you chose her over who you called family. You and me… we love differently. But that doesn't mean you don't love her, in your own twisted way."

That almost sounds like a compliment.

Almost.

"I got myself in something," I say, "something I can't get out of."

He's quiet for a moment, continuing what he's doing. I almost want to fill the silence, to try to explain, even know I know there's no point in elaborating. He knows what I mean. But something about the man makes me feel like a kid again, a kid trying to ward off a whipping by explaining it all away.

Never worked then.

Wouldn't work now.

I could try to make him feel sympathy for what I'm going through, but I'd never succeed. The only thing I might rouse is a tad bit of pity.

Pity that I'm pathetic, probably.

Pity that I can't save my own ass.

"Is that what you came here for, Ignazio? Some fatherly advice?"

"Maybe."

"Then I'll tell you the same thing I told Johnny all those years ago," he says. "Run."

Coldness rushes through my body at those words, starting at the top of my head and flowing straight toward the tip of my toes. My fingers tingle, my skin prickles, pins and needles all over my body. "You told him to run?"

"I did," he says calmly, matter of fact, like those words are no more potent than as if he were recounting yesterday's deli special. "He came to me, scared, said he was in too deep to ever get out, and he was worried… not for himself, but for her. The girl."

Carmela.

"Did you know?" My voice is low, so low I don't even know if those words even come out. The cold rage that flows through me makes my body shake. "Did you know what he'd done to me? To my wife? To my baby?"

"I had an idea," he admits. "You were still in the hospital. You weren't talking yet. I didn't think he'd pulled the trigger. I didn't think he could've. But I thought… I suspected maybe he knew. Maybe he knew too much. Maybe he was somehow involved."

"So you helped him?"

"No, I was trying to help you."

"How? How was telling him to run helping me?"

He turns around, his expression blank, like he's not at all affected by the anger in my voice, the anger I'm fighting really hard to contain. My mother, God rest her soul, would never forgive me if I stole that knife from his hand and jammed it through his throat. "Because I didn't want my son to become a murderer. It was bad enough, thinking maybe Johnny fell that far, but you? My kid? I still had hope for you then. I hoped you'd wake up, and you'd realize what that life did to you, what being Angelo's son got you, and you'd walk away before it was too late."

He turns back around, yet again, returning to his tomatoes, yet again. Like that's his biggest priority here. Tomatoes.

"Lot of good that did," he says. "Look at you now."

Bitter tension hangs in the air.

I have no idea what to say.

What to do.

Ray tried to induct me into his organization after what happened. He said I'd earned my place. He said I belonged with them. In another life, I probably wouldn't have hesitated, but in the world I woke up in after losing my family? None of that mattered. All I cared about was revenge.

I tracked Johnny to Florida eventually, found him and Carmela staying at an orange grove. I knew the place. Knew it, because we'd gone there before. The two of them looked happy, planning their lives together, settling in with the help of a family friend. Edoardo Accardi, former enforcer for the Genova crime family. He'd moved on to bigger things: the black market. If you wanted something, you went to Accardi.