2. "I Ain't Got Nobody"

Bulbs suspended from the ceiling illuminated rows of crates stacked three high. Avilio walked between them as his consigliere followed. "Give me the numbers."

Barbero opened a leather-bound ledger. "We make two hundred gallons a day, six days a week. Nine bottles, fifty-five dollars a crate, five hundred crates a week. We sell everything fast as we can make them."

"Expenses?"

He turned over a page. "Currently we have forty-seven on the payroll. Workers, drivers, soldiers and sundry associates… twenty-five hundred dollars a week. Grain, fuel, other inputs, another twenty-five hundred. After transport, bribes, and support for our widows, we bring in just over twenty-thousand a week."

"Hmph." Avilio touched the Del Monte logo emblazoned on the side of a crate, the paint still damp. "Add a hundred a week for Corteo's mother."

"Yes, boss." Barbero made the note and closed the book. "There have been reports that some unscrupulous speakeasies have been diluting our product, to stretch their supply."

"Send someone to warn them."

"Done, but they'll just raise prices instead. The problem is we can't meet demand."

"Fine, we'll build more stills." The blueprints were secure in the family compound's safe, a final parting gift from his friend. "Anything else?"

"No, though I thought you'd be pleased. You're a rich man; soon, maybe the wealthiest in the state."

Avilio walked out of the warehouse. Riches were not what he set out to accomplish.

They drove back towards Lawless, Avilio at the wheel. The young man cursed when snow from a tree dropped onto the middle of road. "How is the princess doing?"

"Well enough, visiting the families, the hospital. Everyone is glad she's back. A lot of the older guys watched her grow up." Barbero poured coffee from a thermos while keeping a close eye on his boss' driving. "And all the young guys were at least a little in love with her."

Avilio smirked. "Even you?"

Barbero smiled conspiratorially. "Perhaps, but to touch the Don's daughter would've been death."

"Which is what happened to Ronaldo."

"True, as it turned out. May he rot in hell."

They drove on, saying no more for the next ten miles, the space filled by the sound of the engine and the snow crunching beneath the tires. Among the living, they alone knew the truth about Fio's late husband. The tacit understanding that they would never speak of it helped cement their partnership in the darkest hour, when it seemed the family would disintegrate after the Don and Nero's death.

Avilio's thoughts returned to the young woman who had lately been occupying his mind: The daughter of his father's murderer, the last member of the family who destroyed his.

"How did Fio feel, being married off to the Galassias?"

Like tribute?

"The Don wished it. She accepted, like a good daughter. But…" Barbero looked straight ahead as Lawless gradually came into view. "Nero tried to talk her out of it, even made plans to send her to college in Boston. She said no. She was determined to help the family."

The turned onto the road that led to the family compound. Barbero grimaced, tossing the tepid, bitter brew out the window. "It was a terrible fucking waste."

xxxxxxxxxx

Fio lay in bed, her face buried in the sheets. She felt drained but better, finally able to cry after returning to be among friends, her people.

Over the past few days she visited families of men killed during Nero and Frate's feud and the even bloodier war that followed. Many were friends, people she knew. Together they mourned their fathers, husbands, brothers, sons. They comforted her, promised prayers for her family, her lost baby. They told her she was still young; she was sure to find a new husband and be blessed with more children.

Fio just smiled. She was certain there would not be another.

She raised herself by her elbows, looking around. The day she came home, she was relieved to find they had prepared her old bedroom rather than the one she and Ronaldo had shared. She was not ready.

Her bedroom was the same as she left it three months ago. The shelves held her precious library: Louisa May Alcott, Henry James, Fitzgerald, Cooper, Austen, Whitman. Paintings she had done adorned the walls along with photos of her mother and their family.

Her gaze shifted to the picture frame sitting on her desk. It was her wedding day. She stood between her brothers, all of them in an embrace, all smiling gaily. It was the last picture they took together.

The room was the same, but everything else had changed.

She was startled awake by the clock striking. While she dozed day had turned to evening. Outside the snow resumed, and the mansion was silent.

The silence filled her with indescribable fear; fear of the future, of life alone in an empty home.

Fio hated the silence.

She stepped into the hallway and closed the door softly, and was about to head downstairs when she heard a faint sound from the direction of her father's study.

It sounded like music.

She stood outside the study, hesitating, unsure what she might find, whether she was imagining things; if she was going mad.

She turned the knob.

The chair behind her father's desk from where he conducted most business was empty. Avilio occupied one of the visitor's chair, putting aside a tome and rising as she walked in. "Miss Vanetti."

"Avilio."

From an ornate wooden cabinet standing along the wall, the low voice of a woman crooned about longing and disappointment.

"Can I get you anything?"

"No, I just..." She gestured towards the radio. "I heard, so I thought I might find someone here."

"I see." Under Avilio's searching gaze, Fio became conscious of how she must have appeared, red-eyed and rumpled from crying to sleep in her dress. "This is your home. You are mistress of this house. I only stayed in order to put the family's affairs in order, and will not impose on you any longer than necessary."

"Are you leaving us?"

"I..."

"Please stay." Panic gripped her as the dread from earlier returned. "Please. It's... too quiet, this house. It used to be full of people, life, and now it's a..."

She held herself as if she were cold; freezing. She looked up, pleading with him with her eyes.

Avilio nodded uncomfortably. "... I was about to say I would take up lodgings in town, but if you'll have me, I would be grateful to accept your offer."

So they became housemates.

~To be Continued~


Author's Notes: Researching the Prohibition just before the Great Depression has been fun, and where possible I've tried to work in details from the era. This chapter's title is a hit song from around that time, when jazz musicians and blues singers were making waves on the new medium of radio.