PART ONE: BEFORE

Corrado

Koi no yokan.

Corrado read those words, inked in a script font and hidden on the inner elbow of his family priest’s arm. It was the only time he ever noticed the tattoo, and that said something considering he attended this church since he was a newborn. They had christened him in this place. His first communion had been an interesting experience as a kid with a church of more than four hundred parishioners watching. Catholicism for the Guzzis was a second skin—the church, a second home. He recognized these walls inside and out.

But not that tattoo.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

The priest—Father Gene, they called him—looked up from the papers he’d been moving aside on his desk. The office, a mixture of dark woods, richly colored tapestries, smelled of old leather, and even older books. Compliments of the row of texts that looked like they had seen better days lining the shelves behind the priest’s desk.

“What, Corrado?”

“That, there,” Corrado said, pointing at the black script on the priest’s inner elbow. “What do the words mean?”

Father Gene’s hand came up to cover the small spot of ink as a smile curved his lips. “Something you wouldn’t understand at seventeen, I assure you. And we’re not here to talk about tattoos I had done before I joined the priesthood.”

“How old were you, then?” Corrado tipped his head to the side. “When you joined?”

“I started the process at nineteen.”

“So, you had the tattoo before then, but you won’t tell me what it means because I won’t understand because of my age?”

Father Gene stared at him from across the desk, silent. His father, Gian, would say this was one of those times. Out of all his siblings, including his identical twin, Corrado was the one who spoke when he should stay quiet.

He’d rather talk about other shit than what he came here for.

“Are we asking about my tattoo because you’re attempting to avoid the conversation about your lack of confession for two years?”

Corrado stared at the cross over the window to his right rather than at the priest. “I don’t need to do confession.”

“But your father believes something is wrong … he’s the one who asked me to bring you in for a session of counsel, didn’t he?”

He was smart, so he stayed quiet when he had nothing good to say. Like right now.

The priest didn’t miss it.

“I’m worried about you,” the man across the desk admitted. “You graduated high school three weeks ago, and according to your father, you have yet to decide on a real path of what you want to do. And without getting into the specifics of your father’s business, because without me explaining that to you, he knows I don’t approve, I’m concerned you will flounder with no stability to hold on to. No work, no college … no faith.”

Corrado’s gaze snapped back to the priest. “I have faith.”

He was sure of that. The problem? His faith and doctrine had taught him that certain parts of himself weren’t right. He found comfort in church, but he also found confusion, too.

“If you tell me why you stopped confession, and why you’re struggling to move forward in your life, I will tell you what the tattoo means,” Father Gene said, grinning. “And whatever you tell me, that will never go beyond these walls.”

“Not even to my parents?”

“Not even to them, Corrado.”

He stared down at where he’d clasped his hands in his lap. This way, he wouldn’t fidget or distract himself. He didn’t need his nerves on display. Another thing being a Guzzi had taught him—the appearance of calm and confidence was most important, but especially in their life.

Corrado was far from stupid, and he could tell what people assumed when they saw him. They assumed because he ran around with Guzzi blood in his veins, that like his older brother, Marcus, and even his twin, Chris, he would be the same and go into the family business.

La famiglia.

The mafia.

His last name said so. The legacy that came with it kept the demand alive. Tradition. Men in this life followed their father’s footsteps, and even more so when one’s father just happened to be Gian Guzzi—Cosa Nostra Don, controlling the largest and most powerful crime family in Canada. It was expected of Corrado; history said so.

Except his father. Gian never said a word about it. Not to Corrado.

“You’re struggling,” the priest said, his French clear. Maybe because he assumed it would comfort Corrado. The only person who spoke French to him now, besides associates of his father, was Gian. He didn’t see his father’s French-Italian side of the family enough to speak anything with them. “I can see.”

“I’m not like them,” Corrado said.

Father Gene raised a single eyebrow high as he leaned forward to rest his clasped hands on the desk. “Why would you say that?”

He’d been ready to spill his secret, to admit why he was, in fact, struggling between life and business. The reason for his lack of a decision, and his waffling.

“Corrado?”

He swallowed hard and stared down at his hands again. “I stopped coming to confession at fifteen because I had sex.”

The priest sat back in his chair. “Oh.” And then, the man added with a laugh, “That’s not a reason to stop confessing, it’s a reason to confess, Corrado.”

“With another guy,” he added lower.

That quieted Father Gene.

Corrado shifted in the high-back leather chair the longer the silence dragged on. “That’s partly a lie. I had sex with a girl before that, but—”

“I understand,” the priest murmured.

“This is not … our way.” Corrado shrugged. “I hear what people say—inside this church, and outside, about people like me. In business, it’s a weakness. Here, it’s a sin. Except I can’t be different, and so, I don’t fit in.”

He’d always been this way.

At first, Corrado didn’t know what to label his sexuality. In high school, the only gay kid he was acquainted with—at the time—got treated like a second-class human. Because he liked girls, too, that helped to keep his attraction to guys under everyone else’s radar. He kept it to himself because if that was how people behaved with someone at school, what would happen outside?

And then a new student came in—a guy that Corrado watched from afar as he navigated the terrain of private, Catholic school. He wasn’t sure what clued him in about the fact the guy was more like him than the other students, or even the one gay student in their school, but it happened.

Corrado learned a lot about himself from that. Bisexuality was fluid, and hard to explain to someone who wasn’t like him. Being with a guy didn’t change the fact he still liked the way the girl’s legs looked in her skirt from the school down the road. Except to everyone else, it seemed like they didn’t get that.

Gay was gay. Straight was straight. There was no in between. That’s what people said.

Corrado was right in the fucking middle, trying to figure out what it meant, and what he should do. Stuck between a culture his family was deeply ingrained in that told him he would never belong—he couldn’t be—and the choice of disappointing those around him when he didn’t decide what they wanted for him.

He couldn’t win.

Guzzis always won.

“Corrado, if you want me to say sex before marriage is not a sin, I can’t do that,” the priest said, dragging him from his thoughts.

“It’s not the sex that worried me.”

The man across the desk smiled softly. “No, I imagine you worried about the other bits.”

He shrugged.

“If you want me to tell you homosexual attraction is not a sin, then I can’t do that, either,” the priest murmured.

Corrado let out a hard sigh, and readied to stand from the chair. The meeting was pointless. This wasn’t news. He hadn’t expected to get a different answer than the one he had.

He should have known better.

They all thought the same thing:

He was wrong.

He didn’t belong.

He was different.

And because he was a Catholic, and the son of an Italian mafia boss, his problem was on a more prominent display for him about just how much he didn’t fit in anywhere. He couldn’t explain that to those around him without giving away his secret though.

“Sit down,” Father Gene said.

Corrado passed the man a look. “I think we’re good here, yeah?”

“If you didn’t notice, allow me to point out to you what you missed about my statement,” Father Gene replied, pointing a finger at the chair. Corrado sat his ass back down because he didn’t have a choice, honestly. “I treated the sin of sex before marriage with the same tone and respect as I did homosexuality. Because sin is sin. And sin, no matter who is doing it, is all the same. The thing people seem to forget is that we do not get to weigh one sin against the other to bolster our own sanctity and pureness, Corrado. One sin does not trump another—sin is sin.”

The man shrugged, adding, “And we are all sinners. That is what Christ teaches us. It is why Jesus died on the cross for us. Because He recognized we were all sinners, and we would all need forgiveness not once, but throughout our lifetime. People wrongly assume that their faith, and the way they live within the truth of their faith is the same way everyone else should, too, but they don’t understand that isn’t how it works.”

Corrado chewed on his inner cheek. “How does it work, then?”

“Faith is a discipline for your own morality, Corrado, but it is not a right to dictate to others about theirs. And it would be ignorant for me to assume anything about someone else’s relationship with God, or their right to faith. I know my relationship with God; it is strong, and I hear Him, drawing me to my path and calling. So, because of that, I share His words, and I celebrate them—I do not dictate His words like a tyrant from the pulpit. That defeats the purpose of the Bible, and of Him.”

Corrado stared down at his lap, the gold Guzzi signet ring on his index finger glinting under the office light overheard. “So, what does that mean for me?”

“It means you are allowed to have faith, and your own relationship with God, and no one should expect to understand that relationship, or define it for themselves. They have their own faith to worry about before they need to even consider yours. It means you may be a sinner, and no one can or should tell you that your sins are worse than theirs because they don’t sin like you do. It doesn’t matter—sin is still sin. And yes, I believe you should aspire to live a life free of sin, but it’s impossible. Even Jesus sinned, Corrado.”

“Huh.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the priest smile again. “Not the answer you were expecting?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry that people seem to interpret the Word in their own way without seeing the bigger picture. That’s not your fault, Corrado. It is their own flaw.”

He nodded. “It doesn’t help me to make a choice, though.”

Father Gene cleared his throat. “About your father, and business?”

“Yeah, all of that.”

“Knowing Gian like I do, I think he will be happy as long as you are, young man. It is a matter of finding what makes you happy. Do you understand?”

Possibly.

“I think so,” Corrado said.

“Good. Confession after the New Year. I expect to see you here. Also, I hear you’re heading to Vegas this weekend—a trip for business with your father, yes?”

Yeah, a whole trip Corrado did not understand, if he were being honest. When Gian traveled for la familiga, he was quick to point out to his sons all the details of the organization they would be seeing. He liked for his boys to learn, so they never stepped out of line when it counted or caused a problem.

This time, his father said nothing.

Corrado wasn’t sure what to expect.

“Safe travels,” the priest told him, “I’ll pray for it.”

“Thank you, Father.”

Corrado pushed up from the chair, moving to leave. It was only Father Gene’s voice behind him that made his steps hesitate.

“Don’t I owe you, now?”

Seemingly lighter on his feet, and like he could do something with what he learned here today, Corrado had no idea what he forgot. Giving the priest a glance over his shoulder, he asked, “And what’s that?”

“Koi no yokan,” the priest said, and Corrado’s gaze darted to the tattoo on the man’s inner elbow. “It’s Japanese, and it doesn’t have a meaning as much as what it is. A feeling, Corrado. It is the feeling upon meeting someone you know, eventually, you will fall in love with that person.”

“Like love at first sight?”

“No. It’s something else entirely.”

“Is it a real thing?”

“It was for me,” the man murmured.

He had a realization, then.

Like the priest said, they all sinned; their sins were simply different.

“You must tell me if it ever happens to you, too,” Father Gene said. “Gian is waiting for you, isn’t he? Have a blessed day.”