Chapter 7 - THE DINNER WITH NO BODYGUARDS AT THE TABLE
Our first date happened at a small Greek restaurant in Lincoln Park.
I chose it.
Alessandro checked ownership before agreeing.
Apparently he had interests in more restaurants than I realized.
“You own too many things.”
“I don’t own this.”
“Congratulations.”
Marco sat across street.
Technically compliant.
Alessandro’s left shoulder still moved stiffly.
He avoided lifting arm too high.
I noticed.
Then deliberately stopped noticing.
He noticed me stop.
That made him smile.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You did nurse face.”
“I do not have nurse face.”
“You absolutely do.”
Dinner was strange for first twenty minutes.
We knew each other too well in wrong ways.
I knew his pain tolerance.
His scars.
How he slept.
How he looked frightened before surgery.
I did not know his favorite movie.
He knew about my landlord.
My water heater.
My coffee complaints.
He did not know where I grew up.
So we started over.
“Favorite movie?”
I asked.
“The Godfather.”
I stared.
He laughed.
“No.”
“Good.”
“Casablanca.”
“Better.”
“You?”
“Jaws.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
“Competent professionals being ignored until everything gets worse.”
He laughed so hard his shoulder hurt.
Good.
I grew up outside Milwaukee.
Middle child.
Father taught high school history.
Mother worked at a credit union.
Nothing dramatic.
I became a nurse because my older sister spent months in hospital after a childhood illness and one nurse remembered to explain things to us kids.
Alessandro listened.
Really listened.
Then I asked:
“Why Mafia?”
He stared.
“That’s blunt.”
“You invited nurse.”
He looked at water glass.
“My father.”
“Family.”
“Neighborhood.”
“By twenty-two, I was already inside.”
“Did you want it?”
“Some.”
Honest.
“Power feels good when you’re young.”
“And now?”
“Power feels expensive.”
That was better.
He explained enough without glorifying.
Rossi organization had begun decades earlier around trucking, produce markets, labor influence and protection.
Some businesses legitimate.
Some not.
Alessandro inherited structure and expanded.
He had tried recent years to remove activities that brought drugs and indiscriminate violence into neighborhoods.
That decision helped create Carlo’s rebellion.
“So you’re reforming Mafia?”
I asked.
He grimaced.
“Sounds ridiculous when you say it.”
“It is.”
“I’m not pretending to become a saint.”
“Good.”
“I’m trying to stop making money from things I wouldn’t allow near my own family.”
I considered.
“Low bar.”
“Yes.”
“Start somewhere.”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
The trials and internal consequences unfolded over next year.
Carlo received a long sentence after multiple cooperating witnesses tied him to the ambush plot and medication conspiracy.
Rinaldi even longer.
Dr. Kessler lost his medical license and faced criminal consequences for falsifying care and accepting money.
Thomas Vale’s companies collapsed under investigations into bribery and conspiracy-related conduct.
Vanessa cooperated.
Her sentence was reduced.
I never followed exact legal numbers obsessively.
She had her own consequences.
Alessandro never intervened for her.
He also never demanded harsher punishment.
“She loved you,” I said once.
He looked.
“Some version.”
“Do you hate her?”
“Some days.”
“That’s inconvenient.”
“Yes.”
“Do you miss her?”
He thought.
“Some.”
Good.
Nobody had to become cartoon.
Our relationship grew through ordinary things.
Coffee.
Walks.
Arguments.
My schedule.
His rehabilitation.
He sometimes canceled dinner because Mafia sit-downs ran late.
I sometimes canceled because a patient crashed.
Neither loved it.
Both understood.
He tried to send car after snowstorm.
I accepted.
Growth for me too.
I tried to tell him what exercises to do when shoulder hurt.
He stared.
“You are off duty.”
I apologized.
Growth.
Eight months into dating, he invited me to Rossi house for Sunday dinner.
I expected armed men and dark whispers.
There were armed men.
Also his eighty-year-old aunt Lucia yelling because nobody grated enough parmesan.
More normal than expected.
Captain Marino was there.
So was Marco.
They treated me carefully.
Too carefully.
Aunt Lucia did not.
“You’re skinny.”
“I’m normal.”
“Eat.”
Alessandro whispered:
“You cannot win.”
I liked her.
After dinner, I walked past study.
Giuseppe Rossi’s silver watch sat in glass box.
I stopped.
Alessandro noticed.
“Why glass?”
“Marco.”
“Security.”
I looked at him.
“Do you want it there?”
He thought.
Then opened box.
Took watch.
Put it on wrist.
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because after Carlo stole it, everyone treated it like crown.”
“Is it?”
“No.”
He looked at face.
“It tells time badly.”
I smiled.
Then:
“What does it mean?”
He thought.
“My father.”
“Good and bad.”
“Things he built.”
“Things I don’t want to repeat.”
Better.
He kept wearing it.
Not every day.
Choice.
One year after first date, Alessandro asked me to move in.
“No.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
“You’re learning.”
“I hate learning.”
Six months later, I suggested we look for a place together.
Not his old mansion.
Not my apartment.
Shared.
He stared.
“Are you asking me to move?”
“Yes.”
“Into a place with functioning water heater?”
“Non-negotiable.”
He laughed.
We chose townhouse near lake.
Still expensive.
Not absurd.
Marco complained security.
I complained Marco.
Compromise.
The Rossi organization also changed.
Carlo loyalists removed.
Not killed.
Removed from authority.
Some left Chicago.
Some accepted diminished roles.
Alessandro created actual council limits around contracts and dock decisions.
Captain Marino called it “democracy with worse tailoring.”
Alessandro hated phrase.
I loved it.
The illegal side narrowed.
No drug routes through Rossi terminals.
No assaults used as debt collection.
No guns in hospitals became an actual standing rule after my trauma-room speech somehow became family legend.
One younger guard asked Alessandro:
“Even if boss is inside?”
Alessandro answered:
“Especially then.”
That made me proud.
I did not say.
He would become unbearable.
Then, two years after shooting, Alessandro stood in our kitchen with toolbox.
I stared.
“What are you doing?”
“Cabinet hinge.”
“You have people.”
“You complain I have people.”
“I complain you summon them for light bulbs.”
He held screwdriver wrong.
“Give me ten minutes.”
Seven minutes later, cabinet door fell off.
I laughed until I cried.
He stared.
“This is why people work for me.”
Then he laughed too.
And somewhere between a broken cabinet and overcooked pasta, the most feared man in Chicago stopped feeling like the patient I once kept alive.
He became simply Alessandro.
Complicated.
Difficult.
May you like
Mine only because he kept choosing me—
and I kept choosing him back.
