“It wasn’t his job to keep tabs on mob princesses, but this one was sort of a hobby.”

“She wished with one part of her soul this weren’t real and with the other that it was, but wasn’t it just another goodbye either way?”

“Luchese lit his cigar and pushed up the sleeves of his jacket as if preparing for work. Bring it on, fuckface, James thought. It was hard to take seriously a man that wasn’t smart enough to just take the damn jacket off.”

“In fact, there was a sort of satisfaction and pride in knowing that Kiki was his. Other men could look, they could envy, they could even covet, but she was going home with him. Every. Time.”

“His face burst into a prism of colors and light as her eyes welled with tears and when they fell down her cheeks it felt like fire.”

“A mixed up knot of incompatible roles, tied up too tight to know where one ended and another began.”

“And maybe then when they were all a family, Tommy would be able to see what Mary used to see, what his other children saw, not just a man who would kill for them but a man who would die for them...the man underneath it all.”