“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?”

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

“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.”

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

“No, nothing much had changed in the old neighborhood. She was still just an actress in someone else’s play.”

“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.”

“...for there is nothing so perfect as a thing with no ending and no beginning, such as a family of souls intertwined.”