Sure, alone at the candlelit table, just me, him and a bottle of wine, it had seemed like everything was exactly how it should be and nothing could ever come between us, but the next day—in the bright rationality of morning—it was clear that nothing in our circumstances had changed and neither, for that matter, had Romeo Mancini. Yes, I knew a deeper side to him now, but it was still only one half of the entire complicated package and the other half was dangerous. The other side to Romeo (which was also, I had to admit to myself, the dominant side) was lawless and destructive and it had already set the man on a path that could only lead to heartbreak for anybody who cared about him. What did those guys say, that it only ends two ways: prison or a bullet? I didn’t think I had in me to withstand such a tragedy and I certainly wasn’t going to stick around knowing that it was inevitably out there in front of him somewhere, immutable on the horizons of his life. I’d had enough heartbreak in my own lifetime for that.
