by Ella James
He blinks, blank-faced. “Yeah, so what.” He swallows, and I can see how hard he’s fighting to keep feelings off his face.
“So you deserve to have a life. A really above-average life.”
“People who do two-year school only ever have average lives?”
“Of course not—that’s not what I’m saying at all, you know it’s not. But Robert said you got a scholarship to Columbia.” My voice cracks on the words I’m not supposed to say.
Luca’s eyes narrow. “He told you that?”
“He told me his guidance counselor told him. Or like…implied that it was you. He…said you got a full ride, Luca.” I’m surprised at the tears that fill my eyes when I say it aloud. I’m even more surprised by Luca’s face, which softens instantly.
“Hey, it’s okay.” He’s moving closer to me, touching my hair, then pulling me up against him. “Don’t be sad, la mia rosa. I’m sorry, and I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you.” He sighs, a soft sound, and drops his face down to my shoulder. I can feel his warm breath on my throat. Then he lifts his head back up and looks into my eyes. “I love you, la mia rosa.”
“I love you il mio cuore.”
His eyes shut.
I called him ‘my heart.’ “I looked that up on our computer so I could say something back to you.”
My cheeks burn. He kisses my lips gently.
“We’ll figure something out,” I hear him whisper. My heart’s racing, and I’m warm all over. In that moment, I believe we will.
Chapter Fourteen
Elise
It’s going to be a good night. I can tell as soon as I get home from school. Dad is home from work already, set up in his office drinking gin and tonic. When I poke my head into the room to say hi, he gives me a big smile.
“Are you ready for your special night?”
I nod, and he surprises me by standing up and walking around his desk to hug me.
“Safety first,” he tells me. “Don’t drink from a Solo cup.” He quirks one of his dark brows, and I laugh even as I pray that topic doesn’t come up.
A few weeks after my grounding ended, Dad said sorry. He even said that maybe he had been “too much a lawyer and not enough father” that night he found me at the party.
But I haven’t let my guard down, and for good reason. I found a camera in my bedroom back in January, its lens hidden in my antique chifforobe. I assume my phone calls are recorded, too. There’s a little symbol on the phone that wasn’t always there; it appeared after my mom snapped on the phone’s protective case.
“I won’t,” I promise.
“Make the boys treat you like a princess.”
I laugh as he lets me out of the liquor-scented hug. “Dad, I think you’re drunk.”
“I’m not. I’m happy for my oldest daughter as she rounds out her senior year and gets ready for Columbia.”
“You’re just happy that I didn’t want to go to Harvard.”
“That too. Harvard is too far away.”
It thrills me to hear my dad say that. For months, he’s been checked out. Half the time, he doesn’t seem to notice me at all. It’s nice to know he still cares.
“I think you warmed on Columbia when Mom said you didn’t have to live here with us,” he says. “Unless…mistakes are made.”
I snort, forcing a smile as I look down at my boots. “That’s not true.”
Dad ruffles my hair. “Sure it isn’t, cara.”
I stick my tongue out, and the intercom on his wall crackles. “Franc, will you send shona to my dressing room?”
“I will.” He winks at me. “I think your mother’s got the beauty army ready.”
I stick a hand up in an awkward little wave, feeling weird but kind of happy about all the attention aimed my way tonight. “Bye, Daddy.”
“I’ll be there to see you off, cara.”
Cara. I think about the pet name as I walk down the long hall past our home theater, Mom’s Pilates room, and the art studio and therapy space my parents made for Bec when she was younger.
Why does my dad call me cara? I have some memory of him telling me it means dear little one…or something like that. Daddy calls me cara and Mom calls me shona. I know shona is a Bengali endearment. But Cara?
I feel like maybe cara is Italian. How weird would that be? If my dad knows Italian—and he clearly does—I figure he would have to have learned it sometime in the last few years, for whatever “work” he’s doing with…whoever. But it’s weird because I’ve never heard him speak the language once except that night at the wedding.
The night I met Luca, although I didn’t know it at the time.
I shake my head as I approach the staircases. There are two of them—hanging staircases like frozen ribbons that curl down toward the first floor.
I smile to myself as I ascend the right-hand staircase. Both are made of glossy hardwood and covered with red carpet, such that I have always felt a little like a princess or celebrity as I climb them.
It’s too bad my bedroom isn’t upstairs, or I’d get to do this every night. But only the master suite is upstairs, with its prima views of the river. My room, Bec’s, the suite my parents started using after Bec started using a wheelchair, and all the guestrooms are on the first floor, along with an additional 2,000 square feet for staff. Raya, the chef; Jazmine, the household manager; and Darryl, our security person, live under our roof, and one of the nurses sleeps over almost every night—in a room that adjoins Bec’s—since Mom stopped.
That thought sours my mood, but I try to lift myself out of it. I can hear Ana, one of the newer nurses, singing to Bec as I walk past her room.
I try not to think about the difference between our lives—Becca’s and mine. She can’t even speak, can barely lift her head, and someone that she barely knows is singing to her—music that maybe she doesn’t even want to hear right now. While I’m walking toward my parents’ room to get dressed up for a ball.
Luca can’t pick me up, but I’ll be with him all night. I’m loved by him. Even if he doesn’t come to Columbia with me—and I’m going to make sure he comes to Columbia with me—it’s not as if I’m going to lose him. He’s amazing, and he’s mine. Sometimes I feel like I have the whole world, and sweet Becca has nothing.
And now I’m thinking about it, and I can’t think about it right before I have my makeup done!
Does this make me just like Mom: so willing to move on and live my life?
But wouldn’t Bec want me to do that?
Stop stop stop stop stop! Stop.
I step into a guest bathroom to dab at my eyes. There is nothing I can do about the way things are. Not one thing that I’m not doing. I spent an hour with Bec after I got home from school today, and I’ll go by and see her again after I’m dolled up. Despite my guilt, I know she’ll love to see me in a gorgeous gown—just like she loved seeing my Luca.
Everything will be okay. Becca is okay right now. There is nothing wrong with having fun. These are things my therapist, Yvette, tells me weekly.
My parents’ rooms are on the west side of the building. Their bedroom door is passcode protected. Each of us has our own password, and the door won’t let anybody through unless one of my parents has pre-authorized the entry. Now the door is propped open.
Laughter bounces out into the wide hall. Perfume wafts into the warm, heavy air. My parents’ suite has always smelled amazing, and has always looked rich and textured. My mother was only two years old when her parents moved to New York, but she visited Bangladesh many times, and the style and décor made a strong impression on her.
I see the gorgeous gold and burgundy tapestry that dominates the room’s right-hand wall before I spot my mother and the women standing with her. Actually, it’s two women and a man. I recognize Tito, my mom’s longtime hair stylist, but the two women are strangers. When I walk through the door, they all greet me at once.
The next two hours are amazing. My mom is one of lower Manhattan’s queens, and never has th
at fact been more apparent than as I recline on a chaise longue in her dressing room and she directs the masseuse to work me over and the aesthetician to glam me up.
Cindy slathers me in fragrant oil, works the tension out of every muscle in my body, and wipes me down so I won’t glisten too much but my skin is still incredibly soft. Farah smooths gel on my face and uses a heat gun to “plump” my collagen. Then she gives me a makeover that’s to die for. She presents me with a bag of new products, and then she and Cindy leave, asking my mom to send a picture when I’m in my gown.
Mom and Tito talk like old friends as he trims my hair, washes it, and sweeps it into an updo. When he hands me a mirror and twirls my chair around, I see it’s melded into the shape of a conch shell.
“Wow. How did you do that?”
“I could do hair with my eyes closed.” He makes a few adjustments, instructs me to “take advantage of your glorious night,” and then walks out with my mom, leaving me to stare into the mirror. I’m wearing a silk slip with my bra under because I’m shy around so many strangers. With my hair and makeup done, I feel like a different person—someone beautiful and adult.
It’s so weird to realize that I kind of am one. Next year I’ll be at college, geographically close—so I can see Bec lots—but a whole world away. I feel buoyant thinking of what my life will be like. I’ll have someone sweep my apartment for cameras and recording devices, and then I’ll invite Luca over. Maybe he could even live with me. Who would know?
My mother drifts back into the dressing room, smiling in approval at my new, grown-up reflection.
“You look stunning, shona. You will be the belle of the ball.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She stands behind me, giving my left shoulder a brief squeeze as she looks at her reflection in the mirror, then at mine. “They did everything I paid them to and more.” She gives a knowing smile. It’s what I think of as her Disney villain smile, because she seems to save it for moments when she’s feeling superior.
“Thanks for having them come over for this,” I say in the polite tone my mother prefers.
“Oh, of course, my darling.”
I frown at my own reflection. “Mom, why does Daddy call me cara? What does it mean?”
Her eyes lift to mine in the mirror, meeting my gaze for a moment before picking at a bobby pin in my hair. “It’s an endearment. Like my shona—what your Nani called me as a young girl. She would have so loved to see you like this. Nani loved all things beautiful. I’m not sure you remember how lovely she always looked.”
“I do,” I lie. My mother’s mom died when I was seven. I remember mostly that she always gave me dates and little ground nuts.
“Mom, is cara an Irish endearment?”
The smooth, Botox’d place between her eyebrows twitches very slightly. “No, of course not.” She laughs. “It’s Italian.”
She turns around, raising her arms to lift my gown’s hanger from the high rack where it’s hanging.
“Why would Daddy call me something Italian?”
She runs the wand of her steamer over the gown, tossing a glance over her shoulder. “I hope this is not about that boy.”
“What? No. Because of a question about a nickname?” I roll my eyes.
Mom gives me a warning look as she removes the red silk gown from its black velvet hanger.
“You’ll have to ask your father about this.”
“That doesn’t sound foreboding.”
She gives a small shrug, and then curls her fingers, beckoning me to stand. “Everyone has secrets, shona.”
“Secrets? Like…Dad is Italian?” I’m clearly joking.
When I notice my mom hasn’t replied, my jaw drops. “Mom! What?”
She holds the gown open, and I step carefully into it, meeting her eyes as she moves around behind me to fasten me in.
“Elise, ask your father why he calls you cara. And get into this pretty ruby gown. For tonight, you get to be a princess, free of all responsibility. Enjoy it, shona,” she says, smiling softly. “It will be one of the last times.”
Chapter Fifteen
Luca
“Dude, this was a big mistake,” Alesso says.
Leo grips the wheel of the Cutlass, and I watch his jaw tick before he glares at Alesso via rearview mirror.
“It’s not so bad,” I say. “We’re going slow, and Leo knows what’s what.”
“I hate the tunnel,” Alesso mutters.
“Everybody hates the fucking tunnel.” Leo lets a breath out, braking as the car in front of us slows.
“I don’t hate it that much,” I offer. “It’s like the subway, but at least you’re going slower than those damn trains.”
I’ve traveled from Brooklyn to lower Manhattan through the Battery Tunnel a handful of times, and it’s never made me feel sick like a train or helicopter does. Alesso, however, feels differently.
Motherfucking Diamond. It’s his fault we’re piled into the Cutlass Alesso stole from his uncle—again. Earlier this afternoon, when I was trying to figure out the train schedule, Diamond called. He told me that before he loaned me the tux he promised, he needed a favor. If I did it, he’d get me to the prom on time—since doing this favor for him would make it impossible for me to catch the train.
“Fuck Tony,” Alesso says, reading my mind. “Ten bucks says he thinks that since he loaned you the tux, he already thanked you for that shit you did this afternoon.”
I shake my head. “Shit is right.”
This time Diamond’s favor was…different. He had me go over to some old rich guy’s house and help him bake some fucking panettone. Dude was like half dead, and I was surprised he lived by himself.
“He kept blowing holes in his pants like he couldn’t even help it.”
Alesso groans. “That’s disgusting.”
“How old is he anyway?” Leo asks.
“Older than the world, dude,” I say. “And obsessed with panettone. And loaded. After we finished baking the three loaves, he put his bony hand on my back and said thank you in this old-ass, wheezy voice, and then he gave me five one hundred dollar bills. Pulled them out of the pocket of his lounge pants like it was nothing!”
“What did you expect from old Lamberto?” Leo asks me.
For a moment, I can’t speak. My eyes focus on the tunnel’s dark walls, sliding by too quickly, and that makes me feel sick. “Old man—Arnoldi? That was him?”
“Yeah man,” Alesso says. “How did you miss that?”
“Tony didn’t fucking tell me is how! Why the fuck was I there?””
“Tony said old man Lambo requested you by name, Luca.”
“What the fuck?”
“You didn’t know that was his house?”
“I thought he lived near Carnegie Hill.”
“That’s one of his places,” Alesso tells me. “But he likes his place in old Red Hook. That’s where they came from, after all.”
“It was an apartment! And he called himself Bert!”
Leo looks at me aghast. “Focus on the road, man.”
“Or we’ll be deader than Arnoldi’s Massacre,” Alesso adds.
My stomach knots up. “What the fuck’s Arnoldi’s Massacre?”
“It happened right around the time Roberto Arnoldi was shaking down your dad. You remember that?”
“Not at all.”
He rolls his eyes. “Old Lambo was getting up there. Tony said there was a lot of shit spewing, especially after he had a heart attack. Roberto had been ready to move up for years, but Lambo wouldn’t give the crown up. People talked like he was getting frail. That pissed him off.
“So the Bellini family was run by the young guy, Noah Bellini—still is—but Noah’s always been in bed with the Russians or some shit. That’s what my brother says. So anyway, Lambo—your old fart—he figured out where they were meeting. It was in this very tunnel.” Alesso’s lips twitch. “I’m just fucking with you. It was over there somewhere in Bath Beach.”
&nbs
p; “Fuck you,” Leo mutters.
“They were meeting sometime in the night, in a warehouse with garage doors. Our guys shot out the windows, and then the Russians opened up the doors already shooting—AKs, cause they’re fucking crazy—but our people didn’t give a shit. And…everyone died. I’m talking every single one of them. I think Tony said it was seventeen bodies in total.
“And the head of the Russians—I forgot his name, I think like Casper or something weird like that— He wanted revenge. Sick shit. So he set up a hit on Lambo’s wife. Her name was Bella, and she was supposed to be some kind of angel lady, putting up with Lambo F.—for fucking—” he smirks— “Arnoldi for so long. Anyway—” Alesso shrugs. “They got her. She was at a hair salon. Do you remember someone getting offed at a hair place when we were like eleven?”
I inhale as I realize… “Yeah. It upset my mom. I remember hearing her talk about it.”
“Bullet killed the stylist, too,” Alesso tells me. He’s still running his mouth when I turn around and sit squarely in my seat. I rub my closed eyes with my fingertips—hard, until I see gold spots.
Anyway, they got her.
I saw her today. Pictures of her. “Bert” Arnoldi had them everywhere. He had a fucking shrine to her.
I think about a bullet slicing through her torso. Maybe through one of those thin little sweaters first, the soft kind that Elise wears sometimes. Then a silk blouse. And out her back, between two of her ribs. Blood blooming. And then the other woman. In my head, I picture her as Dani. I imagine them both falling to the salon’s floor, bodies clapping on those rubbery mats as the chair spins and dark blood mixes with the cut hairs.
I think of Lamberto Arnoldi’s kitchen counter, sticky like it needed wiping.
“Why did he want me?” I manage, turning partway around, so I can see Alesso.
“Don’t tell Tony—” his brows rise— “but he said the old man heard about you.”
“Heard about me?” I’m cold now. All over. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Alesso’s mouth flattens. “You know what it means.”