“Those microwave heat rays are full of cancer. I give you that, you’ll be dead less than a year after you get your man back.”
“I am really, really sure that’s not true,” I tell her.
“Radiation!” Aunt Mari yells, like she’s a medical scientist, stating facts, not an old lady set in her ways.
I’m about to tell her that’s alright, I’ll just pick something up at the airport, when a knock sounds on the door. “Pizza delivery!” a squeaky voice calls from the direction of the front door. I immediately recognize it as Gino the third, the grandson of the original Gino.
We’ve gotten to know this particular pizza delivery guy well in the months since Cami and Talia moved in. I’m fairly sure he has a crush on Cami, though he’s barely just graduated high school, and still has a lot of squeaking in his voice, unlike the academic baritone of the T.A. she’s been dating since March.
Mari sticks her head out of the kitchen. “You ordered a pizza?” she asks Cami, in the same tone of voice, prosecutors use to interrogate suspects accused of heinous crimes on the stand.
“No!” Cami insists, even though I can see Gino the third through the peephole, big as day.
“Uh…the guys sitting outside said it was okay to come straight up to the door,” he says, smiling at me nervously, on the other side of the magnified glass.
“Maybe it was Talia,” Cami says, wringing her hands. “I thought she was asleep, but she was playing on my phone before bed, she might have triggered later delivery on the app…”
“What are you two trying to say about my pollo guisado?” Aunt Mari demands, spreading her arms.
No worries I decide as I open the door on their argument. This unexpected pizza order is a God send. Now I’ll have something to take with me to the…
The word “airport” dies inside my mind when I see that it’s not just Gino standing on our porch.
There’s also a man, dressed all in black. And he has a gun with a silencer attached, pointed straight at our high school delivery boy.
“I’m sorry!” he squeaks, his eyes terrified. “He said he’d kill me if I didn’t do everything he says.”
Cami accused me of having no natural instinct for defending myself or the people I love. But in an instant, I find out she was wrong.
“Run!” I scream at Aunt Mari and Cami, throwing my entire body into closing the door in the killer’s face.
I’m not quick enough though. The assassin tosses Gino aside and jams his foot into the door. “Let me in, bitch. Or I’m really going to make your death painful.”
“Run!” I yell over my shoulder at Aunt Mari and Cami. “Call 9—”
I break off when the man forcibly shoves the door open, sending me stumbling back.
Cami screams, “Pass me a knife!” somewhere in the background.
“No, no, run… save yourselves!” I yell back at them, even as I scoot backwards away from the gunman on my hands and feet.
With a cold look that puts me in mind of Stone at the kitchen table, the man raises his gun.
He’s going to shoot me, I know in that instance. No words of explanation. Just a bullet straight through my forehead. Cold and efficient. Exactly like Stone.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and soon comes the muffled but lethal whoosh I’ve heard so often in movies. But this isn’t a movie. This is my life. My life and my unborn baby’s, suddenly cut short.
Except…except… I’m still breathing, I realize after a few seconds.
Blinking, I open my eyes. Just in time to see the gun man slump forward, his forehead seeping blood.
His drop reveals my unexpected savior: an expressionless Stone.
He blinks at the man’s fallen body. Then with the same demeanor of an insurance agent, making a quick risk calculation, he lowers his gun and shoots my would-be assassin several more times. We all watch the body dance under the bullets impact until Stone runs out of slugs.
Only then does he look up at me and ask, “You alright?”
Chapter Forty-Two
I am not alright. Not alright at all. Yet somehow I find myself an hour later, sitting at a table with Gino Jr. Jr. as Stone explains to him what did and didn’t happen here while peeling hundreds off a large stack of bills.
“Sorry for the inconvenience…” He peels off a hundred.
“I’m sure this messed with your delivery schedule.” He peels off another hundred.
“Tell your grandpa it was my fault.” He adds a third hundred.
“Also, make sure he knows how much I appreciate doing business with him.” Then he puts one more hundred on the pile.
“And if you or him got any questions about any of this…”
This time instead of peeling off a hundred, he pushes the entire stack toward the delivery boy.
Gino’s only in high school. I’m not sure if he’ll understand. I mean, Aunt Mari had to put a towel down before he sat at the table, because somewhere along the way, he’d peed his pants.
But the peach fuzz on his upper lip quivers, once…twice. Then he reaches out. “Thank you for choosing Gino’s, Mr. Ferraro,” he says, stuffing the loose hundreds and the stack in one of his rain jacket pockets.
“That kid is about to buy all the weed this summer,” says Cami as we watch him rush out past the spot where the dead body used to be before Nicky and Joey showed up just a few minutes after Stone.
They’d been full of apologies. Apparently the assassin had used a stooge, a man who’d come up to the house and waved a gun, then run off when Nicky and Joey got out of the car, forcing a foot chase. They’d had no idea that the real assassin was just waiting for them to leave before making his move on the house.
But now everyone’s gone, including the dead body. Leaving just Stone, Cami, Aunt Mari and me to talk.
“Welcome back, Stone…” Aunt Mari says setting the bowl of pollo guisado she’d heated up for me down in front of him. “Now why exactly did you go away?”
What follows is a long story, told in Stone’s usual staccato verse. Basically dealing with the Lunettis had been a lot more complicated than Stone had let on.
Apparently Cami’s father had embezzled some of the money he’d been washing for the local mob to pay off a balloon mortgage on the McMansion he couldn’t afford and other debts. A couple million dollars had been lost.
Stone had been in negotiations with the Lunetti family for months, but hadn’t been getting very far. The eighty-year old head of the family wouldn’t just settle for a buyout. He was insisting on taking Cami’s and Talia’s lives, for the sake of his family’s reputation.
“And while the Lunetti family ain’t as big or as powerful as the Ferraros, they ain’t exactly small either,” Stone tells us. “So it wasn’t like I could just shoot my way into making them see things my way.”
Things were getting top heated. And that was part of the reason he’d asked Cami and Talia to come with him to his father’s funeral, he confessed. But when he got back from New York, things went from heated to worst.
The head of the Lunetti clan had died while they were away. “And guess what this bitch decided to make his death bed wish? Revenge on the girls for what their rat bastard father did. And revenge on me for moving into their territory. Unfortunately the son was just as bad as the father. According to my intel, he started talking about the coming war at the funeral. At that point negotiations were over. The only way we were solving that shit was with blood. Lots and lots of Lunetti blood.”
I jolt, suddenly understanding. “That’s why you started up with the pills again. Because you knew you’d have to kill and you didn’t think you could do it without them.”
He gives me a sheepish shrug. “Yeah, pretty much. And I faked breaking up with you because the Lunettis ain’t exactly honorable. Last war they engaged in, the other boss lost his wife and kids. I had hoped by splitting up in public like that, they’d be less likely to come after you while I tried to sort out this mess.”
Stone throws me
an apologetic look. “But I’m back to managing my emotions on my own if you’re worried about that. I like my head better off those fuckers.”
Instead of acknowledging his return to sobriety, I ask, “And how about going to New York? That’s we’re Nicky and Joey said you were.”
Another sheepish look. “Yeah, that was just for show, too. I stayed in town. More trying to throw the Lunettis off our scent. Plus, when I’m using the enforcer side of my skill set, I find it’s better to operate like a ghost. It worked, kind of. I took out the new Lunetti boss and my crew ended most of his loyal soldiers, too. But when I got a hold of the dead son’s computer we found out he’d put in a kill order on the girls with an outside party. That’s when I decided to double down on watching the house.”
“So if you hadn’t been watching, too…if you hadn’t shown up, those guys would have murdered Talia and me,” Cami summarizes, her eyes wide. “Just because we were the daughters of somebody I despised—oh God, this is all my fault. I’m so sorry I put you all in danger! If I hadn’t killed him…”
“It ain’t your fault,” Stone insists. “And the only reason we were in danger was because that Lunetti family has some fucked up ideas about ethics. The world’s better off without them if you ask me. And now I’m capo of the whole territory. No competition.”
Cami blinks back tears. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you for saving me again and again.”
“No problem,” Stone answers, his tone all no big deal. “Hope you can forgive me for confusing you a little bit to get the job done.”
“No forgiveness necessary,” Aunt Mari assures him.
Cami nods in fervent agreement. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
“I knew you didn’t really mean it when you said you were leaving anyway,” Aunt Mari says, like Stone is some rapscallion who’d come home later than he promised from school.
They both gaze at their hero and protector with pure adoration in their eyes.
I stare at him, too. But when I open my mouth, I don’t thank him, I say, “I want a divorce.”
The whole table pauses, as if my telling Stone our relationship is over was hands down the most surprising thing that’s happened this evening.
“Naima!” Aunt Mari starts to exclaim.
“You said you’d never leave me, and then that’s exactly what you did,” I say, cutting my aunt off mid-chastisement. I train my eyes on Stone, cutting her and Cami out. “You yelled at me in a crowded restaurant. Then you left me there like I was last week’s trash.”
“I had to make it look believable,” Stone says, as if he’s explaining to me why water is wet. “You think I wanted to give Italians a worse reputation for bringing the drama in restaurants? I mean, we’re already all over the reality shows.”
“I don’t’ care! I don’t care what you wanted!” I shout back. “You knew Cami, Talia, and pretty much everyone in this house was in danger and instead of telling me about it, you left me. You took my biggest fear and you decided, fuck it, Naima’s feelings don’t matter, I’m going to run this mind game on her anyway!”
I over-enunciate each word that comes out of my mouth next. “I want a divorce.”
The room goes deathly silent, until Cami whispers, “Is this what kids with real parents feel like when their mom and dad say they’re getting divorced? Now I know why they act so traumatized about it.”
“We’re not getting a divorce.” Stone replies to Cami with his eyes stay locked on mine.
“Oh, yes we are,” I answer my voice just as hard as his with promise.
“Stone, mijo, I think she’s just hangry. You know she has had nothing to eat all day,” Aunt Mari tells him, like I’m a willful child. “Here, mija, I’ll heat you up another bowl of pollo guisado.”
“You can’t leave me,” he says, his tone thick with menace.
“Oh, watch me,” I answer, rolling my neck. “Amber and I are besties again and she loves helping people get divorced from controlling husbands who don’t care about anybody’s feeling but their own. I will call my lawyer, and I will get my own place, that I choose by myself. And you and your two groupies can visit me on the court mandated days.”
“You can’t do that.” His face, so calm when he was telling us all about how he and his soldiers pretty much mass murdered the Lunetti family, turns thunderous.
But I’m not scared. For once in my life, I’m not scared to speak my truth. “You asked me what I wanted. I want a husband who talks to me. And tells me the truth, no matter what. I want a husband who would never break my heart the way you did at that restaurant. One who would never go a whole week, letting me believe he was done with me. What I want from you is a divorce. That’s all I want from you.”
Stone shakes his head, his eyes bright with emotion. “Well, that’s the one thing I can’t give you.”
“You can!” I insist, slamming a hand on the table.
“No, I fucking can’t, because it would destroy me,” Stone roars, standing up from the table. “I’m talking a hundred percent backslide into fucking oblivion because that’s the only way I’d be able to deal with you being gone. This thing between us. It was binding from the start. I tried to deny it, to you and myself, but you think I didn’t feel it from the moment we kissed? I felt you Naima. Even cottoned up beyond all reason on blue label pills, I felt you in my fucking soul.” Stone pounds on his chest, his eyes blazing now.
“And months later, I couldn’t bring myself not to come down here and check on you. I said it was for Rock, but I knew you were mine from the moment I saw you were pregnant. I thought it’d be cut and dry after that. I’d make you come back to me to New York. Set you up in the lap of luxury and keep you close, even though I knew I couldn’t be the same kind of man for you that most guys could. But I couldn’t figure out how to get you to cooperate. And then the next thing I knew, I was living in this house with you. Happy to spend my nights with you and the Island of Misfits Toys family you put together, instead of making deals in titty bars.”
Stone shakes his head. “Luca thought I was out of my goddamn mind when I told him I wanted to branch out into the South. I didn’t know how to explain it to him. Didn’t know how to explain it to myself. It took coming off the pills and months of fucking therapy for me to get it.”
His eyes burn into mine as he says. “I love you. I’m so fucking in love with you. And no, sometimes I don’t always make the right decisions. Looking back at it, I can see now how you might not appreciate me blowing up all your triggers to keep you and our family safe. I was willing to do anything to keep you safe. To keep our family safe. Even break your heart. But know this, from now on I will be that husband. I will tell you when work goes from bad to lethal. I will tiptoe around your triggers, like I’m in a minefield. I will be everything you want.”
He spreads his arms like a martyr. “Because I’m out of my mind in love with you, babe. So, please don’t leave me. It will fucking destroy me.”
We all stand there stunned. I’m pretty sure these are the most words any of us have ever heard come out of Stone’s mouth. And definitely the most passionate.
Both Cami and Aunt Mari turn to see how I’ll respond.
I don’t respond. I don’t say anything for a long, long time as his words echo through me.
But then I release a shaky breath, look deep into his eyes, and say, “Okay, in that case, I was just kidding about all that getting a divorce stuff. Now I’ve decided you’re never getting rid of me.”
It takes a moment before Stone fully comprehends what I’m saying. That he’s forgiven for everything, just like that. But when he does, his devastated expression is replaced with the sun of his smile.
“See how she treats me?” he says to Aunt Mari and Cami, even as he rushes around the table and pulls me into his arms. “Always making me work for every inch of her heart.”
“You know, she was headed out the door to get you back right before you showed up and saved all of our lives,”
Aunt Mari tells Stone, tattling like only a woman without a feminist bone in her body could. “If you ask me, she needs to be nicer to you. That mouth of hers isn’t no way to keep a man.”
“Oh, she don’t ever have to worry about me going nowhere,” Stone promises Aunt Mari while smiling down at me. “And even if it looks like I am, I’m always coming right back. I promise you that.”
“You better always come right back,” I say, my own smile teary with emotion. “Or else I’m going to threaten to leave you again, just so I can get another heartfelt speech.”
That threat makes the smile disappear clean off Stone’s face. “You better memorize what all I said, because I swear on my father’s grave I’m never saying shit like that to you again. From now on I’m going to be so fucking unromantic. Watch, at our fifty-year vow renewal ceremony, they’ll ask me about you, and I’ll be like, ‘She’s alright.’”
He might have gone on, ranting about how unromantic he planned to be from this point forward, but I cut him off when I pull him down into a kiss.
Because we both know good and well neither of us are going anywhere after that speech. In fact as I kiss Stone, I begin to suspect for the first time ever that I’m in something for life.
“Oh, and by the way,” I say, pulling back after we’ve sealed our once-again one hundred percent love with a kiss. “I’m pregnant.”
Epilogue
We end up escorting the two kids I care for way above my paygrade to Portland in the BMW hybrid Stone bought Cami for her graduation a few weeks later. We move them and Stallone into a dog friendly condo Stone bought in Cami’s name as a “first job gift,” then visit the girls every month like doting grandparents, until my expanding belly puts me in the no fly zone.
“Don’t worry,” Cami tells me on our last visit as we hug good-bye. “We’ll see you at Thanksgiving. This little bird might have left North Carolina, but I’ll always come flying back to you.”
Then she tells me not to cry. And I blame the hormones for making me too sentimental. But I get on the plane without a doubt in my mind, Cami’s and my unspoken mother-daughter bond is made of industrial elastic. It will stretch, but never break.
STONE: Her Ruthless Enforcer: 50 Loving States, North Carolina Page 19