by CD Reiss
Santino’s barking orders to his men. I only hear they are to “get down there,” and “secure the block,” before he’s outside, finishing the instructions, leaving me alone with Vito.
I take out the scissors.
“I hope you don’t like this jacket too much.” I’m cutting it before he confirms I can.
The bullet grazed the muscle and left on the other side, missing the cephalic vein. Thank God it isn’t inside him. I have no idea how to remove it.
“Is this the only injury?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He cringes when I lift his arm to check his side.
“My uncle always said one day he’d need that Beretta,” I say to distract him, stuffing more gauze under his hand. “It’s been in the basement since forever. Pressure.”
“It works like new.”
“I’m sure it does.”
“He didn’t want to hurt nobody.”
I scoff. Maybe he didn’t. He’s an uncle by marriage. But Zia Madeline is my father’s sister. She probably wants blood, and I wouldn’t blame her.
My thoughts are interrupted when Santino storms back in.
“Get back down there and finish the job, Vito.”
“He isn’t going anywhere,” I say distractedly.
“They ain’t coming with me,” Vito protests. “Two days ago, they opened the door for the neighbor, and Joey and Willie Tabona busted into the house. They been eating their food and watching their TV since.”
“Until today,” Santino sneers.
“Good thing Carmine and I came slow. Joey and Willie came out to check us over, and the Beretta started popping from upstairs. Gave us a moment to take them down…but now? That door don’t open. We tried.”
“Wait.” I stop the patient from talking further, because it’s already clear that besides Tabona soldiers, Zio Guglielmo was involved. Keeping pressure on Vito’s arm, I turn to my husband, whose body language is mid-action. “I told you I wanted to go get them.”
“And I said it would be done.”
“You could have told me.” I look away and pluck up a roll of tape.
“If I wanted you to know, I would have.”
He’s not going to change. Not today. Not preparing to attack the Vasto Quarry, where as kids, we got chased from climbable stacks of uncut Yule marble. Santino is who he is. It may take a lifetime to teach him that he shouldn’t make decisions without me.
“They’ll trust me,” I say, ripping away a length of tape. “If I go, he’ll put the Beretta away, and they’ll come.”
“You’re not going anywhere. The whole town’s infested.”
“Our enemies have the crown.” I pat the tape across the bandage. “I’m not worth anything to them anymore.”
“You’re worth something to me.”
He’s right, and he knows it. The argument is over. I can be leveraged as motivation for surrender or consequence for an attack. But they have to catch me first. Not needing me to admit what’s obvious to him, Santino goes outside to talk to the shadow man who stood over Marco a few hours ago.
Finished with the bandage, I stand. “Stay off it,” I say to Vito.
“Sure.” He stands with a smile that acknowledges what we both know. He has no choice in the matter. “They seem like good people, your aunt and uncle.”
“They are.”
He goes outside, running to the tall building where the men sleep. Probably getting a shirt that’s not cut to shreds.
The couple who raised us are good people. They did everything for us. They made my sister and me their own. If I thanked them with every breath I have for the rest of my life and died with thanks on my lips, it would not be enough.
I go outside and find Santino at the side of the house, by the outside door to the basement, with a man whose back is to me, talking, talking, talking. I’ll die of starvation waiting for a polite moment to speak.
“Excuse us,” I cut in.
“Forzetta,” Santino says firmly.
But I don’t look at him. I’m locked on the dangerous blue eyes of his companion. He’s the one from the room with Marco. In the light, he’s harder and even colder, and the shadows don’t hide the way the tops of his ears end in a straight line, as if God stopped printing them out before he was finished. The man is bristling—holding back some kind of energy that’s not necessarily risky to me personally. I get the sense he’s used to releasing that energy by ruling over a faraway kingdom.
“This is Dario Lucari,” Santino continues. “Business associate from New York. Dario, this is my wife. Violetta.”
My name is more than a name. It’s a warning that I’m off-limits.
“From last night,” Dario says with a hint of a snarl, as if he’s still mad about the interruption. “You didn’t have to bother. We were going to get what we needed out of him.”
“But I got it quicker.” I turn to Santino, who’s directing a narrowed eye at Dario as if he’s trying to decide whether or not he likes where this conversation is going. I put my hand on his arm. “Please, five minutes.”
“Bene,” he says, pulling me away. “I’ll correct how he spoke to you.”
“Whatever,” I say. “He’s irrelevant. I have to get my Z’s.”
“No.”
“You can come with me. They know I love you. They’ll trust you,” I plead, but make no headway. He’s still stone-faced. I hold his lapels as if that will keep him still. “When we came, they weren’t ready for us. He built a bed for me, and I wouldn’t sleep on it for months. I thought it would break some kind of spell, and I wouldn’t be safe again.” I speak so fast I’m breathless. I have so much to get in before he’s pulled away. “And I wouldn’t let him pick me up. Not for the first year. Then I did, and he threw out his back. For weeks, he was on the living room floor, on the phone with his foremen and clients. He told them he spent his whole life moving lumber and brick, but this little girl…” I press a hand to my chest. “This little patatina had a spirit heavy enough to break him.”
“Okay,” Santino says.
“Okay we can go?”
“I’ll go.”
“No,” I say. “Take me. Don’t leave me here waiting for you.”
“Do I have to lock you in a tower?”
“There isn’t a tower in the world that will keep me away from you.”
“You mean there isn’t one that will keep you safe.” He looks away from me, then back, changing the light on his face so I can see the dark rings of exhaustion under his eyes. “One trip.”
“There and back. Done.”
We kiss on it, and I believe him.
16
SANTINO
A man cannot turn his back on a woman, because when he turns around to see her again, she may be gone.
A man cannot bring a woman into his business, because when the net drops on him, she will get caught in it.
But a man cannot keep a woman in a cage and love her at the same time.
Scanning the rifles and semiautomatics, the sawed-off shotguns and long-barreled weapons, I accept there isn’t a right answer.
No. There was another option that solved everything, but I refused it.
She asked me to get in the car and drive far away with her. Away from the safety of what’s known into the arms of what’s not. I could have stayed by her side and protected her without being a target. We could have walked away, but I was too much of a coward to do it before the fire of vengeance was lit under her.
Now I’m stuck with two bad choices. The one I’ve made and that has failed me too many times—to separate from her and trust she’ll stay safe.
Or the one Emilio made that got his wife killed—to bring her into business so she’d stay by his side.
Neither works.
Violetta needs to bring her aunt and uncle up here. They’re not safe, and she won’t rest until they are. But they won’t come unless someone they trust goes to get them, and using force might get one of them killed.
So she goes to ge
t them, or I do, or both of us.
“Hey, uh, Re Santino?” Armando’s voice comes from the stairwell that drops from the side yard. The armory was built as a root cellar and is separate from the rest of the basement.
“Mm?”
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Reaching to the crates below the gun racks, I pull out a more powerful weapon than what I usually carry. A .45 ACP revolver. I spin the cylinder.
“Si.” I don’t like this gun. It’s a prop.
I choose a stark black Glock 20 and wait for Armando to get to the point. He doesn’t start right away. He’s nervous. He’s going to ask me for something. I slide a magazine into the well.
“I figure,” he starts, then clears his throat. “It’s an assumption, but I figure you want me to stay here while you all go to the quarry tonight.”
“Si.” I try to put the gun in the holster I have. It doesn’t fit.
“I want to say, I feel responsible for what happened.”
“I told you it wasn’t your fault.” I search a drawer for a different holster. “You did what I told you.”
“Right. I know. But…there’s a thing you don’t know about, and it’s weighing on me.”
“Spit the toad then.” The new holster fits. Good. At least one thing is going right.
“Okay, so. Me and Gia.” Another throat clear. A cough. Maybe he really is choking on a toad.
“You want the Heimlich maneuver? Celia knows how.”
He waves me away and settles his breath. “I know you’re not happy about my thing with Gia.”
He’s making a big understatement. The only reason he’s still in my presence is that I need him, and I still trust him as long as his heart’s not involved.
“How long were you going behind my back, Mando?” I shoulder the holster and adjust it.
“Since Christmas.”
That’s about eight months of sneaking around, but if I’m honest with myself…they were bad at it. In the back of my mind, I suspected something was happening.
“So, when it came to her marrying Damiano…” He rubs his eyes with meaty fingers. “I told her she had to accept it. Instead of being a man and marrying her…I told her, you know, this is how it is. It’d be fine. And she changed. She just…I don’t know…went cold.” He drops his hands. “I’m just saying it’s not my fault because of anything that day, but it’s my fault for not doing the right thing and marrying her or even offering. So she did the plan with Damiano.”
“I assured him she was a virgin. Was she?”
“No.” His eyes are stuck to the floor. God damn his shame. I want to kill him.
I might.
Without thinking, I put the gun to his forehead. “You should have told me, Armando. Instead, you made me a liar.”
“I know.” He cringes, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m sorry. But she said she’d handle it.”
“All of this… We could have avoided it if you opened your fucking mouth.”
Even as I say it, I know it’s a lie. Damiano and his father want the crown, and if Gia wasn’t available as a way to get it, they would have found another. All routes lead to the situation I’m in right now. I move the gun away, still annoyed at his betrayal in the months before Gia shot me and in the days since.
“You’re so protective of her,” Armando says. When his eyes open, they’re full of tears. “She thought they’d send her back, and she didn’t want to go.”
“You were afraid for yourself, not her.”
“I know. It’s true. And I’m sorry for it. I want to make it up.”
“There are these little wooden rooms in the church.” Unholstering the gun, I pause, letting him think I’m about to use it on him. “Get inside one and let the priest give you your Hail Marys. But setting your sins straight isn’t my job.”
“Yes, Re Santino, I know. And I know I take care of the house. But I want to go with you to the quarry. I can’t let you take care of business for me. Gia’s my fault.”
“You’re going to shoot her?” I say with no little sarcasm.
“No. No, I couldn’t, and you shouldn’t trust me to. But I can drive. Or watch the back. Or something. Please. You have Dario to stay behind, and he’s… I wouldn’t fuck with that guy. He ain’t gonna listen to me anyway.”
“Dario Lucari isn’t a bodyguard.” I reholster the gun.
“He won’t stick his neck out either.”
He’s right. Good for Armando for saying what’s hard to say, even if it’s obvious.
“Camilla Moretti had bodyguards,” I say, and with the weight of the gun swinging by leather straps, I remember that night. “I wasn’t the only one watching. Men like you were too. But in the end, they failed. She couldn’t be protected. She was part of her husband’s business, and his wife, and the mother of his children. Got her shot.”
“Right next to him.”
He’s right again. Emilio was right there, and he was twice the capo I’ll ever be. This is why I keep a guy like Armando around. He’s not muscle. He’s not even a mastermind. But he loves the truth the way a priest loves God—even when betraying it.
If I can’t protect Violetta, she’s going to have to be able to protect herself.
This holster fits me, but it’s too big for her.
I rummage around a drawer and find an awl.
“Here’s what’s going to happen.” I lay the strap across the table and drive in a new hole. “You’re staying here for the hit on the quarry tonight. But there’s an errand before.”
“Okay.”
“Bring the car out of the gate.” I make a second hole.
“You got it. Thank you.”
Even with a wall of guns at my disposal, I brandish the awl. “I could just kill you here for laying your mitts on Gia without my permission.”
He holds up his hands. “I know. I’m sorry.”
I have a near physical need to stab his face and—at the same time—I hate seeing him like this.
When did it all get so complicated?
“Fuck this.” I toss the awl on the counter and get ready to lie to give my wife what she’s always wanted so badly. Independence.
17
VIOLETTA
Remo rushes to me as I come down the stairs.
“Re Santino says to be on the east side of the house.”
“You run the same, you know,” I say.
“What’s that mean?”
“When you were stealing second, you had this way of running like you were skidding sideways. Lydia Lapore swooned for it.”
“Yeah?” He’s got a smile that takes up half his face.
I find myself wishing he wasn’t here. He should be in town, working at the sporting goods shop, flirting with all the girls my age. I hope he lives through this war and quits the life forever.
“Yeah.”
“Cool. I gotta go get the Mercedes ready.”
“Sciò then.”
Remo runs off, and I find the east side of the house, which seems to be the more utilitarian. The sheer drop into scrub and trees is bordered by a log fence. The trash bins on the side of the house are a few steps away.
The direction of the wind has changed, and though the birds and bugs still sing, an eerie silence waits underneath it.
Santino strides across the grass like the master of the universe. His leather side holster is over his blue shirt, and another holster dangles from his fingers.
He takes the gun from the second holster and puts it in my hand. It’s not like his grandfather’s revolver. This one has a thicker shape, with a textured handle that’s grooved for a man’s fingers.
“What’s this for?”
“To protect yourself,” Santino says, letting his palm slide away. “We don’t have any statues to break.”
He’s talking about the statue of the Virgin I smashed so I could use a piece to commit murder.
“Broken statues work though.” I inspect the gun. Looks easy enough to operate. I wonder how
hard you have to pull the trigger to make it shoot.
“Only when you’re in reach.” From the bin, he grabs a few Coke bottles by the neck and puts one at the top of the fence post. “No one should get that close again. Also.” He looks over his shoulder critically. “Keep your finger off the trigger unless you’re going to shoot, and when you shoot, you aim to kill every time. No less.”
For a moment, I wonder how many times he’s pulled the trigger and how his aim was. How many men died, and why?
He pushes me back a few steps, turns, then gets behind me. The bottle is so far away I can’t read the brand printed on them.
“You want me to hit that?” I ask.
“Yes. Hold your gun up with both hands.”
“That’s too far.” I raise the gun and close one eye. “Now what?”
“Line up the notches here and here…” He points them out on either side of the barrel, then the protrusion in the middle. “And the pin with the target.”
“Okay. Got it.”
“Do you?”
I hold the gun with one hand and pull the trigger. The gun recoils and flies from my grip. The bottle stands.
“You almost killed two people a block away. Pay attention.” He scoops up the weapon and gives it back to me. “Don’t you watch television?”
“Sure.”
“How do they hold it?”
I turn the gun sideways and point it at the bottle.
“Santo Dio, no.” He pushes my arm down and comes behind me again, close this time, so I can feel his body pressed against mine. He runs his hand down my left arm and places it under the grip of my right, breathing on my neck, running his lips along the length of it. “Like this. The left steadies the right.”
“Do I really need this to get my Z’s? Or is it for when we go to… Where are Dami and Gia?”
“Vasto Quarry. Dami killed Franco and took his place. Hold it straight. If you can’t give this your attention, your full effort, you shouldn’t carry it.”
In a split second, a defensive wall inside me is built brick by brick—even though he’s right.