by K. J. Dahlen
No matter how my brain turns it around and around, I cannot fit my uncle into this scenario. I have to fit him in, but I can’t. I have no choice, because he’s standinghere in the kitchen, with a man who looks enough like Gio that even if I saw him on the street, I’d know that Marco Moretto was his father.
I sound like a fucking idiot, repeating everything he’s saying, asking the same question a hundred ways. My chest is tight with a sickening hope. If I keep asking, maybe he’ll change his answer. Maybe this will all turn out to be a bad dream. Maybe I will wake up and I’ll work my shift at Fun Freeze, and later, in the fall, Gio and I will stay or go but whatever we do, we’ll do it together.
“It doesn’t make any sense.” I gesture toward the two of them. “Why? You’re supposed to be enemies.”
Marco laughs, and the sound isn’t unkind, which makes it worse. “It’s awful, isn’t it? I was so blindsided to find out his family origin.”
“His family—” My throat tightens too, and I swallow down the lump. “My uncle’s family has nothing to do with the Riccis.”
My uncle’s family has nothing to do with anything. My mother, truly, at her core, had nothing to do with any of this. She married a Ricci. She never asked to be drawn into a vendetta. At least, I don’t think she did. But how the hell would I know?
“It has something to do with them,” Marco says mildly. “A Ricci has been living in his house for a decade.”
My uncle looks sullen. “It wasn’t like that, Marco.”
“It was exactly like that,” he chides. “You had a thousand opportunities to mention it, David. It’s so pedestrian of you to keep secrets.”
“She was a child.”
“She’s not a child anymore.”
Here they are, discussing me like I’m not even here, and the knot in my gut hardens and grows. My uncle was coming after me. For Marco Moretto. How could he? How could he?
“How could you?” I say the words before I can stop them. “How could you track me to kill me?” My voice trembles and I fucking hate it. “You were there when my mother died. You—” He’d held me the entire night. I’d known it was coming—I wasn’t stupid, even for a nine-year-old—and I’d known it was coming, but when it actually happened it crushed me. It turned my soul inside out. And David, my own Uncle David, who has my mother’s eyes, stayed up all night with me while I sobbed and cried and gasped for air.
Marco raises his eyebrows. “Kill you? No, no, no. What a horrible misunderstanding.” He laughs again. “He was coming to…” He purses his lips as if the word is almost in his reach. “...assist my son in his work. To encourage him.”
Gio looks down at the table.
“Encourage him to kill me,” I say, my voice flat.
“Don’t take it so personally.” Marco raises a hand in the air. Yes. I’m the one being unreasonable in this situation. “He was supposed to kill the last Ricci.”
“And you knew about this.” I turn my anger back on my uncle. “You knew about this and you came anyway.”
David looks at me across the table, really looks at me. “Yes.”
It’s a lie.
Sweet, warm relief washes through me, because I can see it in his eyes—he might have said yes. He might have agreed to the job. But he didn’t come here to kill me. Jesus, if I’d only talked to him that night in Verona, all of this could have been—
But if my uncle could track me that easily, how easily could Marco track him? What’s the web between these men, who talk like friends? Marco doesn’t turn his head, so he can’t see the look in my uncle’s eyes.
“Why would you do that for him?” I keep the anger in my voice.
David takes a deep breath. “It’s what we’ve always done.”
“What kind of fucking cop-out answer is that? Seriously, David, this situation is beyond fucked up, and you’re going to give vague answers?”
Gio’s eyes follow the words from me to my uncle.
“I think we should move on,” says Marco.
“I disagree.” I practically spit the words at him. “If you’re going to murder me, then I think you could take five seconds and explain why the hell I’m on the chopping block.”
My uncle blinks, the closest he’ll come to a flinch. “The things we do when we’re young…” He trails off, then gathers himself. “They never leave us, Sia.”
47
Gio
Sia swings wildly between vulnerable nineteen-year-old and hardened mafia queen in front of my eyes. If the tension wasn’t so thick in the room, I’d have her in bed already. As it stands, I’m pinned at the table, with my father acting like this is a causal conversation and David making desperate faces at her behind his back.
How do they know each other?
I’m as interested as Sia, in this ridiculous fun-house family conversation.
She’s been steering this on her own for two long. “How do you two know each other?”
They all look at me. I can feel their gazes burning into my skin. Sia looks at my father for a split second and then back to me. Wow, she mouths, and I wonder if she’s seeing me as his son.
My father smiles indulgently at me. “It’s a hell of a story.”
“Tell it.” I’m matching his tone so well that even he should be impressed.
Marco Moretto leans back in his chair, looking into the middle distance, and then he turns to David. “When was it? College?”
“You didn’t go to college,” David says, with more than a hint of snark.
“Sharp. Sharp,” my father says with a chuckle, and I have to force myself not to shake my head. “You were in your third year, I think.”
“Second.”
“We met in your uncle’s second year of college,” my father says to Sia. “I was getting my business up and running, and David came into one of the laundromats one night. I can’t remember why I was there. I shouldn’t have been there, that late, but I was, and this man came in. When he found out there were available opportunities, he didn’t hesitate.”
David’s jaw works. He doesn’t look ashamed. Not exactly. He looks resigned. He looks like he never had a choice in the matter, not since the day he walked into that laundromat. Not since the day he first shook my father’s hand. I know that feeling. “I needed a job.”
“What the fuck?” Sia looks disgusted, and her uncle looks away. It’s not enough of a move to say he was cowed, but he can’t look her in the eye. At least for a moment. Then he drags his gaze back to hers. “You decided to be a murderer for hire? What, you couldn’t find a job as a waiter?”
“I needed more money than that,” says David. “And faster. Things were coming apart at the seams in those days. There was a lot of pressure from the family.”
Sia shakes her head, a slow shake. “Unbelievable.”
“I offered good terms,” my father says, as if that explains everything, as if offering good terms can make clear why we’re all in this kitchen and not living lives anywhere else. The most fucked-up part is that I know he did. He’s always paid fairly. Even the gang members he’s worked with talk about how honorable he is.
“Why?” Sia says. “And hurry up. I’m probably going to die any second, so I’d love if we could get to the point.”
“For your mother,” he says, and Sia goes pale. Her forehead wrinkles. What is she thinking? “For the baby.”
God, my poor wife. The color leaches from her face and comes back in a flame. She opens her mouth, closes it again. It’s an awful thing, watching her realize how all the pieces fit together. They still don’t make sense. The edges are still jagged. But they fit together in the most macabre puzzle that’s ever been. “She didn’t tell me that.”
“Of course she didn’t tell you that. She never told anyone. She never even told your father.”
“How the fuck—” Sia puts her hands to her hair. “How did she never tell my father that she needed more money?”
David cuts a glance at my father. “She hid the bill from th
e hospital. It was too much, Sia, and he was working too hard.”
“He was working so hard because he needed a hit of his own,” Marco comments, and my spine turns to ice. My mother.
“There was nobody else to lend the money,” David presses on. “His own mother was dying. There wasn’t enough business. He was desperate.” He’s on the edge of blaming my father for this, and I know it. Marco Moretto has always been good at business. For the Riccis, he was too good at business. I never looked at it this way, not until now, because they were to blame for the great, gaping absence of my mother in my life.
Marco Moretto, the man who has been at the center of this for all of my life, doesn’t flinch. He gives the slightest huff of his breath. “For god’s sake, David, don’t apologize for him. He killed my wife.” My father’s eyes flash. I might be the only one who notices. He keeps himself under such pristine control.
“I’m not apologizing to him. She deserves to know.”
My father waves a hand in the air. “This is becoming tedious. It’s not productive to relitigate the past, over and over, when there are more pressing matters at hand.” He turns and looks me in the eye.
“You’ve had your fun, Gio. It’s time.”
48
Sia
Gio nods.
My heart shatters.
He fucking nods, like his father is right, like he’s been right all along, and this has been a fun little fling that we’ve had.
It’s hard to stand upright. If it weren’t for the way this situation is so completely and totally absurd, I’d collapse on the ground right now. As it stands, I can’t. I can’t be another ridiculous scene in the middle of the most ridiculous scene on the planet.
Hot shame burns across my cheeks. I’ve been so gullible. So trusting. What the hell?
How did I let myself fall for him?
How did I let myself fall so hard?
Gio Moretto was always the one I wanted, back in school, back when dreams about boys came easy and there were never any consequences. And even as a man, he’s still the one I want. Fuck. I’ve misjudged this so badly, I can’t believe it. Over the past two weeks I felt myself grow out of the last vestiges of childhood.
But now? Now I feel nineteen going on nine, standing in a room with three men who want me dead.
Every breath is a special kind of agony and ecstasy. Is this one going to be the last? Is this one? Is it going to be sudden? Is Gio really going to do it himself? I can’t stop the thoughts from coming, can’t organize them.
Until there’s movement.
My uncle tenses, standing up straight. He’s not touching the counter anymore. Does he have a gun? I can’t tell. Maybe it’s hidden in a holster. I don’t know where Gio’s gun is, either, but I’m guessing he’s carrying it at his waistband. I haven’t thought about it much since we got to Torch Lake. What possible reason could he have to keep it in sight?
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Fuck me, because even now, even watching him nod to his father and take a deep breath, I still love him. I still want him. I want to walk out of this room with him right now and never look back.
The nod is a punch to the gut, but do I believe it? Do I believe it? Until today I believed in him with all my heart, with everything I had. Now that same heart is about to burst from my chest. This is too much. It’s all too much.
Gio folds his hands on the table and peers down at them. Is he revving himself up to kill me? Have we come this far for nothing? I swing wildly between loving him and hating him and wishing this was over and wishing it had never happened and wishing it had always happened, because if this is the way to him, then so be it. So fucking be it.
Gio’s dad is the one to fill the contemplative silence. “If you’re not up to the task...” It makes me sick, all the suggestions hanging in the air. If Gio isn’t up to the task, what is he going to do? Force some gruesome scene between me and my uncle? Do it himself and make Gio watch? I want to say something cutting and awful, something that will sink its claws into Marco Moretto’s heart and never let go, ruining his life if he goes through with this, but I can’t think of anything.
Gio raises both hands in the air, palms up. “It’s an impossible task.”
Marco grins. “I can tell you about impossible tasks. This isn’t one of them. David is highly skilled in—”
“There is no killing the last Ricci,” Gio cuts in. “Because she’s not a Ricci.”
There’s a heavy, ringing silence, and my uncle laughs. “She is. I know who her father is.”
“Jesus.” I can’t help myself. “You wouldn’t even bail me out with a lie?”
David blanches, pressing his lips together.
“No.” I’m tired. I’m bone-tired, it’s the middle of the fucking night, and my uncle is Marco Moretto’s lapdog. “You wouldn’t, would you? At least, if you did this for him, all of the hardship would be over.”
His eyes fill with a sadness so deep I have to look away.
Gio doesn’t react to any of this. He looks his father in the eye, as if they’re talking about next week’s weather. “She’s not a Ricci,” he repeats, and bends down to open his backpack.
David gives himself away.
He reaches for his back waistband.
Marco does nothing. Either he doesn’t have a gun or he’s not as jumpy as my uncle.
Gio pulls his hand out of his backpack. He’s not holding a gun. My uncle relaxes.
He’s holding a little folder, blue and worn at the edges.
“Gio,” Marco says, a hint of irritation showing through. “Your documents are not—”
“She’s not a Ricci,” Gio says again, and laughs, a little noise, the same as his fathers. “Look.” He pulls a paper out of the folder and tosses it toward his father. It lands in the center of the table.
Marco Moretto looks like a man who wants to roll his eyes, but doesn’t. He simply picks up the paper and unfolds it.
“She’s not a Ricci,” Gio says as his father’s eyes scan over the paper. “I married her.” He pauses, and I wonder if he’s debating a snotty if you’ve been following us, you should know this. “She’s a Moretto now.”
Then he stands up.
Every muscle in my body goes tense, but Gio’s eyes are full of love. He comes to me, there in the kitchen, and wraps his arms around my waist. He lifts my chin with two of his fingers, and the rest of the room flickers away. We might as well be the only two people in the world. “I love you, Sia Moretto,” he says, and my heart expands to fill my chest. Then he raises his voice so there’s no chance they miss his words. “If you want to kill the last Ricci, you’ll have to kill your daughter-in-law, too.”
49
Gio
I’ve never heard a louder silence.
My breath is the loudest thing in the room. That, and the pounding pulse of Sia’s heartbeat under her neck. I feel it more than I can hear it. It adds an undertone to the quiet that reminds me—we are still alive. We are still alive. Now, and now, and now. Still now.
I don’t bother looking back at Sia’s uncle, at my father. If they’re reaching for guns, let them reach. If they’re preparing themselves for a kill shot, let them kill. But they’ll have to kill us both.
I’m not going to let her die alone.
I’ll die right along with her.
What other option could I possibly have? Life without her would be nothing. Life without her sleeping form next to me in bed would be empty, colorless. Life without that laugh, without that smile, without the little stories she tells me about Fun Freeze...nothing could replace it. Nothing. Nobody on the planet.
The realization comes with a twist. I’d rather die than be without her. The intensity of it takes my breath away and gives it back in the next moment. I know the truth about myself now. I also know the truth about what I need to do.
There is only one thing I need to do, standing here in this kitchen, in full view of my father.
I kiss my wife.
&n
bsp; “I love you,” I murmur against her mouth. I hope it’s sweet. How could it not be?
Her lips are soft and warm underneath mines and she sighs. I taste her relief on my tongue as she parts those same lips to let me in. “Oh, god, Gio,” she whispers, her lips brushing against mine. “I love you, too.”
“I’m sorry.” It’s the least I can say. How much time do we have? I don’t know. My attention is swallowed up in the same blue eyes I’ve loved since we were teenagers. There are hundreds of things I want to apologize for. For being Marco Moretto’s son. For the fact that her father felt so desperate. For the fact that our families have been on a collision course for generations. I don’t feel angry about it, not in this moment, but Jesus, I could. I thought I would become a man who was always in control. Instead, I have become a man whose destiny is decided by bloodline. By name. And if she had any other name, any other name at all…
Sia looks into my eyes, her hands sliding up to cup my face. “I’m not.”
My heart bursts, breaks, and I kiss her again, backing her up toward the wall. It’s not a smart move.
We’re making an easy target of ourselves, but she kisses me like there’s no tomorrow.
For all I know, this is the last today we’ll ever live.
So what do I do?
I kiss her back.
Again.
Hard.
Deep.
It’s fucking inappropriate, is what it is. My father is in the room. Her uncle is here. I’d bet anything they’re on the verge of clearing their throats to interrupt our display. That’s all this is to them, a display. For me, it’s everything. It’s all of the most important things in my life distilled into a single moment.
Is this what dying feels like?
Is this what it’s like to be presented with your own demise?
Is the clarity always this sharp? This good? How can it feel good, feel gentle, this knowing? This holding her in my hands, in the full knowledge that this could be the last moment I touch her?