by Sunniva Dee
“It’s still there. What the hell?” I shout.
Gioele speeds up, trying to escape, but we took off from Pacific Coast Highway to drive inland twenty minutes ago, and this country road leaves plenty of room for the other car.
“What’s going on?” Il Lince asks.
“We’re being attacked.” Squinting, Gioele floors the gas pedal, and the Escalade leaps forward. “It’s a black van, medium-sized, maybe a Ford Transit— Fuck!”
“Where are you?” his father snaps. The Transit crashes into Gioele’s side again, making the Escalade fishtail onto a side road. My heart starts a thundering rhythm.
“SR 81 and Satellite Cross. We’re nowhere near the Valley.”
The bunker is there, ready and waiting. I wish we were there.
“What do they want?” Gioele shouts.
“Do you have weapons?”
“Just handguns.”
The Ford Transit skids past us and makes an involuntary half-turn, kicking up a dust storm. Gioele puts us in reverse and backs out of Satellite Cross at a velocity that causes the Escalade to zigzag.
The Transit sets its high beams on us. It lurches once, then it’s in control. My own scream is swallowed by the roar of its engine, and in a frozen moment of clarity, I sense what the driver is planning: a head-on collision.
“Gioele, he wants to kill us!”
“Silvina. Are you in the passenger seat?” Il Lince barks.
“Yes!”
“Reach underneath it. On the right side, pull out a small, square box.”
“But I don’t—”
“Do it!”
I’m snapped to action by the imperial force of Il Lince. He’s Don. He rules life and death tonight, more than ever. Gioele grits his teeth around mumbled words. I see what he’s doing; with the Escalade in reverse, he hopes for the onramp to hit us before it’s too late.
“Found it,” I huff, voice shaking.
“Okay, there’s a hand grenade in there. Take it out.”
“You put a hand grenade in my car?” Gioele roars.
“Do you want to survive or not?” Il Lince roars back.
“I’ve got it.” I open my window. The Transit is coming straight at us. Onehanded, Gioele fumbles his gun into position.
“What are you doing?” My eyes go up the barrel. Its mouth touches our windshield, pointing straight at the van speeding toward us. He can’t possibly be thinking—?
“We’re out of time.”
“But the glass?” Fingers stiff with adrenaline, I pull the safety pin out of the grenade.
“Kids! Focus: throw the grenade at them before they’re too close.” Il Lince’s voice doesn’t leave room for doubt. Just—they are too close now. Aren’t they?
Doesn’t he see?
An ear-numbing explosion. Glass rains over me in fine particles. The scream in me lasts and lasts, while the Escalade rocks backward, careening into the ditch.
I force my eyes open. Our windshield is gone. The windshield of the Transit is now a big, black, square hole, and the vehicle itself is stalled sideways. I don’t think. I unbuckle my seatbelt, stand up, my whole upper body emerging through our front window. Feebly, I register the wind blowing hair away from my face.
Gioele shouts for me, wants me to get back inside, but I see them moving in there. They’re lifting their guns, and Gioele has no window to hide behind. They’ll snipe him, and I can’t have that.
With all my might, I hurl the grenade toward the Transit. In beautiful, perfect form, it sails in the front window. I see the whites of the driver’s eyes as he realizes what’s happening. His mouth becomes a black hole too, and it has no sound. Or maybe it does emit sound in the few seconds before the van erupts in an inferno of orange.
GIOELE
It should be dark here. It isn’t. Behind us, the Ford Transit burns steadily, leaving the landscape in an amber hue. Car fires turn to wildfires up here. I need to call in an anonymous tip.
I’ve got Silvina. She’s shaking. Crying. Shaking. She should never have been exposed to blatant evil.
“Baby, baby, baby.” I kiss her head while she trembles in my arms. “You were amazing. If it weren’t for you…”
“We’d still have escaped somehow. I just killed someone, Gioele. Several people. Crap, I don’t even know how many I killed. Do you realize what that means?”
“Yes, I do. It means you saved our lives. It was us or them. They came for us, okay? Don’t ever forget that. And if we died, how many more would’ve died after us? You know we weren’t the only ones on their list.”
She sobs. Never has she been so little. She’s shrunk against me, and the need to feed her of my strength is all-consuming.
“Listen.” I tip her face up and look into eyes that overflow with terror. “I don’t want to drive all the way to the Valley after this. Let’s find a Motel 6 or something around here and take a break. You okay with that? First and worst place on the map?”
I stroke her face free of moisture. “I’ve got booze. We can lock ourselves in, drink whiskey, and down some Ibuprofen.”
Quiet, she nods against me.
“Okay, good deal. And Silvina?” I tip her face up again. “We survived. Did you see that? We survived.”
Her smile trembles.
I drive with Silvina’s head in my lap. She turns toward my stomach and burrows her nose against the fabric. There are shards of glass everywhere, but with the heat of her breathing and the wind from the missing windshield, I feel more alive than I have in a long time.
“And then”—I gesture toward the motel window—“a young mafia goddess rose and stuck half her body out through the window.
“She was fearless and gorgeous. With her long, black mane rolling down her shoulders, she stood tall. Majestic, like the fucking goddess she was, she pulled her arm back, and with one little toss, the grenade shot toward her target, and pow! Just like that, a whole van full of evil mobsters blew up. She stood there long after, arms wide, accepting the cheers from the crowd.”
“Oh, my god, you’re ridiculous.” Silvina shakes her head, laughing. The half ovals of her eyes shine with a different type of wetness than an hour ago. All I needed was to get her drunk. She’s such an adorable drunk too. Now, her laughter tapers off as I refill her whiskey.
“Check out this luxury,” I say. “We have ice, and I know how much you like fancy glasses. Look at the pattern on these babies.”
“Yes, and we don’t have to worry about them breaking, because plastic,” she chimes in.
I grin, lifting my own glass in a toast. She counters with a “Cin cin!”
“Cin cin, Ina mia.”
We take a sip. Then another. It’s hard for her to avert her eyes from me, and I dig it. Silvina’s on her side, hiked up on an elbow on the bed, and I move over from the chair I’ve got pulled up close. It’s a natural progression.
She doesn’t need my comfort anymore. That’s not why I stroke my thumb down her cheek. It’s not why her eyelids flutter either, or why she suddenly looks so fragile.
I know what it is. My darling can’t look away from the love in my eyes. This love flares easily around her.
I could have lost you, I think.
“I could have lost you,” she whispers so low it’s just a gust on her lips.
I’m done thinking. I’m done worrying. I’m done letting her believe they’re right, up there on their high horse of morality. I roll onto the bed. Take her in my arms. Hard, I press her against me, and her moan distinguishes right from wrong in ways no law or family sin ever can.
“But you didn’t,” I whisper against her neck. I kiss her there, tentative, at first. Then I open my mouth, allowing myself a taste of her flavor. She’s like the wild berries on the farm at Lake Como. She’s blueberries and raspberries. My girl is the slightest hint of str
awberries.
“You’ll never lose me, Silvina. I promise you that. As long as there’s breath in me, I’ll be with you.” My hands work on her little dress, the one she shouldn’t have worn when she left in the cold San Franciscan night. “We’re going to L.A.,” she’d insisted, and “You have seat warmers.” I’m happy about it now; I get to button her down from the top of her breasts to her navel.
So much smooth, tan skin I haven’t caressed in years. I swallow the emotion rising in me, because this—this woman in my arms—is everything that means anything in this world. I expect her hands to stop me, like they have before. My fire is raging, and I want to put it out buried deep inside of her. I wait for signs, for quiet nos. One gesture from my love, and I’ll stop dead.
Delicate fingers find a way into my hair. I shut my eyes, reveling in the sensation as she pulls her nails through my too-long chunks, the way she used to when we were teenagers. I look up from my path down her chest, find her eyes, and they’re filled with the same emotions I have: longing, grief, temporary bliss.
I let my gaze go to her lips. They lift in tender invitation. I find them with my own, and the groan I emit when she opens for me is made of pure relief.
“Do you know I love you?” I free her breasts and push them together between us.
“Yes…”
“Do you know I need you?” I peel her dress off, and she separates me from my clothes too.
“Yes…”
“Do you know you’re everything to me?” I moan as I sink inside of her slowly, slowly, as her legs cling around my waist like there could never be anyone but me.
“Yes…”
She’s giving me more than I could imagine. I am full of her. She’s listening to me, accepting my words without fight. I couldn’t dream up a more than this. So when we move together, in that ultimate, single, perfect way that’s only for lovers who love, my eyes blur when she says, “You’re my everything too.”
11. CHANGELING
GIOELE
“But your father said to head straight for the ranch, right? He wants us in the bunker.” Silvina sends me a look, and I can’t help but move a stray lock from her face. She’s so extra beautiful this morning, while she leans into the backrest of my car.
“I know, but Isaias is more candid than Il Lince, and I want all the details on this crap. I’m damn sure he’s wanting all hands on deck to get shit straightened out, and—”
“That doesn’t mean you,” she tells me, eyes hardening.
The Escalade has a shiny new windshield. We were damn lucky too, with the motel owner’s brother being in the business. He came right over—charged us double, I’m sure—but I can’t even begin to say how relieved I am I didn’t have to get on the highway without protection.
“I don’t know yet. Would that bother you?” I cock a smile her way.
“Of course! What are you talking about? They just tried to kill us. Probably you, more than me—no one knows the women of the Nascimbeni. Isn’t that what you pride yourselves in?”
“That’s just an old myth,” I say. “There’s no hiding the stunning girls of the Nascimbeni famiglia.”
I recognize that look. Her mood is dropping. Lower lip jutted out, she places her feet, buried in a pair of pink UGGs, against the dashboard. “Don’t jinx us.”
I bite my lip, recalling the sensation of her wrapped around me this morning. I woke up to her smooth form pressed tight against me in sleep. No one was there to interrupt that moment. No family, no roommates, no wannabe boyfriends. It was my perfect, old memory renewed, and I just lay there, awake with her arms around me for thirty minutes before she finally stirred.
“Okay, no jinxing,” I say, clearing my throat of sudden gruff. “Isaias’ house is on the way there, though. We’ll just stop by Hillside real quick and go straight to the ranch next. Sound good?”
“Mom’ll worry about me.” I hear it in her tone that I’ve won.
“We’ll call her once we’re at Isaias’. That’ll make her happy—she knows his place is a fucking fortress.”
She sends me a shy smile.
“See?” I grin back. Then, I can’t take it any longer. I lean in and steal a kiss, and—she lets me. My heart. Fuck. My heart’s going off.
“Gioele, baby.” The tone she uses I don’t like.
“Hmm?”
“You can’t keep doing that. We’re about to get home, and it’s over. We… were happy, though. Right?”
We’re back on the highway, and the cars whiz by. I still crawl the car to a stop on the side of the road and turn to her. “Come here.”
For a second, she hesitates with her eyes searching mine. But then she relents, lets me envelop her, and pull her under my chin. “I promise, Ina mia. I won’t put us in danger. Nobody will know, okay? Just don’t reject me anymore. You hate it. I hate it. We’ll just hide what we are. I’m fine with that.”
Silvina starts to shake her head, pressing her hands against my chest. I keep her in my arms, shushing. “Please. Stay here for a bit.”
She lets out a breath. Relaxes against me. I kiss her head. Again. Again.
“I have to tell you something.” I need to clear my throat. I do it twice while I consider how to make this as pain free as possible.
“Why do I feel like I won’t like this ‘something?’” she asks.
“Yeah, well. I sort of squealed to my brother the other day.”
She blinks. “Squealed?”
“I told him I love you.”
SILVINA
I don’t get upset easily, and I don’t erupt like most of the women in our family. But when I’m mad, I’m mad, and Gioele respects that. Since he told me about his confession, I’ve been quiet. The implications are far-reaching. What if Isaias shared it with someone else, and they, in turn, shared it with Il Lince or my own parents?
I’m stewing, and Gioele is anxious. He hates it when I brood, especially when it’s his fault. It’s bad. I keep sending him side-glares. He feels them the second they hit, turns his head, and catches me in the act.
“You know what it makes me think about, right?” I ask.
“Yeah. The summer we were sixteen, at Lake Como. But it was up to interpretation what we were doing at the hayloft,” the mule says.
“Really, Gioele? Mom is no dummy, nor is Zia Carola, our dads… Grandpa.” I snort. “Oh, my god, not even la nonna defended us. Think back.”
He smacks the steering wheel lightly, the only sign of him being upset. “I don’t need to think at all. It’s a damn film running in my head. All I need is to turn it on.”
“Do it, then.” I send him a scowl.
“Yeah? You don’t think we’ve had enough fun for one day?”
I fold my arms tightly and kick my UGGs against the dashboard. He doesn’t like that. It’s a small victory when all he does is look at my feet.
“Fine with me. It was early afternoon at the end of the summer. Il Lince and Zio Cosimo spent most of the time in Italy conducting business in Venice, so it was us kids, the moms, and the rest of the family at the lake. Lazy summer days. Sleeping in. Me sneaking in through Gabi and your window when Gabi left to be with the bartender at the Trattoria Antelmo. Remember him?”
I suppress a smile. “You’re just talking about the sweet part. Get down to it.”
“I’m getting there. Every good storyteller has to set the scene first, see?”
“Chop, chop.” I can barely contain my smile, now; it’s not easy to remain upset with this man.
“All right. So my girlfriend and I—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Sorry. My mistress and I, we had this secret rendezvous place, sort of a lovers’ nest, if you will. The hayloft was old and not in use anymore. The ground floor, which was originally a stable, was now the only part of the building still in functioning orde
r. At the time it was used as a toolshed.
“From the outside, a small bridge went up to the top floor where the hayloft was. The bridge had collapsed years ago, and we were banned from playing there out of fear that we’d get hurt.”
“Interesting how this is turning into The Story of the Hayloft. You’re so good at deflecting,” I say. It’s getting more difficult to remain serious.
“Almost there,” he assures me, nodding as we enter the last tunnel before Hillside. He’s either referring to his brother’s house, or to the most humiliating time of my life.
“My mistress and I, we—”
“Okay, just use my name. ‘Mistress’ is horrifying.”
“Right. Ina mia and I had been kissing in the toolshed all summer, but this particular day, she was teasing me—”
I snort out laughing. “Can you talk to me as if I’m me, and not some other person? Just say ‘you,’ not ‘she,’ stupido.”
He makes a show of thumping his head into the backrest. “So-o picky. Anyway, on some dare from you, I started climbing one of the rickety old work benches. I lost balance. As I was about to fall, I grabbed for the ceiling, and snagged a handle there. It was well camouflaged, in the same weathered grey color of the wood. I tugged on it, opening what turned out to be a trapdoor. It even had a pull-out ladder.”
“It was a bit magical,” I say.
“It was. You walked up first. It was full of old, yellow hay, and the dust hung thick in the air, lit up by the sun that shone in through a few narrow openings. They weren’t windows.”
“No, just holes.” I exhale, smiling. “You’re so bad. Look what you’ve done.”
He sends me a glance and smiles too. “You’re thinking good things, see? It’s what I’m here for. I was made to make you happy.”
“But then they came, and we didn’t hear them,” I say.
“That was a week later, though, at least.”
“Nine days later. It was on a Sunday, and our dads had just returned. Why did we take our chances on the day of the big welcome festa for them? We were so stupid.”