by Sunniva Dee
“Another storage area,” Isaias whispers. “They mainly use the docks, so I’d have never guessed the mountains without Marrow’s help.”
“How?”
“He had a bug in Randolfo’s storefront. No direct talk about Cosimo, but we got this intel.” He waves for Fritz, me, and Bully to back him at the door. Then, he nods out a Go!
Isaias blasts the lock open with ear-numbing precision. I kick down the remnant of the door. We storm in, watch wild-eyed Colombini spin toward us. Two raise their hands, one shoots and hits Isaias in the stomach. He buckles over with a groan, folding in on himself.
Fritz gets the shooter in the forehead, gore exploding from him. I target a small bald guy, get him in the leg, and he buckles over, howling with pain. That’s when I see my uncle behind him.
“Get him!” I yell to Bully, who lunges forward. Zio Cosimo is tied to a chair. The Colombinis must have felt safe, because he’s not gagged.
“This is a ruse!” he shouts. “They’re not after me. The whole damn clan is after the bunker!”
For the first time in my life, the blood runs cold in my veins. I feel myself blink, not understanding, but then I do—I do, when a wounded Colombini picks his gun up from the floor and mutters, “Shut the hell up, parasite,” and aims at my uncle.
I leap forward, kicking the rifle out of his hand, but it goes off, sending a short ra-ta-ta! through the room in a swipe that covers the back wall and ends in Zio Cosimo’s chest. Oh, no. No, no, no.
“No. Fucking. Prisoners!” I roar, and swing my gun around, maiming every Colombini still standing. My eyes are weak with tears when the sound dies and there’s more blood than breath in their hell hole. What just happened?
I’m gasping. Can’t get enough oxygen. I cut my uncle’s body free of the chair and hike him over my shoulder. His eyes are open. Silvina won’t like that. She won’t. She won’t.
Fritz steadies Isaias, who bleeds heavily. He’s still conscious and firing off orders. “Call Il Lince. Get a hold of Gabriela. I don’t think she’s in the bunker yet.” He shuts his eyes, groaning. “Get Felix’ number off my cell. He needs to send all his men to Hidden Hills. Gioele.”
“Yes, fratello.”
“Do it now.”
I puff my cheeks up. Blow out air. Blow out more. It doesn’t help.
Isaias’ stare burns into me. “You can’t panic now.”
“I know.”
His wrist is weak. Can’t hold his phone out properly for me. Fritz takes it from him, and I jerk my head toward the vans for our men to follow.
“You’ll be all right?” I ask my brother.
He forces his eyes open. “The vest took the brunt of it.”
I avert my gaze from the blood seeping out at belt level and press out a “Cool.”
His guys support him toward their vehicle. The rest of us follow.
“No time to lose,” Isaias whispers, urging me with a stare that’s going muddy. I shout it for him, using all my leftover oxygen.
My uncle’s limp body over my shoulder can’t hamper the adrenaline in my blood as I stalk to our van. Fritz opens the backdoor for me. A sob gets out while I lay my uncle down as comfortably as possible on the backrow.
“It doesn’t matter to him anymore,” Bully says with the respect of someone with their hat in their hand and water in their eyes. It makes me gasp away a hiccough.
“Yeah.” I dry my nose before it drips onto the seat. “Let’s go. Now!”
At Isaias’ vehicle, I make Fritz stop and roll down the window. In the passenger seat, Isaias has a hard time staying conscious.
“Do you have his woman’s phone number?” I ask.
They look at each other and shake their heads. I thumb through his cell and find her. Read the number out loud. “Call Tatiana immediately. Tell her. She’ll know where to bring him. Whatever she says goes. Got it?”
They frown, exchange glances again. Before they can speak up, I grind out, “That was a direct order. Do not forget who I am: I’m Gioele di Nascimbeni, son of Il Lince, and my brother is going to survive this. The E.R. is out of the question. You can’t take him to my father’s house. If you don’t do as I say, I’ll hold you directly responsible for whatever happens to Isaias, and the Nascimbeni vendetta will be on.”
“I’ll call his woman,” the driver mutters, dipping his head in surrender.
“Text your updates to Isaias’ phone”—I wiggle his cell in their direction—“because I’ll be busy.”
“Yes, sir.”
As Fritz speeds down the road, leaving a trail of yellow dust in our wake, it hits me that my brother is the one everyone calls “sir.”
14. NIGHT OF CHANGE
GIOELE
Grief and fear for my family amalgamate into a whole new purpose. It throbs in my pulse. I recognize what I’m doing as I call my father, call Felix, ask him to relocate the hired troops to the Nascimbeni home in Hidden Hills. I know who I am as I call Gabriela’s phone, over and over, and only ever reach her voicemail.
Isaias is with Tatiana. There’s no need for our loyals to know what she does. All they needed was to trust her because they trust me, and it worked.
In the van, our roles are clear: Fritz’ job is to get us on the backroad to Hidden Hills as quickly as possible. I conduct all phone preps, while Bully counts our remaining ammunition and loads our guns. We have half a dozen hand grenades, but my chest pangs just thinking of using them near my childhood home.
“There’s no way they’ll get into the bunker,” I say out loud. Fritz and Bully have both been there, but they entered blindfolded like everyone else. “The first door requires a digital fingerprint of a grown Nascimbeni famiglia member. The second, an iris scan. There simply is no way.”
Bully grunts out his agreement.
Felix needs to keep the bastards out of Hidden Hills. I can’t even imagine the repercussions, the worldwide news feed it would instigate, on top of the tragedy it would be for us if we can’t; the place is home to Hollywood celebrity, and over the decade and a half we’ve lived there, my father has managed to keep all mafia business out of the area.
For a second, as we enter Hidden Hills, I allow myself the luxury of doubt. What if the Santa Colombini are inside already? What if they’ve found a way to track down the bunker and aren’t merely having fun blowing up our house?
I shake my head, jangling the thought out of my brain. It’s me leading these guys. Me, telling Isaias’ men to follow us to Hidden Hills now that they’ve left him with Tatiana. I’ll need to stand side by side with my father who set this pandemonium in motion. Violent, cruel, merciless as he is, Il Lince still loves his family. But I wasn’t old when I understood that business, pride, and vendetta always come first.
Silvina’s name enters my bloodstream. I turn on the radio and drift between stations until “Houndstooth” by Atomic Bitchwax rages out through the speakers. Howling guitars, ruthless drums, and lyrics to hunt by. It’s what I need to stay focused while I haul ass toward her.
I’m almost there. No one will get to my girl before me.
At the backside of Hidden Hills, we meet Felix’ guys. I count a dozen Harleys and a handful of vehicles, some vans, some cars. Felix is there, raising a hand in greeting. We speed up the incline until we tip over and look straight down at our ranch.
I see Ma’s streetlamps down there. They move?
No, that’s cars. They stop!
I call Il Lince. He doesn’t pick up. I call his right hand, Moroder. When he doesn’t answer either, I know they have their hands full.
“We’re coming,” I mutter. “Fritz. Fucking floor it. They’re there. You see it?
“I do.”
“Load every semi, every Glock.”
“Done.”
“Get out the hand grenades,” I huff out.
“The hand gr
enades too?”
I aim a glare at Bully in the backseat. “The Santa Colombini will not get out unscathed.”
SILVINA
We’re in this together. I’m not the only one who loves someone out there fiercely, and we don’t have a way of getting in contact with them. These minutes, these hours that barely snail by. They’re hard for all of us.
But it’s my father out there. Isaias. Gabriela, who has yet to return from San Francisco. And above it all, it’s Gioele. His absence sucks the air out of my bones.
I calm my heart with the sight of the twins and my mother. I sneak stares at Zia Carola. Each time I do, something in me vibrates. It’s the slow arc of her brow, the fine wrinkles at the corner of her eyes, the pink protrusion at the center of her upper lip. Ah, I am grateful she keeps a piece of him around. She does it without thinking, so effortlessly just by being her.
The little ones go to sleep late this first night in the bunker. In a festa for everyone, we smile, sing, and dance to old Italian songs. We’re seasoned at this, at making our day special, at boosting the minute until it gleams sun-bright, like death couldn’t be taking its toll somewhere unnamed above our ceiling.
We forge our babies’ bliss while their fathers bleed in their absence. But would it help them to fear when their padri could return whole yet another time?
Like during our Christmas events, the babies get soda even though it’s bad for their teeth. We stuff ourselves with Italian cookies without thinking about diets and workout regimens, and the alcohol we open is of the type that fizzes with hope.
But now the daylight lamps have dimmed, and the babies are asleep in their cribs. The women who know and the teenagers who’d rather forget remain awake. Outlander runs on the flat-screen, because focusing on its fantasy world siphons anxiety from our own lives. We huddle close on the couches, in need of comfort, of the warmth of anxious skin and the calming buzz of alcohol. Even the twins are poured more wine.
We chat about what happens in the series. Until Zia Carola comes over, lowers herself next to me, and folds me in against her chest.
“I’m sorry,” she says, kissing the top of my head, and it’s what she doesn’t say that makes my tears leak out. Maybe I’m reading her wrong. Maybe she isn’t telling me she understands. Maybe her hug is for my father, for Gabriela, for our family in general. But right now, with every cell she affords around me, I suck in an approval Gioele and I have never before received.
You learn early that triggering mass panic isn’t something you can afford in a lockdown. So I turn my face against my aunt’s throat in the dusk of our TV night, and silently, I let my panic out in a trickle of salt and water.
“It’ll all be fine. Before you know it, Gioele and you can visit the family in Lake Como again. Wouldn’t that be nice? It’s been years since the last time you went.”
“Five years.” I swallow and swallow. “It would be awesome.”
Zia Carola lowers her voice until it’s nothing but a whisper. “Don’t think the worst. I know you are, and I’ve been there, but they need all our good vibes right now. They’re outside fighting for us, while we’re safe in here. Okay?”
“Are we?” I choke out. There’s this feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Her slight movements stop. “What do you mean?”
That feeling in my stomach solidifies. It’s a knot, as if I’m stirring some nightmare to life by confessing my worry. My chin trembles when I try to say more, try to ask if we really are safe. No one knows where we are, they say, and if they knew, they’d have no way to get in. It’s infallible. Fool proof. There’s no way to enter.
We’re so far below the ground, there could be a nuclear war happening above us and it wouldn’t reach us. So why do I hear sounds beyond the kitchen, behind the walls of the entrance with the eye scanner?
“Did you hear that?” I manage. “Are they back already?”
She does hear it. I can see it. I want her eyes to shine with relief, but they don’t.
“Girls,” she calls quietly to the women still in the room. Some are sleepy, on couches and chairs. Others are in various degrees of getting ready for bed. They look up, the traces of sleep dissipating from their features as they focus on my aunt. They do because her voice doesn’t promise more cookies.
“Someone is coming. It’s probably just our men, but we haven’t done this in a while, and it’s time; we’re going through The Drill. Gather your babies and your pets, nothing else. Run to the bomb shelter immediately and lock the door. Clem, you’ll be our door woman. Once you’ve locked, no one enters the bomb shelter without the password.
“What’s the password?” A mother with a little boy asks.
Zia Carola sends her a stare that says, You should know your homework. Then, she says, “Sempre Insieme.”
I cover my mouth to keep my emotions under control; our password is a reminder of what we mean to each other.
“Wanda, you’re in charge of the guns. The lock to the cabinet opens with my firstborn’s birth date.” She scans her friend with the resolute stare of a matriarch. Zia Carola has all her men on the outside. She could be losing them all in this minute, but here she is, giving us strength and purpose.
“Run!” she barks. “I won’t be happy unless you’re all in the bomb shelter in one minute flat. Silvina: time them.”
Fumbling, I grab my phone. I click the timer and lift it high in the air. “Starting now!”
In seconds, the living room empties. My mother sends me a brittle look before she swoops the twins along. Ariadna scurries ahead of them with Hyacinth in her arms.
Once we’re alone in the TV room, I meet Zia Carola’s gaze. Fear finally shines through in it, and it’s making me queasy.
“Go after them,” she whispers. She straightens, and in this moment, she’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known. She’s ready. She’ll go down like a queen if she must.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m using the peephole to the mudroom.”
“No, you can’t! That sound was the stairs. You know how the steel echoes when we walk on it. They’ll be right outside the door in no time.”
She strokes my shoulder. “It’s okay, baby girl. With ninety-nine percent certainty, it’s Evodio or the boys. Maybe it’s your father. I just want to make sure this really is just a drill.”
I nod. “Then, I’m coming with you.”
We have no time to lose, so I run ahead of her before she can object. “Silvina-baby. Per favore,” she still tries.
In the hallway, rows of hangers hold winter jackets and some old dresses. When Il Lince had the peephole installed, he put it at the top of the right side of the wall instead of in the door, and from the outside it’s so small it’s impossible to see.
To get to it, I wedge my body in behind the row of jackets. Then, I get up on the stepladder until I’m high enough to latch onto the periscope and place my eye against it. A gasp of horror rushes out of me.
“What do you see?”
“A bunch of guys I’ve never seen before, and they’re struggling with someone in the stairs. Wait. The person’s on the floor, now, trying to kick themselves free. The man at the front seems to be in charge. He’s short, dark-haired, and— Oh, God. He has a scar that runs diagonally across his face.”
“Randolfo Santa Colombini,” Zia Carola whispers. “The Lord have mercy on us.”
GIOELE
My home looks eerily untouched. We drive up the pepper-tree alley to the backside, where unbidden vans have been parked in a hurry. I can’t see my father’s car anywhere. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, though. He could’ve parked it in the garage.
A handful of Colombini bikers jump away from the wall and aim their guns at us. We shoot first. I clip one of them, Bully the second.
“Grenade?” he asks.
“No.
Keep shooting. Fritz, drive down the walkway and get us to the backside of the house.” Our van is too big. Faintly, I register how it’s mauling my mother’s rosebushes. We stop. Jump out. Two guys follow us, but Felix’ crew pops them from the front of the house in streaks of yellow light.
We run along the west wall and curve around the waterfall. I catch movement at the opposite side. If I had the manpower, I’d send someone after it, but it’s unassuming and disappears fast. Behind the cascading water, the AstroTurf is tossed to the side. The trapdoor is wide open?
Silvina!
With my Glock holstered against my ribs, I clench the AK-47 and run down the stairs with Fritz and Bully right behind.
I call Felix. Tell him where to go. It’s all I have time for before I hit the mudroom shooting. Fuck, and I’m storming in with only two guys.
SILVINA
“Go, Silvina. Hide.” Zia Carola’s breathing is fast. Sometimes you just know, and my aunt is more afraid for me than for herself.
“No, I’m here with you. What’s the plan?”
“To take down as many as we can before they get to the bomb shelter.”
“Our weapons?” My brain is sluggish with fear.
“Dining room. Chest of drawers. Here.” She hands me the key and climbs up on the stepladder I just abandoned.
The dining room is to the left of the kitchen. It’s big, made for dozens of diners. The chest of drawers is on my side, thank God. In the top drawer, I find what we need.
Growled shouts filter in from the mudroom when I return. My aunt’s eyes are glassy. She blinks the horror away as she waves me toward her, and I hand off two handguns and keep two for myself. Like a pro, she tucks one in the back of her pants and cocks the other.
“Did you see who they brought?” I huff out.
“Yes. Listen, darling girl,” she whispers as she takes the last steps down to the ground from the stepladder. “Ti amo tanto, tanto, sai?”