by Sunniva Dee
Rigid, he sits there, assessing my awkward moves. Derision slides over his features when my mask slips and the pain becomes too much.
It’s impossible to sit upright, but anyone would forge impossible to remain alive. He doesn’t lean toward me. He doesn’t repeat his command either, another test. I need to get to him asap, or else—or else.
Jolts of pain rage through my torso. They steal so much energy that breathing isn’t an option. To live, air has to wait.
Majestic in his lack of mercy, he stares down at me. I bend at the waist, press beyond agony until I find his mouth. My lips are cold. They’re wet against his dry ones, and my kiss trembles. It’s odious. I wish he didn’t taste like pine.
When I draw back, his eyes have softened. The cruelty has vanished from them, and it’s a blast of violence avoided.
“You want to see something?”
“Yes…”
He stands abruptly, walks to a corner shelf, and pulls out what looks like an old photo album. When he comes back, he bounces on the mattress when he sits. Then he opens the album.
A few pages in, he stops. He smoothens the page even though there are no irregularities in the cardstock. “See how it’s black? It was Father who got me a black album. Mother wanted me to have a reminder of Agata, and he was okay with that. But he got me this one so I wouldn’t forget: the black is for sorrow since she’s gone.”
He does a playful tilt of his head as he looks up. “She was perfect. But then, she went ahead and drowned. What the hell was that?”
“Too bad,” I whisper. For a second, I’m afraid I’ve offended him, but he only sighs, shoulders curving over his memories. On the next page, the same girl appears again. In a light blue dress that reaches her mid-thigh, dark braids down her back and a wide smile, she looks about eleven.
Blown up, the picture fills the somber background. John runs a finger over the girl’s face and down the outline of her body. As he graces her form, the familiarity of her clothing hits me. The dress is several sizes too big, but it doesn’t take away from her lithe elegance. Because this is a flapper dress. With a simple neckline and loose at the waist, peacock-feathered accents in bright turquoise and greens make the fabric pop. She wears it with ease, though the sleeves almost reach her wrists—
Where the very same dress reached me mid-arm!
I can’t stop my gasp. John’s attention skids to me, interest brightening his gaze at my reaction. “She found it at a Salvation Army. She discovered the place a few months before the accident and was so excited that she could get ‘all kinds of cool clothes’ just with her allowance. I’d go there with her. Agata, she didn’t like to go places alone.”
A smile chases across his face as he moves on to the next page. The same girl stars in this picture too. She’s on a pier, dark hair wild in the breeze. With her arms raised toward the sky, her grin is high and her hip popped in the little-girl version of a model. The dress she wears is too big. It’s short, yellow, a sundress with a bouncy skirt that almost reaches her calves. It has a sweetheart neckline and is… the exact dress I wore to breakfast at Damiana’s.
“I had to help her with the buttons in the back. I told her she could’ve just pulled it on over her head, because it was that wide. But she said, ‘Stupido. I’ll look really good in this dress in a year, and you’ll be looking at me like you look at the baker’s daughter.’”
“How old was she in this photo?”
“Eleven years and three hundred and sixty days.” Heavy, his palm rests over the picture. “And she was right. I would have too, you know. She was my beautiful, beautiful...” Tears coat his fingers as he presses around the bridge of his nose. When he lowers his hand and turns the page, it’s to reveal Agata in the outfit I’m wearing right now.
“She should’ve turned twelve the day after she bought that.” He circles his index finger over her frame. “I complained when she wanted to go back to the Salvation Army. It had only been a few days since the last time, and I had stuff I wanted to do. But I went anyway. It was simple: no one said no to Agata, least of all me, and it made me so damn stoked to see her as happy as she was here.
“Look at her. She walked out of the store dressed like that. They didn’t have changing rooms, but they couldn’t say no either, so they let her use the employee bathroom. Mother had hired a photographer for our birthdays, you know.” He lets out a chuckle that’s breathy with sadness. “Unfortunately, this is the last picture of her. I took it, just some twelve-year-old amateur. There were so many photos that weren’t taken.”
Wet and drenched with grief, his inhale is sudden. “But you know what? I’m glad she doesn’t have to see what’s going on right now. Your uncle is destroying my family.”
“He is?” Hope. Oh, god, hope is crazy. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do. He’s been attacking our homes in Los Angeles. Blood and intestines and gore and grime.” He lets out a puff that almost sounds entertained. “Doesn’t he see that I’m offering peace? I’m the crown prince of the Santa Colombini marrying the crown princess of the Nascimbeni!”
I swallow, unable to take in the magnitude of his delusion. I’m risking another blaze of violence when I ask, “That was your plan, to create peace between our families?”
“Of course.” He says it energetically, slamming the album shut as he does. He puts it on the night table and rubs his hands up and down his thighs. Up and down. Up and down. “I love you. I’ve loved you for a very long time.”
“You have?” My voice is so small.
“Yes, I’ve loved you since the very first time your cousin brought you lunch to class. The way he looked at you like you were his everything, the way you looked at him, like your heart was broken in a million pieces and you didn’t want to pick them up? I understood you. That’s when I started researching you, and it couldn’t have been more perfect.” John presses his fists against his thighs and stands. Walks to the adjoining bathroom, and with his back to me, turns on the water.
In the mirror, I see him wash his hands. His nostrils narrow with the air he sucks in as he tips his head back and studies his own face in the mirror. The flawlessness of it is cacophonous. John’s reflection throws back an intensity so jittery it could snap at any moment.
“Finally, my father and I were on the same side. He appreciated my imagination. You know? He saw what a genius side step it was, such an awesome, unexpected way of ripping the heart out of the Nascimbeni famiglia and destroying them forever.”
This is more than I can stomach. My physical pain fuses with my grief and pokes at my sanity at the stabs of his words. I cup my mouth over a moan.
“You know who else loved my plan? Zio Randolfo. Especially when I suggested ‘annexing’ Harmony Femme, using them as a disguise while we cautiously started up the sex-slave trade again. And I’d never have come up with it if it wasn’t for your cugino. Just a few at a time, at first. The rooms in the Harmony Femme basement were as good as sound-proofed already. It was meant to be.
“I made a cheap deal with my uncle. All I wanted in return was you. It took some doing to convince him of that, of course. He wanted to extinguish the Nascimbeni, you included, so you better be thankful to Mother. Without Mother, he’d never have understood that you could be her.”
I look up. Blink away my tears so I can see him. Concentrated on the faucet, he lets the water rush down the drain, cuts it off, turns it back on. His back seems to grow with the air he inhales as he continues his loud, pointless game of white noise.
“That I could be who? Agata?” My question is quiet, reaching him through a brief hiatus in the sink. He whirls around and fixes me with his glare.
“No! You could never be Agata.”
“Okay.”
Behind him, the water gushes and gushes. It thunders, the sound growing to a monster-sized waterfall in my ears. Maybe it’s Niagara. Iguazu. Maybe
the sink will vomit a flood surge that fills the room. Inundating me, it’d be a cease-and-desist order from the elements. Dear God, make it take John too.
“I’d never love you as much as I loved her. What you had with Gioele, Agata and I could’ve had too. But she died!” He juts his chin high, eyes lethal and burning me. “She bought that dress for me. She was going to fill it out and wear it for me. Because she loved me like I loved her. But the Milky Way came and stole her, see? It threw her out of there, away from me, and bam, she was gone!”
His lips stretch in a tense smile. “But then I found you, my star bridge.” He pulls in a sharp breath. “You know what? Altair was weak. I’m so much more than him! I’m about to prove my divinity, because I can get to Vega.”
“Boss?” Eyes bright with worry, Mazzi pokes his head in the door.
“Get out!”
“But, sir, you’ve got serious—”
In two strides, John’s at the door. With a roar, he shoves his leech out and locks it. He works through loud breaths that expand and shrink the size of his back, until he slowly swings back to me.
“You’re my bridge.” His voice is barely above water.
“I’m just a girl,” I whisper. “I can’t get you to her.”
“No?” Drowned laughter follows. It’s twisted, a robotic response to a reality he doesn’t accept. He thumps down next to me, on his back in manic relief. “Agata is here. All you have to do is open to her, and she’ll be in you.” He jerks is head to the side, staring me down. “She’d never leave me. Not really. Because she knows and I know we can never be apart.”
I’m glued to his crazy, crazy stare.
“Let her in! You can’t be her without receiving her. Capisci?”
I blink tears. Blink and blink them. For a fraction of a sane second, his gaze softens with compassion, and I wish that crazy weren’t stronger.
“I love you. Don’t ever worry about that. I love you as Agata. Just take her in, and you’ll do it. Once you’re her, everything will be okay. I’d never have to beat you again because you would be perfect. You’re so close.”
He lets out a shaky breath, eyes scrunching shut before returning to me. “I’ve never been closer to her. Fuck the Milky Way. And fuck your cousin for standing in her way. That’s it, right? Holy shit, that’s it!”
My heart goes into overdrive as he pulls himself off the mattress and sits up without the help of his arms.
“You can’t let go of him, can you? And because you can’t let go of him, you won’t open for Agata! Well, fuck him, and fuck you for being a deceptive whore.”
He’s up.
Above me.
He slams a heavy hand into my face, and I thump to the mattress. My stomach is too soft for his fists.
“You saw what he did on that video. You were supposed to hate him!”
Those choked groans can’t be mine? He makes them. He’s made them of me. I want to curl up. There’s no curling around my life, and this darkness is too black to breathe. My hands grasp blindly. Sheets. Pillows. Flails.
Something thick and clunky in my fist. I tighten around it, a last lifeline. My stomach hardens. Every muscle tenses in a final effort. I’m adrenaline, fear, determination. I am— Blind. I aim, I—
Hit!
His attack on my body slows. Uncertain, it stops. I squint through my darkness to see, and his lids flutter over me, red streaking his forehead, a painting of violence and anguish. He’s me in his mirror.
Smattering gunshots outside. They’re loud and dark and beautiful, speeding oxygen into flat lungs.
Shouts. Groans. Barrages.
The door slams inward, the lock giving to a blow. It’s the sickening crack of a skull, like a promise of surrender, a call from freedom. I’m keening, clutching my weapon. It’s made of the sharpest gold.
Footsteps thunder over the floorboards. They’ve never been louder. The world must hear them, the Milky Way, even as would-be tidal waves fight a lost man’s war for attention in the bathroom of my cell.
Dazed, John turns from me, the last time I saw his face. I saw his eyes through the golden bars of a shoe. His mamma won’t like how poetic it is when his grip around my throat slackens and isn’t as tight after all.
“You animal!” A predator’s roar. In a flash, John’s weight is ripped off me. One of my arms doesn’t work. I get up on an elbow and grasp how he’s smashed into a wall.
Happiness rolls in waves that are gentle. It starts at the core of your being and soaks every ounce of you with warmth: Gioele, now, here, without mercy. A god of revenge, pounding, pounding while John sinks to the floor below him.
“Wait,” I mouth. “Wait.” I’m so quiet I can’t hear myself.
Brutal eyes go liquid. My bane looks at me as he cocks his gun. He looks at me—me—while John’s face explodes and I have no choice of amnesty. My love makes it easy before the world goes still and he comes to me.
“Cuore del mio cuore.” His kisses are so soft they’re butterflies along my hairline. “I wish away all of this, from the past, present, and future.”
“’Kay, you.” My words are staccato sighs. There’s no air left in my lungs. “You sent him to Vega.”
29. MAGIC
GIOELE
Silvina claims that the space around us is “chiffon yellow.” It’s the color of the walls, but to me it’s just yellow. A light yellow, a promising yellow, the yellow of our future. A yellow that would never have allowed for her to be marred with bruises in blue, purple, and black.
She lets me touch her. She wants me to touch her. Her body is a map with valleys and mountains, ravaged by disasters it will never see again. Supple to my fingers, she doesn’t wince when I run them along the patch of a black rose over her cheekbone. Her eyes close, dry eyelashes fluttering with emotion.
I needed her safe, away from reality. That’s why we’re here, not in the Vernal Heights apartment, not at her place, not at mine. We’re in a small boutique hotel at the outskirts of San Francisco, hidden away from the disaster I ripped her out of. In this moment, there is no evil, no judgment. It’s just Silvina and me, just air and chiffon yellow and hope.
Fragile, Silvina is bare to me. It’s not the expanse of skin, of legs curved in awkward repose against her pain. It’s not the way her arms don’t hide her body from me. No, it’s in her gaze. How can eyes be wet without floating in tears?
The war isn’t over. The others have returned to L.A., my brother included, leaving Fritz and Bully to keep guard in the lobby. I have work to do too once Silvina is safe in our bubble, sleeping, healing, the pain of broken bones eased by the drugs from the doctor.
I can’t allow my famiglia to suffer the way it has for so long. We’re mafia-born, ignorant allies and victims. We’re forced to take sides and kill in the name of self-preservation.
But for now, it’s just my Silvina and me. Chiffon yellow won over the Milky Way, a permanent change her mind and body shall finally absorb. I’ve got her, and every cell of her needs to recognize this truth. “I will drench you in it,” I hum. “I will soak you until no remnant of what he did to you remains.”
A smattering of Spanish disseminates the news from the TV. It’s a soothing hum while I trace the curved mound of her shoulder. She’s bare. Damp from our shower. I lower my head and run my nose along the bone at an edge of her frame.
“I have his fingerprints on me.” Her voice is so quiet.
“Don’t worry. I’ll erase every one of them. First, I’ll erase all the fingerprints we can’t see. Then, Father Time and I will work together to take away the colors.”
Silvina’s chest rises in a stuttered inhale. The fruity scent of the shower gel I washed her with softens the air around us. It makes my mouth water with the impulse to taste her.
“Here’s one,” I whisper, letting my kiss touch a red-streaked trench on her lip. �
��It’s magic, sai, Ina mia? I can erase each fingerprint like this.”
“You’ve become a magician, now?” She can still joke. There’s a flutter of lightness in those wet, wet eyes.
“Oh, no. I don’t have the magic. It just comes to me. Like your mother’s Moonflowers that blossom only after dark, this special kind of magic appears when a man loves a woman so much that nothing else matters.”
“And you’re that man?”
My girl, is she flirting? Hurt and rattled to her bones, she’s so frail. But she still broadcasts this other weakness, our weakness, a good weakness that promises chiffon yellow and futures. For years, I’ve only seen it in glimpses. I’ve only drunk of it for precious hours when her guard has been down. She’s weak for me. Me! And she isn’t trying to hide it.
“Yes, I’m the man who loves a woman so hard it hurtles past the borders of reality. Love conjures magic, see? And all I need to do is this.” I kiss the scrape between her nose and the miniature dip of her upper lip. I stare at it with purpose and make sure to change my gaze from concentrated to satisfied. “There we go. It’s just the scratch left. His touch is gone, and I’ve covered it with my love for you.”
“Smettila.” She rolls her eyes while she tells me to stop it. “I think you’re rehearsing for an Italian soap.”
My face breaks open in a smile, and it feels good. “So why are you tearing up? I never knew you were into Italian soap actors.”
Quiet laughter whiffs from my Silvina. Her chest rocks with the movement, and it makes her face contract with pain.
“Careful,” I say while my smile falters. “It’ll take me a bit longer to fix seven broken ribs, but you sure as fuck won’t have a single one of his fingerprints left on them once I’m done. Lay still.”
I kiss along the ridge of her stomach, starting at the slope between her breasts. Cautiously, I follow each rib to the far side beneath her arms. I take my time, covering every inch of her torso with my lips. Small sighs escape her. Soon, they quiet, and each muscle I trail over relaxes.