by Sunniva Dee
“See?” I whisper later, once the night is blue and her eyes are closed. “Love is magic. You should’ve believed me from the start.”
She stirs again with the knock on the door. Quietly, I walk to it and see Bully through the peephole. I frown. Open anyway. Let him in with a quick look at my girl. No other man should be in here while she’s broken and warm in our bed.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Oh. Just… I heard back from the band.” Ill at ease, he shifts on his feet.
“The what?” I’m not on his wavelength right now.
“The band. You know, Luke Craven.” His eyebrows lift while he waits for realization to dawn. “Tomorrow is Sunday, and tonight’s the deadline if we want to be on their guest list. I was thinking that maybe— Maybe.” He clears his throat, eyes sliding from me to Silvina and back.
“You were thinking she would be my plus one? That Silvina would really love to see a concert tomorrow?” This shouldn’t upset me. A second ago, I was reverent, looking at her, seeing how she’d survived, how she was back in my arms. And yet now I’m finding the universe unfair. Because Silvina, dancing, enjoying Night Shifts Black would’ve been incredible.
“No, of course not. Bad idea, man. I don’t know.”
“Gioele?” Her voice is silk-paper thin.
“Yes, baby? Don’t worry. Go back to sleep. I’ll be right there. Bully was about to leave anyway.” The last part I growl at him through my teeth.
“Go for us. Okay, Bully?” she breathes. “Take lots of pictures.”
“Oh?” Happy surprise brims in his voice before he reins himself back in. “No, we can’t do that. We’ll be here with you. You need us around.”
“We’ll be fine. You heard Isaias. S.F. is clean of Santa Colombini,” she sighs out.
The dim room can’t quell the hope in Bully’s eyes. I narrow mine, growling again. “You come here in the middle of the night, checking out my girl, and then you’re getting a free pass from work too? I thought you were on the clock for Isaias!”
“Gioele… Sweetheart?”
Sweetheart.
“Yes, Ina mia.”
“Please. I’m too tired to fight. Let them.”
“Sure, baby.” I turn abruptly and glare at him. Then, I whisper so low I’m sure she can’t hear me. “You heard Silvina. Go have fun. Do the whole backstage thing with our favorite band. No worries. Some other time, ya know.”
The hours and days after Silvina disappeared were nerves buzzing with no lull in sight. I was vibrant. I was frayed. I prayed for what I have tonight.
Tonight, I watch her sleep with a violet elbow bent over the unharmed part of her face. Battle-ravaged but whole, her chest rises and sinks beneath the sheets, and the sight gives me the courage to do what no one else will: cross famiglia and breach diamond-hard loyalty for the safety of the rest.
“Hello?”
“Gioele, hi. Everything okay?”
“Yeah. My brother told me why you weren’t here.”
“At the bust?”
“Yes.”
“I see. What does this mean? Do you want to testify?”
I allow myself a twist of the head, a slide of my eyes to the reason for every fight I’ve started since I was little. Silvina’s eyelids quiver. I hope I’m protecting her in there, making sure nothing happens behind her thin veil of sleep. Sweet dreams, Ina mia, while I fix the reality we were raised in.
“I do,” I reply to the buzz from the phone. “Yes, I do.”
The Spanish news channel still churns at the foot of our bed, inseminating the room with static light. It’s what my girl wanted: harmless disquiet with the power to stir the aftereffects of John’s world.
As an FBI agent, Tatiana is in the middle of the most successful mafia raid in West Coast history. Even so, she pauses her engagement for me to ask, “Are you sure? I can get you subpoenaed. It’ll look better for your family.”
“I’m sure. And for the record, your fiancé should go voluntarily too.”
30. DOCUMENTARY
GIOELE
No doubt our lives will become a documentary. The Bonano’s did. The Gambino’s did. Soon enough, the film industry will dig into the Nascimbeni, and our story will be as dirty and ugly as theirs.
The documentaries will talk about the strong ties inside la famiglia. They’ll dissect our love for one another and our tradition of loyalty. They’ll study the differing philosophies, ponder how one crown prince abdicated and the runner-up snitched.
They’ll line up every internal fight on the way to our Apocalypse, to those hours and days when so many died. I hope they highlight the miracle of what occurred at the end, when the good ones survived and the warmongers did not.
Journalists asked me, time and time again. Did I regret standing up so early, making the job of the FBI so easy? It was my father I led them to. It was my uncles, every man who had showered me with affection since I was a baby.
My stare didn’t budge from them as I said, “No. It had to be done. Because some loves are more important than others.”
They’d look at us with eyes that missed nothing, while Ina mia shyly nuzzled her face along the back of my shoulder. I’d clench her hand, keeping it behind my thigh where she wanted us.
Would we mind if they took our picture?
No, we wouldn’t, because we had nothing to be ashamed of.
In the documentaries, they’ll use historians who specialize in the mafia. Those guys will dig to the root of the phenomenon, returning to Sicily and a time when “mafioso” meant “Sicilian defender,” just a citizen standing up against foreign invaders. They were The People fighting for survival, battling the rich monopolizing food, power, and money. That was back when we were heroes. Back before Il Lince was ever born.
“Eyes on me.” Ma lifts my chin up, and I let my gaze glide up until I meet hers.
“What?” I say, mopey. I was a teenager for too long, and now I sound like one again. She sends Silvina a commiserative look. Is Silvina sure she wants this, share planes with Ma’s broody son for eighteen hours when he’s in this mood?
“I’m trying to say goodbye, figlio. I miss you already, and you won’t even look at me?”
I pull Silvina to my side. It’s not a surprise when she goes rigid against me; a few months in the open has barely made a dent in our years of secrecy and denial. I tilt my head to her, touching her temple with mine. It’s my subtle reminder: be yourself. Let’s be us, because not being us only leads to pain.
“I am looking at you,” I tell Ma. “And yeah, I’ll miss you too.”
“Be careful, okay?” she says, stroking too-long hair away from my face. I nod that we will be. In one short day, we’ll be at Lake Como. Zia Paula has been there since Zio Cosimo died. It’s been six months since the two clans collapsed. Since then, we, the survivors, have moved our lives in different directions, to different cities and countries.
“Per favore, hug your mamma from me,” Ma tells Silvina. “I’ll be there for Christmas, but I can’t leave right now when your zio’s being transferred to Los Angeles.”
With her fingers fluttering in the crook of my elbow, she follows us to the security line. The unrest of the airport transplants up the roped lanes, suitcases standing and lying in wait of a forward shove.
Again, I stifle the question on my tongue. She’s my mamma, my Italian mamma. Her love for me won’t dry out, but does she forgive me for what I did? Ma didn’t rebuke me for turning him in, but I’ve never seen her as devastated as she was when they drove off with Il Lince.
“It was simple,” Isaias said once the police cars left our driveway. “You did what you had to do, and Ma knew it was our only way to freedom.”
31. THE ALWAYS-BOY
GIOELE
“Come with me, Ina mia. My love. My darling. My dove.” I grin when la
ughter trickles out of her like the gush of a miniature waterfall. Such a happy sound. It’s because of the lake, the summer sun, and the grass tickling our calves.
Yes, this world without bloodshed has the power to heal scars. We’ve been here for a few days, and a lazy summer stretches out before us. Not too long ago, I couldn’t even have dreamed up a time like this, with Silvina and me in our childhood paradise, she without walls against our love; me, with the right to hold her and make her smile.
The last six months haven’t been easy for her. The loss of Zio Cosimo hit her with the darkness of a daughter who’s lost a loving father. Then, there was the press and their sudden scrutiny of us. For the most part, she went to class, but after hours, we stayed in my apartment. Headlines like, Cousin Lovers and their Vendetta on their Family, made her cry in my arms. But Mafia Prince and Princess taking down the Nascimbeni, was the spread that stabbed me in the chest.
“I’m a dove, now?” she titters.
“I think so.”
“I have something for you,” she says, smile fading. When her eyes darken too, a ripple of concern runs through me.
“What is it?”
“These.” She’s wearing a billowy yellow shirt that’s tied at her waist. I love how the buttons are open to the middle of her breasts. I’m entranced when a small hand fumbles inside, surely dipping inside her bra. She pulls out a piece of paper and folds it open for me.
“What is it?” I run my eyes over her face first, before I dip them to black words on white background. It’s an email. A printed email?
“Read it,” she challenges, steepling her hands in front of her mouth. I know this girl better than anyone, and right now she’s trying to cover up a sly smile.
“Who’s it from?” I ask while my tentative smirk blows into a full-on grin.
“Night Shifts Black’s tour manager. They’re in Milan tomorrow, and you and I are going.”
“What are you talking about? No way!”
“Way. And guess what?”
“Tell me.”
She tips her nose up a little, sun-freckled and begging to be kissed. “I’m close with Callie now.”
I squint at her. Can’t hold back any longer and need to stroke my finger along the bridge of that perky little nose. “You’re close with the drummer’s girlfriend?”
“Yep!” She opens her hands to me in a low-key ta-dah. “Bully ran his mouth to her backstage in San Francisco. Talked up a storm about me and how I’d been ‘beaten up in a back alley.’ She felt sorry for me and asked for my email address, and we’ve been emailing ever since.”
I bite my lip, smiling. “And this new BFF-ship you’ve got going: you’ve kept it a secret from your boyfriend why exactly?”
“Because, one”—she lifts a stubborn little index finger between us, pulling it back with her other hand—“my boyfriend doesn’t need to know everything I do. And, two”—she joins her middle finger with the index finger, pointing them skyward—“I wanted to surprise him.”
I crouch abruptly and hoist her off the ground. She squeals and kicks her legs, but with my arms around her ass, I keep her above me, making her jump.
“Ah!” she squeals. “Let me go!”
I fake-drop her, and she latches on to my shoulders. The soft hollow of her throat tempts, so I nuzzle into it, humming out my approval. I let my mouth fall open at the scent of sun-warm skin. I lick, suck down to the nape of her neck, and I don’t stop until she shivers.
“I can’t wait, darling,” I whisper.
SILVINA
The Mediolanum Forum is sold out. We’ve already learned from the band’s tour manager that the stadium takes twelve thousand seven hundred paying customers. We’ve also learned that it’s not the biggest arena they’ve filled.
Callie’s boyfriend offered to let us watch from the side of the stage, but I was craving the sizzle of the Italian version of a mosh pit, and Gioele begrudgingly relented.
The arena has filled up around us, and my boyfriend’s watchdog modus has switched into high gear. Since he freed me in San Francisco, my rebel has turned into a younger replica of his brother. No joke. We’re to the point of me doing regular heart to hearts with Tatiana to deal with my new, difficult, hot as hell always-boy.
Tatiana and I might have different solutions to the issue, but it’s nice to have a sister-in-arms when protectiveness crackles on high voltage. With Tatiana, I laugh and exasperate over l‘amore della mia vita and his antics, before gushing my heart out. I don’t have to censor myself around her. She understands and knows the same frustration-slash-gratitude over a man whose boundless all-in can be a lot to absorb.
Gioele resents Il Lince for all he’s put us through, but he gave a gift to his sons, a huge, pink, figurative pearl Tatiana and I will cherish as long as we live: a boundless capacity for love. The depth, the loyalty, the belief in its eternity his sons have inherited from him and Zia Carola. What they have can’t be destroyed by anything in this realm, and I am grateful for it.
My parents loved each other too, but it didn’t stop them from finding comfort when disillusion seeped in. The most significant escapade of their marriage came out after my father’s death. No one knew of it until Gioele threw our love in everyone’s faces, daring people to accept or get lost, including poor la nonna who’d been flown in to be with the survivors of the Santa Colombini Ambush.
Later, at the end of the night when my bane hugged my ring finger with a Nascimbeni wolf of promise, Mom stood from her seat. Cheeks flaming with humility, she admitted the truth of my conception to the entire famiglia.
Eyes light for me, cheeks ashamed for herself, she let out that my father was not my father. While Cosimo’d had an affair on the East Coast, her revenge was too much time spent with a flutist from the L.A. Philharmonic.
Gioele glares down the NSB fans pressing by us. Closer by the second, they fill all rows and push in against our bodies. Straightening, he folds his arms around me from behind, unconsciously sating my need to be lined up with him.
“Stop worrying so much, baby.” I twist so I can look up at him, but he’s too busy scanning a group of teenagers. I turn and link myself around him. It takes him a second before his stare sinks to my face, changing from frozen alertness to tenderness.
“You okay?” He kisses my forehead.
I tip my face back and get a taste of his lips. “Of course, I’m okay. No one’s gonna stomp on me.”
He puffs out a snort and says, “They better not.”
A static snap runs through the stadium as all floodlights go out at once. The roar from the audience starts in the back and swoops us into a rope of howled excitement that’s drowned by a sudden bassline.
I whirl toward the stage. Gioele accommodates my shift, laughs against me, his chest rising and sinking in a staccato fusion with my body. Gargantuan, the sound envelops us and reverberates in our bones.
He pulls me tight, moves with my hips, lets me steer this ecstasy—makes bliss soar through me in ways no one does like him. He revels in us, like with every moment of our days—happy, sad, boring, funny. Pink spotlights flood the stage and shift to white. Luke, Casey, and the rest of the band turn their chins up, smiles broadening in a disarming acceptance of Milan.
“We did it,” Gioele muffles into my ear.
“Yes. We’re here!”
32. FIRST DISCOVERY
GIOELE
“I’ll show you where I met you.”
“You’re being silly. The first time you saw me was in Los Angeles. Zia Carola brought you to visit Mom and me in the hospital right after I was born.” Silvina’s eyes glitter with humor, the way I like them best.
“Yes, but I really met you here. You were older.”
“I was old when you met me?” Tiny sun freckles shift with her humor when she scrunches up her nose. I tap it with a finger.
“You like to twist my words, don’t you, Ina mia? Always twisting words.” The last sentence I add in the sloped chant of a Venetian accent. It makes her chuckle.
Once at the field, I pull her close to me. I take both of her hands and place them around my waist. When she acquiesces, letting me pull her against my body, I wait until our breaths sync. Then, I lean my chin on top of her head. “Funny how you’re not allergic to me anymore.”
“Because I gave in to you.”
“See, you should have listened to me from the start.”
The scent of her, lemon shampoo and flowery soap. The alkaline waft of lake water that softens the air around us. This moment. If every moment was like this, Earth wouldn’t be Earth. It wouldn’t be Hell on Earth or even Heaven on Earth. No, it would simply be Heaven.
“So you ‘met me’ here?” the girl who plumps her lips for my kisses asks.
I hmm, dipping my nose into her hair. “I asked Ma about the specifics, and you were thirteen months old. We came here that summer, and Zia Carola and Ma took us down here to see the sheep. There were lambs, see, and they thought we would enjoy petting them. But instead, we discovered each other.”
“I didn’t discover you.”
“Yes, you did.”
“But I was a baby!” She arches a brow at me, and I wink in response, enjoying her amusement.
“Come. Let me show you.” I let go of my hold on her and entwine our fingers. Walking ahead of her, our clasped hands stretch between us while she fakes suspicion before following me. It makes me grin.
“I’m afraid of sheep,” she jokes.
“Right. Also, the sheep aren’t here anymore. Come, let’s see if I can make you remember.”
“So-o-o, you want me to remember something that happened when I was thirteen months old?” She’s wearing a ponytail today. It’s long and shiny, and it shakes wildly with her disbelief.