by CD Reiss
“Excuse me,” I finally manage.
He pushes past me with a look of supreme entitlement. I slip inside the bathroom, lock the door, and slide to the floor with my back to the cabinets, trying to still the internal churn.
I am a queen.
I am a queen.
What do queens do when they’ve encased themselves in a stony majesty and still get stabbed in the back?
I kneel at the porcelain altar to hurl, but I do it like royalty.
“Ciao, Damiano!” A man on the other side of the door sounds as though he’s hit the wine hard and it’s hitting him back. “I’m fuckin’ starving.”
“You drink too much.” It must be Damiano who answers.
The rest is muddled in murmurs. They’ve moved down the hall. Since my stomach seems to have settled on its own, I put my ear up to the door.
“… parades her in here like some damn race horse…”
“… looks just like the…”
“… those the rings?”
My breath dies in my throat as I look at my hand. The rings. Rosetta’s diamond.
“… engravers…”
“… Theresa says…”
“… she Enzo Rubino’s …?”
Their voices fade into the white noise of the house, and they’re gone. I drink a paper cup of water. Santino’s fascination with my rings and under what circumstances I am allowed to take them off may be more intense than I think is reasonable. But he’s my husband, and he’s from the other side. He’s possessive.
But how many random guys ever talk about a woman’s wedding rings?
None of them, that’s the answer. No Italian mafioso is going to gossip about diamonds unless he’s fencing them.
Maybe it’s because they know I’m wearing a dead girl’s promises.
I pull the nesting wedding and engagement rings off and look inside, where an engraver would leave a mark. It’s just a serial number or something. Fuck this. I put them back on, cursing.
Fuck Santino for putting me in this position. I head for the front door and blessed fresh air, but I knock into Gia and almost send the bread she’s carrying to the floor.
“I’m sorry!” I manage to catch a loaf before it falls.
“Can you set these out?” She’s obviously totally overwhelmed. “I’m supposed to get the wine, but the glasses are all wrong, so I have to fix them before—”
“I have it.” I take the bread. “Shoo.”
“You’re a lifesaver.”
She’s off to fix the glasses. I set the bread on the long table. On the other side of the room is a hallway. I hear men’s voices rising and falling in a way that suggests formality, like something serious is taking place.
Nothing’s more serious than how much I want to go home, and the only way out is with Santino. I follow the voices down the hall, betting he’s there. I’ll claim I’m not feeling well. Between what I overheard in the kitchen and the stench of cigar smoke coming from the room to the right, I can vomit on request.
“Violetta’s a special case.” I freeze when I hear my name in Santino’s voice, and I flatten myself against the wall. “The ‘mbasciata was blessed by her father.”
I know that word. ‘Mbasciata is an arranged marriage.
There’s a window opposite the arched opening, revealing the room in the reflection. Santino sits with three men—Marco, Damiano, and Angelo. All are smoking cigars and drinking iced, amber liquid. Other men stand in the corners, present but not participating, their movements dictated by hierarchy and choreographed by generations of tradition. I try to catch Santino’s eye in the reflection, and as if he can hear my needs, he sees me, but motions, quite clearly, that I am to leave.
I’m about to give him merry hell in front of all of his merry fucking friends, who all clearly know about my sister so intimately they can recognize the goddamn rings on my fingers, when I hear Gia’s name tucked in a blanket of Italian.
I can’t explain it, but something is harrowingly, hauntingly familiar about what’s going on. It’s like déjà vu, or the way you remember a dream, or a memory—not of something the eyes witnessed, but an event described and constructed in the mind, which the mind filed as if it actually happened. The way they all stand. The solemnity of their voices with an undercurrent of excitement, almost.
A transaction is taking place, and though I never saw such a thing, I recognize it.
My stomach bottoms out and I do the only thing I can think to do—eavesdrop, breathing in baby spurts and praying none of the women feel the need to personally call the men for dinner.
“I was there,” Damiano says. “You cut out a step. Twice.”
“This is a problem for you?” Santino’s tone is a dare to the scarred man I met outside the bathroom.
“No. But I never heard of a capo refusing if the father agreed.”
“And the father agrees.” Marco tips his glass toward Damiano.
Wait. Marco is the father? That makes his daughter the bride.
Gia.
Holy shit. They’re selling Gia.
I clench my fists. The palms are already wet.
“But did you consult me about this deal?” Santino asks Marco. “No. Did you ask me to find a good match on this side? No. Did you ask me about Damiano? What kind of man he is? No. You did not. Anyone else in the four corners of my territory offering a bride in payment without coming to me first would wake up spitting their lungs. But you think you can get away with it because you’re my uncle?”
“You’re denying him?” Damiano asks.
“Have I refused you, Dami?” Santino’s gone from threatening to patronizing in under a minute. “Have I even asked you why you’re paying this debt from under your father’s nose? Eh?”
“No.”
“No.” Santino gets up and walks around the room, pacing the circumference of the table as the men wait. He stands in the archway, facing the window.
Our eyes meet in the reflection. He rubs his chin then flicks his hand again, shooing me away.
I hold up my middle finger.
He turns to face the table. “I did not refuse my blessing, but you forget why the blessing is necessary in the first place. It’s my job to ask questions.”
“She’s not with child,” Marco assures them. “She’s pure. Clean. Nothing.”
“She works for me,” Santino says. “I’m better aware than you of what she’s doing all day. I question why you”—he looks at Damiano—“don’t want to tell her.”
“He doesn’t want to get her hopes up,” Marco says.
Santino doesn’t move his attention from Damiano. “I didn’t ask you, uncle.”
Marco jabs his cigar in his mouth. I’m surprised by how little power Gia’s father seems to have at this table.
“Maybe I’m turning American,” Damiano says. “I want to get to know her a little first.”
“You don’t trust she’s what her father says?”
“Sure, I do. But I don’t want to end up with a mouthy fishwife.” He looks Santino up and down, and though the reflection isn’t sharp enough to reveal every detail, I can tell it’s a bold, insolent stare. “It happens to the best of us.”
Santino’s pause weighs four tons. It’s a knife cutting through time, splitting it and filling it with dark unknowns no one is willing to uncover with an interruption. I don’t know how he does it, but I hold my breath until he speaks.
“Did you want to say something about my wife?” he says.
“Please…” Marco squeaks, wringing his hands.
“No?” Santino says. “Yes? Say it plain, for Gia’s sake… so I can cut your dick off before the deal is done.”
“Do it!” a younger voice chimes in. Brash. Angry. One of the men standing in the shadows comes forward—Gia’s brother, Tavie. My God, he’s watching these talks? He’s hardly a damn man.
“Mi dispiace,” Damiano apologizes, stroking his hair back so everyone can see he’s not dismissing his own apology with horned finger
s.
“And your bride’s father,” Santino says.
“Forgive me, Mister Polito. I am sure Gia was raised correctly.”
Marco hmphs with a nod, as if the half-hearted apology is powerful enough to erase an offense to his daughter.
Oh, my sweet Gia is trapped from all sides.
“My wife’s name won’t cross your lips again,” my husband says.
“Of course.” Damiano turns to exhale a cone of cigar smoke. I see his full face in the reflection. He looks past me as if I don’t even exist, straightens his hair, and turns back to the room.
“Do you bless the ‘mbasciata?” Marco asks.
Santino is the only thing standing between Gia and the horror I went through.
He doesn’t answer right away. For the first time in what feels like an aching eternity, I don’t despise my husband. Then he speaks.
“Here are the terms. Damiano Orolio. You have one night, chaperoned, to decide if she’s a match for you. You decide yes, you wire the money to Cosimo. Marco…” Santino turns toward his uncle. “You tell Gia as soon as the debt is clear, and you tell her why.”
“But, Santi…” Marco objects.
“You look your shame in the face, Marco Polito, and you tell her.” Santino turns back to Damiano. “If you decide no, the deal is off.” He steps close to Dami and mutters, “Don’t talk to me about a repayment schedule like the first one you came to me with. Understand?”
“Yeah.” Damiano looks away, as if regretful, but in the window, he glows with vengeance. “But looks like we’re gonna be family anyway.”
Santino takes a deep breath. Holds it. Clenches and unclenches his fists.
“Finish drawing the papers,” Santino says. “This ‘mbasciata has my blessing. My cousin gets hurt”—he points at Damiano, then Marco—“I’ll skin both of you like rabbits.”
I slide my back to the wall and close my eyes. All of them are animals, Santino included. Well, fuck him and fuck that. I’ll just walk home. Maybe I’ll take Gia with me and we can run away together.
I slink down the hall and around the corner before daring a look back. Damiano’s the first out of the room, and I see him full in the face.
He’s hulking—as tall as Santino and as wide as the doorframe. A deadness slicks his huge, brown eyes, and when they land on me, I remember that he doesn’t like me. I’m a fishwife. A harridan. A threat.
In the marrow of my bones, I am afraid.
Then Santino’s voice rises from the walls, the windows, the mighty air of America itself.
“Coniglio!”
Damiano freezes when Santino calls him a rabbit, but though Damiano’s still for a moment, he does not turn around. His dead eyes are on me as the man who rules us both lays down the law.
“Caveat emptor. You better be sure you like what you’ve bought before you bring it home. I’ve blessed the marriage, but not your life.”
7
SANTINO
We are not Sicilian. There is no—and never has there ever been—head of the camorra, but Emilio Moretti came as close to being a true king as any man. He ruled an underground empire in Naples and, through a business in transport, held power that reached the shores of America.
I rule a small Italian enclave in America. No capo before, and none since, has had the same reach as the last Moretti.
In Napoli, they said Emilio benefitted from divine intervention and that those angels had set a boundary inside which he would suffer no rivals, no challenges, and no interference from the law.
“My boys,” Emilio croaked, still in the hospital with an infection in his lungs after surviving his first assassination attempt. Damiano sits next to me, and on the other side of the bed, Nazario Corragio, a.k.a. Il Blocco—the Cavallo consigliere—takes notes in runic shorthand. “You see how even I am not above death?”
“Si.”
I’m seventeen, and I understand this talk of Emilio’s invincibility is a load of bullshit. But I also understand that everyone else in the room smells incense instead of stronzata, so I know why he needs to make the point.
“But that’s why you’re alive!” Damiano says. This big man is an old woman at heart. It’s one thing to believe in miracles. It’s another to think they’re an entitlement.
“Today,” Emilio objects. “Maybe not next time. And I need you both to be ready.”
My friend and I exchange a glance. If Emilio dies, Cosimo will take control, and anyone who stands in his way will not live long. Dami may move up in rank in that exchange of power. I have nothing to gain.
“I have no sons,” Emilio continues. “I have two girls. Good girls. And they will inherit everything I own.”
Damiano leans forward with his lower lip hanging like a piece of raw liver, because he knows what’s coming. Both of us do. We’re not stupid. At least, I’m not.
“Capo,” I say, partly because I don’t need confirmation that this man I respect feels as close to death as a grandma, “this is unnecessary.”
“Hey, bastardo.” Dami flicks my cheek, and I swat him away. “Let the man talk.”
“Shh” the consigliere hisses.
“The doctor says you’re going to be fine,” I say. I don’t want to hear about his daughters and what they’ll inherit, because I know this powerful man isn’t going to demand I protect them and their husbands after his death, which I would gladly do. “Like new all over.”
Emilio ignores both of us. It’s taking all his energy to speak. “No woman can inherit what the oldest of my girls will.”
Not this. My young brain races ahead. Don’t do it. Just give me the crown. Don’t sell me for it.
“We got this…” Damiano murmurs. He wants it. Money without work. Power without respect. It’s all more important to him than the most important choice a man will make—his own wife.
“The first husband must be strong to wield it. He must be a man of character.” Emilio wheezes while I pray so fast I haven’t had time to inhale. “Damiano,” our boss says, and I breathe with relief. “I need you to protect—”
“You got it, boss.”
“—Santino.”
Now Dami stops breathing, because he gets it. I don’t.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “You can trust him. He won’t turn on me when he’s in charge.”
“Santino. Should I die, you will take my oldest living daughter in marriage before she’s twenty. And you, Damiano, will have the younger. Be good to her. She will test you.”
Nazario writes it down.
That’s when it clicks into place. Santino is taking the older one. That’s me. I’ve been promised in marriage to a ten-year-old. It’s finished. Life’s been mapped for me in front of witnesses.
Damiano’s face is drained of blood. If I asked him to, he’d deny I was promised to Emilio’s oldest daughter. He’d take her. But the consigliere isn’t called Il Blocco—the lock—for nothing. He wrote it down and I’m finished.
“What about me then?” Damiano objects. “I just get the second? For what?”
I kick him, but he’s too insulted to get a bride without assets to pay attention.
“She’ll have…” Emilio takes a difficult breath. “Something. The house in Sciacca.” He waves to Nazario, who writes it down.
“That’s in Sicily,” Dami says, now fully humiliating himself. It’s not even worth kicking him anymore. His best bet is to catch our boss when he’s healthy again and make a damned argument.
“Santino,” the consigliere barks. “Do you have any prior commitments to marriage?”
I don’t. I haven’t been promised. No bride’s been arranged for me. Unless I’m ready to run into the void and become an invisible exile, I cannot reject this order from the man who’s been a father to me, yet I cannot make the words to accept it.
“Santino DiLustro.” Corragio snaps his fingers at me. “There are people waiting. Speak.”
Emilio’s face is gray. His mouth is slack. But he will live another thirty years. He
will see his daughters fall in love. They will marry good, strong men who will take their inheritance and I will be free.
Until then, I have no choice. I get on one knee at the side of the bed and take Emilio’s limp hand. The gold ring inset with a crown of diamonds is on the end of his finger, loose on the second knuckle, where the doctors allowed it.
“I will, Capo.” I kiss the ring.
Emilio closes his eyes. “Corragio, note what was said here.”
“Si, si,” the consigliore assures him, as if he hasn’t been noting it the whole time.
I get back in my chair.
“And make arrangements for Santino to collect if I die. No one must know. Until the day comes, let them think it was lost. You are each sworn to silence.”
“Capo—” Damiano starts.
“He has spoken.” Corragio gives Damiano a withering look, daring him to make a case for himself and suffer the consequences. “Accept or don’t.”
Damiano looks like a man torn between murder and death.
“Go,” I murmur with a kick to Damiano’s leg.
He doesn’t react. His mouth doesn’t move from the tight line he’s made to keep from saying one way or the other. His eyes go from side to side, reading an invisible text.
Corragio clears his throat.
“Kiss the ring, stronzo,” I hiss.
“No.” Without a word of respect or regret, Damiano walks out.
I may have killed before he did.
I may have always been quicker and more callous.
But that day, his courage put me to shame.
The rules are simple.
If you want to arrange a marriage for any reason, even love, you come for my blessing. If there are any conflicts, I refuse. Same as the last man who sat where I sit now. You asked him—except, no one did.
Vittorio Saponara was the capo of Secondo Vasto when I got here. He was a weakling with a team of soldiers stealing from right under his nose. He couldn’t keep his son from running books out of the back of his bar or even keep a Jamba Juice off his own block. It took me three weeks to figure out how to get rid of him, then ask Cosimo for his blessing to do it—which he didn’t give, because Saponara was his nephew—and another week to take care of business anyway.