A few women walked toward us with a group of children around them.
“I’d give up pasta to be with any of those women alone,” Adriano said, sitting up on his elbows, watching as they walked closer.
“That’s not a woman,” I said, staring at one in particular. “That’s a fucking weapon.”
She was holding hands with a little girl she’d called Calogera. Most of the woman’s long, dark brown hair was behind a scarf, but small tendrils fell from the sides, skimming her neck, where I imagined the pulse of her artery would pound against my mouth when I put it there.
The wind blew against her, rustling the dress on her body, and it sent a sweet scent in the air around me. The dress reminded me of the ones Angela usually wore, but it hugged every one of this woman’s curves. The cross she wore around her neck caught the bright light and glowed gold against her tan skin.
Even in the old-style dress, she hit all the right notes.
I was Orlando Furioso when I looked at her. The sway of those hips—I licked my lips, and I could taste lemon and chocolate.
It wasn’t even her face or body that was the weapon. It was those cat-shaped eyes, dark and full of secrets, that were dangerous. As unpredictable as any man I’d ever stood against.
When she was close enough and turned them on me, she stopped, even though the little girl kept pulling on her hand to keep walking. On one rough tug, she went, following the group of women who had walked ahead.
Nunzio nudged me. He nudged me again.
“She is taken,” I heard Tito say in Italian. Laughter after he’d said it. Someone said the word moonstruck. And then, “cugino sei cotto.” Cousin, you’re cooked.
She looked over her shoulder at me before she turned away again, moving further and further away, going deeper into the orchard.
“Her name,” I said.
“Angelica,” Nicodemo said, appearing beside me.
I grinned at that but said nothing.
The woman had dropped a glove she’d been carrying between the rows of pistachio trees. I picked it up, and the closer I came to her, the better I could smell her in the air. The scent of her would forever be tattooed on my memory—more permanent than the ink on my skin.
“Signora,” I called out, my voice low but still loud enough to hear.
She stopped but didn’t turn. The girl, Calogera, stuck her tongue out at me. I did the same. She laughed a little, and I grinned.
Finally, the woman turned, looking up and meeting my eyes again. I lifted the glove and told her in Sicilian that she’d dropped it. She nodded once, reached out, and I allowed her to grab it. When she went to take it back, though, I held on. She pulled a little, but after she realized I wasn’t letting it go so easily, she stopped. We both held on.
“Grazie,” she whispered. The longest fucking lashes I’d ever seen on a woman fanned when she blinked.
“Prego,” I said.
She took the glove then, turning her back on me again, moving even faster to keep up with the other women and children.
Angelica—yeah, that didn’t fit. She wasn’t the princess. She was Alcina, the sorceress, luring men to her magical island.
No wonder Junior never took a picture of her. It would never do her fucking justice.
7
Alcina
“What are you doing?” my sister jumped into the quiet kitchen and shouted the words at me at the same time. Her boots hit the ground with a slap at the same time my heart lodged in my throat.
I jumped back from the window, my hand over my chest. I was going to pull her hair out by the roots. “What am I doing?” I screamed back in Sicilian. Most of our conversations were in a mixture of our native tongue and English. The longer we were in Italy, though, the less English we used.
She laughed, going to sit at the kitchen table. “You have been staring out of the same window for an hour. It is dark now. He has already gone to his place.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “He is nice to look at, ah?”
“Nice.” I rolled my eyes. “He is trouble.”
The moment I saw him, I knew.
His dark amber eyes would hypnotize.
His full lips would speak the most beautiful promises.
His body? Made for pleasure. He was tall, his shoulders wide, his legs long and lean.
Everything about him was perfect. On the surface.
But if he thought that he could fool me into thinking he was a good man, he was wrong.
The moment I saw him, I knew the truth.
Those eyes hid his poisonous heart.
Those lips were vessels of deception.
That body? Made for inflicting pain.
He wasn’t sent from heaven. He was sent to drag me back to hell. The hand with the scorpion tattoo—between his thumb and pointer finger—would be wrapped around my throat. The one he had on his neck wasn’t as obvious, but it didn’t need to be.
I knew men like him. Fast-talking New Yorkers who had some Sicilian to spare. They came to the old country to hide when they had prices on their heads.
Been there. Done that. Was still dealing with the aftereffects of that.
I would rather sacrifice myself to Mount Etna than to have another one of him in my bed.
Him.
None of the men he came with would say his name, and when Anna had her husband, Fabrizio, ask Uncle Tito about him, he said it didn’t matter, because he would be leaving soon. He was only passing through. The money he earned for harvesting the pistachios would go for his room and board.
“Stop lying to yourself, Alcina,” Anna said. “He might be trouble. But you like him. You like the way he looks. Admit it to me—or I will invite him over for dinner and prove it.”
“Do it,” I said, opening my arms, but secretly thrilling at the sound of my name, because it was rare when we got to use it. “You can’t tell when I like someone.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “I can! You start blinking, like this—” She started opening and closing her eyes, going as fast as she could.
“You are lying!” I laughed, not really meaning to. She looked ridiculous.
“Am not!” She laughed even harder. “You did the same thing when Ezio, the Greek god, would talk to you. Right before we left Forza d’Agrò for New York. You would write his name in your notebook, and you cried when he got married. He was eighteen, you were eight, a baby to him.”
I turned to face the window again, looking out at the darkness, not able to see through it. I never could, not unless the moon was out and it shed some light on the everlasting night of my life. Even in the day, darkness cloaked me.
“He is beautiful, Alcina. In the way men are when they are strong and confident. And those eyes—” She sighed. “You’re not the only one who has noticed. Papà told me Calista almost trips over her feet when he comes into the restaurant. Even mamma has blinked at him a few times.”
I turned and she was blinking at me again, a smile lingering on her face.
“He is trouble,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “He knows who I am.”
She shrugged. “He only watched papà and mamma.”
“Studying them to get to me,” I said. “If the bull—Junior—” I hated to say his name, but I did it sometimes just to spite him. Other times, he was the bull.
“Uncle Tito wouldn’t have brought him if he felt he was a danger. And if he is—” She made a snipping motion at me. “You still have the shears.”
We stared at each other for a second before my grin matched hers, and we started laughing.
She lifted a pointer finger. “The bull—poetic justice at its finest. If you have to make this one into a eunuch, that would be such a shame. He is so pretty.”
I shook my head at her. “I am taken, remember?”
“I remember,” she said. “So is he. Uncle Tito told me he is arranging his marriage. He will be married by the time he leaves. But.” She bit her bottom lip, tilting her head a bit. “We must fight fire with
water. He is not married yet, and neither are you. If he claims you…” She shrugged. “Let him fight for you.”
I laughed, louder than she had. “Claim me?”
She nodded. “In a way that you have never been claimed before. The way he was looking at you today…” She nodded. “I recognized it. Most woman can’t, unless another woman tells them—a woman has no idea what it means to be claimed, until after she is.”
“I thought the woman claims the man,” I said.
“True, we do, but we make them think they claim us first.” She grinned, and it was evil. “You think you are sly, but I saw what you did. You dropped that glove on purpose, to have him pick it up for you.”
My heart fluttered a bit, remembering the moment. I silenced it with thoughts from the past. “It does not matter,” I said. “What is done is done.”
“Nothing is done,” she called after me as I opened the door to leave, grabbing the shears I carried with me. “Not until your final breath!”
It was something our mamma told us—life was not done until we were. If we were still breathing, we still had a reason.
The lights were on outside, old-style lanterns on the villa, and when I turned, I found jeweled eyes, the color of dark amber, staring back at me. He stood against the house, one shoulder against it, waiting.
“Alcina,” he said, and my name sounded so beautiful from his mouth.
Even when he had stopped me earlier in the groves, when I’d dropped the glove on purpose, his voice had that same calm to it, and it was smooth. Fucking, as they would say in America, deceptive.
He didn’t need to flaunt his power. It was just…his. He owned it, like the scent in the air around him. A fine cologne that was his alone and unforgettable. It was mixed with his sweat and the dirt from working the harvest.
I turned toward him, narrowing my eyes to see him better, and then, without thinking twice, snapped the clippers in the direction of his balls. “Stay away from me, scorpione,” I said, equally as quiet. Then I turned, the feeling of his eyes on my back refusing to leave me, even in my dreams. And even in dreams, he was never what he seemed.
8
Alcina
I needed better places to hide.
I would walk to one side of the grove. Lo scorpione would suddenly be there.
I would run to another. He would already be leaning against a tree. His eyes on me. A grin on his face.
I would hide in the kitchen of the factory, and as soon as my foot would hit the outside of it, he would be standing there.
I left Anna’s villa. He waited outside of it.
If I moved left, he moved left. If I moved right, so did he.
We were dancing a dance I was unfamiliar with.
He was tripping me up, his moves (or motives) at odds with my safety, but my heart raced and my breath became shallow every time our eyes met and we somehow completed a step.
“Bad, bad heart,” I whispered to myself, picking pistachios from a tree that was rooted on a steep mound of volcanic soil. As I picked, I kept muttering to myself, having a conversation. No one else was around but me (lo scorpione had been sent to help Uncle Tito do something medical with an animal), and if I could not work this out, who could?
I felt like a puppet on a string, some unknown force the master of my emotions.
How could I want a man who was so was bad for me? A man who probably had his mind set on taking me back to New York and delivering me to hell?
At the same time—all of the feelings that rushed through me at the thought of him were heavenly. Sometimes when I caught him staring, I felt like I could float.
“Don’t move!” The order came at me in Sicilian.
My hand stilled midway toward a branch. A lazy breeze moved through the air, touching the sweat on my skin, making me feel feverish when I registered the tone of the voice, who it belonged to, and the hiss of a serpent from below.
I wondered how close to my legs it was, but I did not want to even look. It had probably wedged itself within the crack in the rock, looking for shade. I should have checked, but I had been preoccupied.
My shears were balanced against the rock a ways away, and from my peripheral, I saw him move forward, snatching them.
The vipera hissed.
“Get off the rock, Alcina,” he said. “Adesso.”
My legs were trembling. I couldn’t move.
“Adesso!” he snapped.
I closed my eyes and jumped from the rock onto another, barely making it. I held on to another pistachio tree, trying to steady myself.
The vipera had been next to my ankle the entire time, while I picked the pistachios. I probably would not have known what had hit me until it was too late. It was camouflaged against the rock, trying to hide from the sun.
It coiled itself into a tight S, its tongue scenting the air, ready to strike.
Lo scorpione watched it with hard eyes, the shears open and ready. He had a long-sleeve shirt slung over his shoulder, and he waved it away from him. The vipera struck out at the fabric, and lo scorpione snapped the blades. The snake’s head fell to the side.
I made the sign of the cross. “I did not even see it.”
He nodded and came toward me, opening his arms.
“I can get down,” I said.
I had walked these groves many times, certain of my footing and how it worked with the terrain, but when I went to step down, my knees gave out.
He caught me and started carrying me toward a more populated area with ease.
I stared at his face, admiring how chiseled it was. Then my eyes drifted and stuck on his lips.
He smiled, and I had to force myself to stop blinking.
“Wait!” I said, trying to wiggle out of his arms. “I have to go back!”
“The head won’t stop moving until the sun goes down,” he said. “Whatever you forgot, I’ll go back later and get it.”
“My shears!” I said, wiggling even harder.
He stopped moving. “You don’t need them.”
“Why not? I do! I need—”
“You don’t,” he said, moving again. “I’m here.”
“You are,” I said. “But that is not helping me.”
He glanced at me and then looked ahead. “I’m more dangerous than shears.”
“Which is why I need them. I need something to protect me from you. Or to help.”
“Nothing stops me when I want something,” he said. “Least of all a pair of rusty old shears.” He stopped moving again, looking down at me. The only way I could describe his face in that moment was someone who had started to connect the dots.
“You will get tetanus if I snip you with them,” I whispered.
His eyes gazed into mine, and then they roamed over my face. His explorations stilled on my lips.
I was suddenly so hot that it was hard to take in a breath. I went to speak again, but only my lips parted. No sound came out.
Another breeze blew, rustling my dress. He situated me so that it was tight underneath his arms, but his fingers had touched my bare skin. They were rough from working every day, but the touch was the opposite.
I shivered in his arms, like I was cold.
“You’re not in shock.” He said it like he already knew the answer but wanted to check anyway.
“No.” I shook my head.
A slow grin came to his face.
“What?” I said.
“I knew you’d end up here, but not this way.”
“I do not even know your name,” I said.
“You will.”
“Is it a secret?” I stared up at his face as he moved us again.
“Depends,” he said.
After a few minutes, I said, “On?”
“Whether or not I trust you.”
I wiggled even harder, demanding he put me down. He walked a few more steps and then set me on my feet. My knees were still unsteady, but I made myself stand straight.
He was much taller than me, wider, with mus
cles, but I would not back down.
“You do not trust me?” I said, the shock in my voice apparent. “I do not trust you.” I pointed at him.
He grinned again, stepping up to me. I held my ground and our bodies almost touched. He bent down, getting closer to my ear. “You will,” he whispered.
I closed my eyes, another shiver racking my body as he moved away from me. When I opened my eyes, he had already disappeared into the field of men—a modern-day Houdini.
9
Alcina
For the tenth time since my eyes opened that morning, I almost ran into one of the men who helped me bring the boxes from the kitchen in the factory to the delivery van.
My focus felt broken and in pieces. Not only did lo scorpione haunt my dreams, but he still appeared where he once wasn’t. It was throwing off my game.
I did not need the distraction. I had enough on my mind, and his presence only reinforced why my life was the way it was.
Through our channels, I had learned that papà was close to finalizing the terms of the arrangement. Even though they were dangerous men he was bargaining with, me as the chip, as they say, he refused to budge on one detail. Only one person seemed to know what it was, and that person was my mamma.
There were days I was thankful for this. For the time it gave me to be somewhat free. Other days I was not. I had a guillotine hanging over my head, and every second of every day I wondered if it was going to come crashing down.
After a man recovers from being castrated, an animal like Junior… I shivered to think what his punishment would be. Even with two balls, his temperament was horrible.
“This one?” one of the guys helping asked.
I nodded. Besides making pastries for the pistachio festival, and generally helping where I was needed, I also made candles. It was something I did to free my mind when it became overcrowded with thoughts and worries. Every so often, I would take a trip to Modica and swap pistachio goods for some chocolate, which they were known for, to use in my pastries.
Mercenary (Gangsters of New York Book 3) Page 5