The Ranieri famiglia had shops in different parts of Italy. The main one was in Modica. They sold their famous chocolate and other things, including candles. They ordered extra supplies for me so I could pick them up and take them back to Bronte.
The Ranieris were famiglia on my mamma’s side—my mamma’s aunt was married to Pasquale, a famous poet.
I had stayed with them for a while, to give me a different place to hide, but after Pasquale passed, I decided to be closer to my sister. I had never mentioned Fabrizio or his famiglia to Junior, because he was a man who did not ask many questions, only demanded to know certain things. Such as the layout of my body.
My stomach felt sick thinking of him, and I hauled the last box from the counter and turned too fast, running into the stomach of the man behind me. His arms came around the box, but mine were already there, and we stood awkwardly.
He smiled at me. “I can take this.”
Even though Fabrizio’s business was mostly run by famiglia, there were always new men from year to year. I did not get close, because I did not trust anyone.
A throat cleared from the open door. I smelled him in the air before he even entered into the room. Spice from his sweat and dust from the fields—and that cologne that no man could buy, but still had to own. Power.
The guy holding the box turned to look at lo scorpione a second after I did. Lo scorpione gave a slow, sharp nod, and immediately I knew what he wanted. For the guy to release the box and get out.
The guy was smart enough to do it.
For a man with such frightening tattoos, he was almost too beautiful to the eye. His hair was as black as a moonless night. His skin was smooth and had been kissed by the sun. His eyes were like two dark amber jewels. Cautionary tales if you could see past their hypnotic purposes.
He was wearing a thin t-shirt, khaki pants, and boots. The long-sleeved shirt he wore to keep the sun off his back was slung over his shoulder. And when his bare skin touched mine, I started to blink. More aware of it ever since Anna brought it to my attention.
I stopped blinking suddenly, like pressing the brake on a car too fast, and he grinned at me before he went to take the box. I held on and he pulled. When he realized I was doing to him what he had done to me with the glove, he smiled and my breath caught in my throat.
“What is your name?” I asked in Sicilian. My voice was low, breathy, and there was nothing I could do about it.
“Why? You gonna collect the payment on my head once I tell you?”
“Depends,” I said, switching to English. “On how much your head is worth.”
“Less than yours, angel eyes.”
The words—angel eyes—sent a thrill through my blood, like hot lava flowing through my veins. I unintentionally let the box go from the burn. He took it from me, setting it on the counter, and then moved in closer.
Staring into my eyes, he lifted a piece of hair that had fallen from my scarf onto my neck, and then let it fall again. He traced the strand with his finger, over my pulse, and then down the gold chain and the cross at the end of it. The cross rested against my pounding heart, where his calloused fingers lingered.
His touch was fire against my heated skin. My blood started to boil, but a shiver felt bone-deep made me tremble all over.
My mouth parted at the same time his hand came around my neck and pulled us together, my body moving with his like fire in the wind, our lips crashing, our tongues tangling.
A moan, soft and trembling, left my mouth, and he drank the sound down.
Walls slammed against my back as we moved from spot to spot, something uncontrolled and wild forcing us together, refusing to let us part.
A frustrated noise left my mouth when he pulled away from me. It was sudden, a rip, a tear, in something with no name that demanded more of the stitching—the creating of something life-changing.
My sister cleared her throat. When I met her eyes, it seemed like she had been clearing her throat. She stood at the open door, men behind her, with her hands on her hips, blocking their entrance.
The leftover fire from that kiss seared my cheeks, and I pushed past her and the men, engulfed. She was blinking furiously when I did, trying to hide a smug grin.
“Attraction, Alcina,” my mamma once told me, “is desire in waiting.”
What my mamma didn’t tell me was that, once I gave in to it and it was set free, there was no going back to that room with four walls and no windows.
Lo scorpione had dragged me someplace, but it did not feel like the hell I had imagined. His hell felt more heavenly than anything I had ever touched in my life.
I lifted my head from the steering wheel of the van when I heard someone open the doors and place a box in the back.
Lo scorpione.
I groaned, but not loud enough for him to hear. I needed some time to breathe. To recover. To make sense of the senseless.
He climbed in beside me after he set the box I had forgotten with the rest.
“What are you doing?” I said in Sicilian.
He stared at me for a minute, those eyes unnerving me with their intensity. I felt like I could not take in air properly when he looked at me like that … when he was close … when I thought of him. I could not escape him even in dreams.
“My name is Corrado Alessandro Capitani,” he said in perfect Sicilian. “I am a wanted man—by enemies and by the law.”
“I know that name,” I whispered, and my hand was on the door before he could put his on my arm to stop me. We stayed that way for a while, his touch blistering my skin. I looked out the window, refusing to look at him. “How much is the price on my head worth?”
“To me…” He paused. “Invaluable in worth.”
“Will you hurt me?”
“No.”
“Will you kill me?”
“No.”
“Will you—bring me back?”
“That’s the deal I made.”
“You will have to hurt me or kill me to do it,” I said, my voice firm and unwavering. “You should have let the vipera get me.”
His grip on my arm turned almost painful, but I let it flow through me. Nothing could compare to the thought of living a life with the bull and his famiglia. “I would hurt or kill myself before I give you up,” he said.
My head turned slowly, our eyes meeting. “Why?” I whispered.
He turned away from me, nodding toward the road. He wanted me to drive. I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed a car behind me. Nicodemo was in the driver’s seat, and Uncle Tito sat next to him. The two men who came with Corrado—the American who looked like a chipmunk and the Italian with the never-ending serious look on his face—were in the backseat.
“I gave myself up to you,” he said, his face still forward. “That’s all the assurance you need that my word is good, but if not …” He glanced in the mirror.
I had my answer. He knew I trusted Nicodemo and Uncle Tito.
“Your sister sent them,” he said.
Ah, yes, she was looking out for me. The moment I saw lo scorpione, my mind started floating in the clouds, not grounded by reality, and she knew that.
I started the van, and we drove in silence for over an hour. It was only two from Bronte to Modica.
“Tell me why you did it,” he said.
I glanced at him. He was staring at my face. He had been doing that periodically during the drive, but since I did not meet his eyes, it did not bother me as much.
“I have done many things,” I said. “Just this morning—too many to count.”
“Why you cut his balls off.”
My hands strangled the steering wheel. “How much do you know about me?” I said.
“Enough,” he said. “But not nearly enough.”
I nodded. “I was born in Forza d’Agrò, where most of my famiglia still live, but when I was eight and Anna was six, our papà took us to America to find better opportunities. He got a job with a fruit market, and we lived with his brother and wife, wit
h a few cousins, until we were able to afford an apartment of our own. Mamma got a job working at the same place.”
A car swerved in front of me and I lifted my hand, yelling at the driver, before I shook my head and continued.
“We lived in New York for eight years before we got a call that our nonna was sick. Mamma had been homesick for a while. She wanted to go back. We did. After nonna died, papà and mamma took over the restaurant. We ran it as a famiglia.
“One day an American man came in with some men, and he noticed me. He came every day for a week, using the little Sicilian he had to speak to me. He was nice enough, at first, but there was nothing about him that drew my eye. The more he came in, the more I kept my distance.”
Mamma started to take his order instead, but he would get impatient and demand that I serve him. Then one day he went to papà and said that he knew how things were done in Italy, and he wanted to marry me. Papà told him no.” I sighed.
“No is usually a universal word, but he could not understand it. He pushed and pushed. Then one day when I was walking home, he said that I had to marry him, or his famiglia in America would come after mine. I was young and scared and agreed to it. He did not want me to tell papà and mamma until after.”
“You’re still married to him,” he said.
I shook my head. “I was never married to the bull.” I ran a hand along my neck, leaving it in the crook. “He was not fluent in Sicilian or Italian, and I told the priest that he was forcing me. That his famiglia in America were powerful. I asked him not to truly bind me to him, as a mercy. I would have to give my body, but I refused anything else.”
I glanced at lo scorpione, and his eyes moved me to finish.
“The bull does not ask. He steals. And he hurt me. He beat me…when I said I was not ready for him.” I swallowed down acid in my throat at the thought of him. “He behaves like an animal, so he was treated as one. The place he rented for us to live was an old farm. It had the rusty old shears. I hid them next to the bed, in case he tried to hurt me. He did. I used them.”
“You’ve been hiding ever since.”
“Sì.” I nodded, lifting my hands from the steering wheel for a second. “The men with him were staying in another part of the villa for the night. After he screamed, I had a few seconds to run. I ran in the darkness by the light of the moon.
“A woman a few miles away hid me after I told her I was running for my life. She brought me home, and I have been on the run ever since. His men came looking for me the next day, after they found him and got him help. Then it was other men, scarier men.”
“You’re fortunate,” he said, “that they didn’t use your parents to lure you out.”
“They tried,” I said, reaching for the cross against my chest. “But papà made a deal with some men after they started threatening my mamma when they could not scare him. He made an arrangement with a famiglia that does not care for the men who come here from America.”
“You’re the deal.”
“Not at first. It was just money. But now I am to be married by October.” I shrugged. “Right before you arrived, two men came to Bronte looking for me. They found Anna. That was when I agreed to the arrangement. I will no longer have to hide, and my famiglia will be safe. But there is something stopping it. Papà will not tell anyone what it is. He will not allow the man to meet me, either, before he agrees to this condition.”
I could feel his eyes on my face. “Is it worth it?”
“My life?” I said, narrowing my eyes against the glare of the sun. “I had something to live for, so sì, it was worth it. I was living for me—for the life my mamma gave me.”
“You misunderstand,” he said. “Is the new arrangement worth your life?”
I hesitated, but then nodded. “My famiglia will be safe.”
We said no more as I found a place to park the van. After we stepped out and I opened the door, Corrado took the box I grabbed out of my arms, but neither of us tugged or let go. We stood that way for a minute or two until the men that came with him started to move around us, going for the boxes.
“Where do these go?” the chipmunk asked.
I pointed in the direction of the store with my chin. “There.”
“Inside,” Corrado said to me, nodding ahead of him, wanting me to walk. His eyes searched the crowded street. I wondered if he was looking out for himself or for me.
It did not matter. By October, he would be married, and so would I.
I was surprised to see Mariposa—or as we called her, Mari—working behind the counter, holding her baby. Mari was Amadeo’s wife. He was my cousin.
The store was busy, as usual, but when our eyes met, a smile lit up her face.
“Bringing us some gold?” she asked when I got close enough.
I made a “give me” motion with my hands, reaching out for her bambino, Saverio, pulling him close and kissing his little head. He smelled like heaven. “Sì. I also brought these two along.” I nodded toward Nicodemo and Uncle Tito, who were coming up behind me.
Corrado stood off to the side with his men. He was still holding the box, as was the serious-looking Italian, but Chipmunk had already placed his down and was looking at the chocolate. He constantly had food stuffed in his puffy cheeks. If he didn’t, he was looking for it.
“Here is the gold,” I said, giving Saverio fat kisses on his delicious cheeks. “I also brought pistachios for the zie.”
“They’ve been waiting.” Mari pointed her finger behind her, about to speak, but hit a chest instead. My cousin Amadeo stood behind her, eyeing Corrado and his men. If Mari was close, so was my cousin. His cold blue eyes assessed them as he took Saverio from me, sticking the hand with the black wolf tattoo under the baby’s shirt.
This made Mari and me both eye them. Amadeo had been a wanted man in America. I did not know much about why, but I did know his father and brother were bad men. His father treated his mother, Noemi, so poorly that the family felt that was why she had committed suicide.
She had suffered with mental illness most of her life, and the life she had with him eventually took its toll. Then his father tried to kill him. The mark on his hand proved what famiglia he had once belonged to. He claimed them no more. But that was all I knew about the situation.
Corrado stared back at Amadeo, and I did not like the look on either face. I noticed one of the men Corrado came with, the serious-looking Italian, touch the guns he kept hidden underneath his shirt. The tension pushed me to take the box out of Corrado’s hands and stand between him and Amadeo.
“Where are the zie?” It took Amadeo a minute to answer me. I had to say his name.
“Back,” he said in Sicilian.
As he said the word, Stella, Eloisa, Candelora, and Veronica came out of the room in the back of the shop, arguing with each other. The zie were his mamma’s sisters. They caused enough of a fuss to disrupt the tension between the men.
The aunts were followed by a red-haired woman laughing at whatever the aunts were arguing over, and a man with a tiger tattoo on his neck and a little boy in his arms. A little girl stood close to the red-haired woman. I had met her at Mari and Amadeo’s wedding, but I could not remember her name.
“Cash doesn’t do sugar.” The red-haired woman rolled her eyes at the man with the tiger tattoo. Cash was stuck behind the aunts and a few people shopping the store, so he didn’t see that she had done it. He was busy fixing the little boy’s hair anyway.
Mari popped up next to me, and she smiled at Corrado. He gave her a polite nod back. “We’re going to the beach. Keely and Cash and the kids have never been. Do you want to come?”
So Keely was the red-haired woman’s name. “No,” I said, kissing her cheeks. “I need to get back. The harvest.”
“I ordered you extra supplies,” zia Candelora said, motioning with her hands to follow her into the back. “I figured you would want them.”
I touched Corrado’s hand, wanting to break the dangerous spell between him an
d Amadeo, hoping he would come with me.
I did not miss the look on Amadeo’s face when I did. Neither had lo scorpione.
Amadeo nodded at Uncle Tito to follow him out.
I took the opportunity to redirect Corrado’s eyes by just leaving the room.
10
Corrado
Two days after I took the ride to Modica with Alcina, Tito Sala invited a woman named Rosa to the pistachio orchard to meet me.
She spoke very little English, and as we walked, she moved her hips closer to mine, smiling shyly as she bumped me every so often. It wasn’t her eyes that had mine, though. It was the angry woman who was named after a sorceress in a poem that had me looking over my shoulder every so often.
It fucking unnerved me when she was too far away. I kept my eyes on her at all times. There was still a bounty on her head, and even if I were to order Silvio to call it off, he might agree to my face but go behind my back until she was found.
Even though Silvio and I were friendly, tension ran high between us after my grandfather said he would give me his blessing to run the famiglia. If Silvio knew how I felt about Alcina, he might do it just to spite and weaken me.
“Your family is very powerful, I hear,” Rosa said, smiling at me. She touched her neck. “You will buy me jewelry?”
“I’m a poor farmer in America,” I said. “I have nothing.”
That was far from the truth.
Rosa stopped walking. After a few steps, I did, too. She picked up a second later, walking beside me again, but her hips were on the opposite side of the worn path, no longer bumping me.
I nodded to Rosa and her family when we came to the central villa, where her people waited for us to return from our walk. I kept walking until I was back in the orchard, straps around my neck, ready to fill my bucket. The sun had started to make its way to the horizon. I only had an hour or two left to work.
Even after it became dark, though, there would be some light still left. Red lava spilled from Mount Etna. It shot out, like a woman spewing curses from her mouth, and then ran down the side.
Mercenary (Gangsters of New York Book 3) Page 6