“You got something else to say to me?”
He was staring at me, hard, like he was debating. “You didn’t ask for this,” he rushed out. “But.” He pulled out an envelope from his back pocket, handing it to me. “The second article. It mentioned a little girl. Apparently there was some speculation about what happened to her. Vittorio killed her parents, but no one knew what had happened to her. Her name is or was Marietta Bettina Palermo. Your half-sister.” He shrugged. “Some information is listed for her. Birthday. Blood type. Thought you might want it.”
“How’d you fucking find that?”
“I find everything.” He shrugged. “Even when someone doesn’t want to be found. The guy you’re looking for, it’s not that he doesn’t want to be found. Simply put: he doesn’t exist anymore.”
“What about her?” I said.
He shrugged. “He doesn’t exist and neither does she, except for what I gave you. Or maybe I didn’t give it to you at all. Maybe he let me find it to give to you.”
He was controlling this fucking conversation, too. Everything he gave, he gave for his own reasons.
“Keep looking,” I said.
His eyes narrowed, but after I raised my eyebrow at him, he nodded.
“Yeah, okay, but I don’t think—”
“You’re right,” I said. “That’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s only giving you what he wants me to have.”
Sooner or later, when he was ready for me to find him, he would get in touch with me. Sooner or later, this kid was going to get a message from a ghost, and boo, motherfucker, it was going to be on. He was going to be there when I got close enough. Close enough to touch. Close enough to fucking kill.
33
Alcina
We had spent the day driving around the city in his old Cadillac. Even though his grandparents’ place was big enough, with excess to spare, I felt as if we were repeating history to stay there.
I did not tell Corrado this, but he seemed to sense it. Or perhaps he wanted out for his own reasons. I could sense that, too.
It was hard to put into words, but the house almost felt like a part of the family, but not ours. The other one. It was built to protect secrets, to protect them, but it was not made to keep a family close.
Corrado wanted me to get a feel for the different areas of New York, even though he mentioned staying close to where we were. Instead of buying something already there, he decided that we should build.
“So we can put in hidden rooms?” I turned to face him in the car.
He didn’t respond, so I called his name. He still did not look at me. He was in his own world, and it was only getting worse.
“Don Corrado,” I said with force.
He looked at me then, narrowing his eyes before he turned back to the road. Of course he would respond to that. It was all he was lately.
He nodded. “I feel it’s necessary.”
“You heard me?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I hear everything.”
I cursed in Sicilian.
“That’s why I didn’t answer,” he said. “I don’t want to argue with you. I know where the conversation is going. And I’ll do what I have to do to keep my family safe.”
I shook my head. “My walls will not be stained with the blood of men who had no idea they signed up for a death sentence!” I understood the concept of it, but I refused to live with ghosts. We had enough of them roaming around. “What about Dario Fausti? He’s an architect. He understands this life. He would be trustworthy enough to do it.”
The mention of the Faustis made him visibly change. He became harder, more difficult to read. I knew he had a problem with Rocco, but Dario, his middle brother, was different.
Corrado had a problem with one, and he blamed all. I could trace the vein of it in my mind, like I could reach out and trace one on his arm. It was the same vein where vengeance for my cousin lived—he blamed one man for an entire family’s wrongdoing, not able to see that my cousin had more than one side. Our side was good people.
I sighed, looking out of the window. “If we must have the rooms, and you’d prefer him not to do it, I’d rather stay where we are. That sacrifice was enough.”
He said nothing as he turned the car around and headed back toward his grandparents’ place.
It was hard to think about anything else, though, when I started to think about the situation between my husband and my cousin. Now was not the time tell Corrado that his sister was alive, because once I did, I would have to tell him that she married the man he desperately wanted to kill. His son, when he was old enough, too. His nephew.
I sighed again, clutching my purse. “Tell me one thing,” I whispered.
“Anything,” he said.
“Why? Why do you want to kill him? The real reason?”
He didn’t even question who. He already knew. It was all he thought about when he wasn’t dealing with family business. “That entire family needs to go. They never followed the rules. Killing kids is not a part of our business. It will never be, as long as I’m alive.”
“What about Corrado Palermo?” I said. “He did not follow the rules.”
“He didn’t.”
“I understand about your sister. There are no words for that. But why do this for him, too? Why avenge a man who knew the rules and broke them anyway?”
“I’m not doing this to avenge him,” he said. “Other than ridding the earth of the Scarpones, I’m doing this because I want to kill him.”
“You’re angry that—that man killed Corrado Palermo first?”
He nodded. “Angry is not the right word for it.”
“This is not about avenging Corrado Palermo,” I said, suddenly understanding. “You hate him so much that you want to kill him, but you can’t.”
He became quiet for a while. “Maybe if I could kill him, I could rid myself of him,” he said quietly. “I can’t get rid of him, angel eyes. He’s too much a part of me. He’s in my blood. I hate myself for it.”
All of his life he had been programmed to get rid of a problem, and then move on. He could not get rid of this. There was no one to touch, to strangle, to kill. He was dealing with two ghosts. Vittorio Scarpone and Corrado Palermo. Both phantoms of the past.
I took his hand and brought it to my heart. “You can’t kill a ghost, il mio amore. A ghost is already gone. You bring them to you by calling them, by giving them your life to cling to. It is you who won’t allow them to go.” I squeezed his hand even tighter, hoping to get through to him on his side of this life we shared. “If you hate yourself for what’s in your blood—how do you think Vittorio Scarpone feels?”
He took his hand away. “I don’t give a fuck how he feels,” he said. “I loathe him for doing this to me. For not giving me the chance to rid myself of that man who never claimed me. For hiding my sister from me. For being who he is.”
“If you kill him it is over,” I said. “If he has to live with these same feelings—wouldn’t that be worse?”
“If he fought to stay alive this long,” he said, “he feels right with life.”
“You will kill him,” I said, my voice betraying me. It was that scene over and over again—the one in the pistachio grove. Where he went to hand me the glove but held on. “And just get another ghost.”
“At this point in my life,” he said, turning into the drive, “I’ve lost count. One more will not kill me.”
“No,” I whispered. “Just destroy you even more.”
A car pulled up behind us as the gates opened. Corrado stopped the car, but after realizing it was Brooklyn, he pulled all the way in.
“You’re with me today,” he said.
I nodded. I had no plans on going to Bella Luna, so he did not call Nunzio in. He only came along when Corrado would not be there. And when Nunzio was there, so was Brooklyn.
Sometimes Brooklyn would come over and spend time even when we did not go to Bella Luna. It seemed like she liked to be around mamma,
Anna, Eleonora and me. Corrado probably did not realize she spent so much time here, since he was always doing other things. Even when he was in the house, sometimes it was like he was not there.
He stared at my face after he put the car in park. “It would be a mistake for you to think I don’t know what the fuck is going on in my own house,” he said. “I know every move you make.” He reached out and touched my chin.
“I am not your house,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “You are. You’re my home. I know everything that happens inside and outside of it—at all times.” He reached out and slid me toward him. When we connected, it had the same effect as a pump between a body and a heart.
My hands fisted in his hair, and I wanted to yank it out by the roots, while his mouth did things to mine that caused me to moan.
This. This was what happened when he finally let the glove go and we came together. Perfezione completa.
Complete perfection.
“It’s time to play a game of Italian Roulette,” he said, his mouth roaming from my lips, to my chin, to my throat, then to the pulse in my neck. He sucked so hard I knew it was going to leave a mark. “I’m going to bury my cock in you so fucking deep that there’s no way you won’t get pregnant again.”
I hissed when his mouth moved lower and he kept sucking. He sucked all the way down to my breasts, and through the shirt, the heat from his mouth burned through.
A knock came at the trunk. I stilled. Corrado bit my nipple and then grinned. He sat up and fixed himself before Brooklyn came to my side of the car.
The window was down, and she sniffed before she wiped her red eyes. “We need to talk to you both.”
“We?” Corrado said.
She nodded. “Nunzio and me.”
“Meet us inside,” Corrado said.
She nodded, and when she got close to the front door, Nunzio met her, putting his hand on her lower back.
“Where did he come from?” I said.
He grinned, probably at the confused look on my face. “He was driving her car.”
Corrado got out first and then came to open my door. We walked into the house hand in hand, meeting Brooklyn and Nunzio in the kitchen. He stood with his back against the counter. She sat at the table, her head in her hands.
From the window behind Nunzio, I could see Anna holding Eleonora, and Fabrizio making faces at her. Mamma sat on the bench, crocheting, smiling, while she listened to them laugh. It sent a strong longing through me, to see them that way, so carefree with her, but I ignored it.
“What is going on?” I said, looking at Brooklyn instead.
“We got married!” she blurted. “I told my mom and she pulled a knife on Nunzio and he’s bleeding and then she was screaming and…Oh God! I don’t know what to do.”
I looked at Nunzio and noticed for the first time that he had blood dripping down his arm.
He shrugged.
“You’re old enough,” Corrado said to Brooklyn. “You can marry whoever you want.”
She looked up at him, her eyes red, her nose swollen, tears flowing down her cheeks. “But she’s my mom, and I love her, too. I want her to accept him, to accept us.”
“Did you try talking to her?” I asked Nunzio.
He lifted his arm to show me. Even though I knew he meant he had tried, I still wondered…I couldn’t remember a time when he had spoken to me casually.
“Talking is not going to change her mind,” Corrado said, looking at Nunzio. “It’s going to take time.”
“How did this happen?” I said, sitting down next to Brooklyn and taking her hand. I moved the hair from her face, trying to dry some of her tears.
“I told you I liked Nunzio. I actually love him, but I was too ashamed to admit it. I mean, who falls in love with the first guy they really like? It’s like picking the first wedding dress you try on. How often does that happen?” She sniffed. “Then my mom…she wanted me to like the chef. The night I went out on a date with him, Nunzio showed up at my apartment after I got home. He told me how he felt. He told me that if I didn’t marry him, he was going to kill Michele.”
Corrado narrowed his eyes at Nunzio. For the first time, I saw something on Nunzio’s face that I never had before. Not shame, but something close to it. I did not think it was for what he had done, though, but for something else.
“You forced her into it!” I shouted.
Nunzio shook his head. “Explain better,” he said to his wife.
She waved a hand. “I mean, that came after a few things…it wasn’t like he said, ‘Marry me or I kill the chef,’” she said, making her voice sound like his. “Well, kind of. But I don’t want to get into what happened before that, okay? It’s personal. But the point is…I’ve been disowned! I thought…I thought if we were married ma would have to accept it.”
I took her chin and made her look at me. “She will. Corrado is right. Give her time.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. You didn’t see her face. I knew she would have a hard time accepting it, but never, never did I think she would stab someone.”
“You must not know your ma,” Corrado said. “She’s a wild card.”
I shot him a look. He was not helping.
One of the guys cleared his throat at the entrance of the kitchen. “Adriana,” he said.
Corrado nodded. The man left and came back with a woman a minute or two later. Brooklyn shot up from her seat and stepped in front of her husband, trying to use her body as a shield. Nunzio moved her so she was beside him, so they were standing side by side.
The woman, Adriana, was attractive. She was tall, thin, with long, blonde, wavy hair. I could see, though, that life had taken a toll on her. She looked haggard in a way that made me feel as if her soul was tired.
“Ma,” Brooklyn whispered.
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “Don’t even call me that. I’m nothing to you. You chose this life over me.”
“I didn’t!” Brooklyn screamed. “Daddy did! Not me! I chose love!”
“Love.” Adriana laughed, actually cackled like a witch. “You’ll see what you’re going to get in a few years. Love—there’s no such thing in this life. Do you think she—” she nodded toward me “—is going to get real love? Do you think her daughter will? You know how it feels! You were ignored, always coming after this life, and then he left! Like I figured out he would. One way or another.”
“You knew that when you married him!” Brooklyn said. “You made your choice. Please. Let me make mine. Things will be different for me.”
“Ha! What a fucking joke. You think things will be different? That’s what they make you believe when you turn them away. You’re different. He’ll say the right words and do all the right things. Make you feel like you’re the only woman in the world. This one—” she nodded at Nunzio “—probably did something to make you feel like the world revolved around you and only you.” She shook her head, almost in disbelief.
“Women who are not in this life look at us and think, ‘They know what they’re getting into!’ Yeah, some of us do from the start, but some of us don’t. But even when we do, not many women stand a chance against them. When they want something, they’ll have it. So let’s use some common sense. If men like them don’t stand a chance against each other half of the time, what makes those bitches think we can? You’re no better than them for doing the same thing to me. Judging me for doing the best I could. And you still didn’t learn.”
“But I love him!”
The words were like a slap in the face. Adriana visibly flinched. “Love him today. Hate him tomorrow. Mark my words.” She looked at Corrado. “Undo this. Please.”
Corrado stared at Nunzio for a minute. He shook his head. “Nunzio is not a part of my family, not officially.”
“He’s not...one of you?” Adriana sounded almost hopeful.
Corrado shook his head. “He’s from Sicily,” was all he said.
I narrowed my eyes at Corrado. There w
as something he was not saying. Nunzio was not a part of his family, but he still did whatever Corrado told him to. Then again…I wondered if Corrado was doing this for him because he had agreed to protect me here. A favor for a favor.
A life for a life, judging by the look on Adriana’s face.
“No!” She shook her head. Then she went after Nunzio again with a knife she pulled from the pocket of her jacket. The man who stood at the door wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her back just as she went to slash him again. She was stabbing the air, kicking her legs, screaming, “NO! My baby! You won’t take her from me! You won’t kill her spirit like he killed mine!”
Then she started to wail as if someone had died when she realized she couldn’t get to him. What was done was done.
“Let her go,” Corrado said to his man holding her.
The man did not hesitate. He let her go, but he took the knife from her hand. She did not even notice. She crumpled to the floor, on her knees, crying at the top of her lungs. Begging. Pleading. Bleeding out on the floor of a house that did not care for her tears or her loss.
I pulled the rosary from my pocket, worrying the beads between my fingers.
Maybe Corrado called my name when I rushed out of the kitchen, heading toward the garden. Maybe he did not. I could not hear over the sound of the wailing. I could not hear over the sound of another mother’s pain.
It seemed like Adriana had made one mistake in this life. She cared at one time.
Once out in the garden, I took Eleonora from Anna, holding her so close that I hoped to absorb her into my skin and keep her there forever.
34
Corrado
I didn’t come to my grandfather’s social club, Primo, often. When he was alive, I frequented, but after he died, it lost its appeal.
Most things he left behind had.
Except for one thing that had nothing to do with him directly, though it all stemmed from the life.
Mercenary (Gangsters of New York Book 3) Page 26