Mercenary (Gangsters of New York Book 3)

by Bella Di Corte

  He shrugged. “You know who I am. What comes first.”

  I searched his eyes. “You’re at war within yourself,” I said.

  He nodded. “One obligation doesn’t leave room for what I had no idea I needed.”

  “We pull you one way and the life pulls you another.”

  “You and Eleonora don’t do it intentionally. It’s just the way it is. One part of me wants one thing. The other part needs something else.”

  “What part of you needs?” I said.

  “The part that has a tattoo of you and my daughter on its soul.”

  I almost collapsed in relief. To want something was one thing. To need something was another.

  “You can have both,” I said. “We’re not going anywhere. We will figure this out. How to balance.”

  He grinned at me. “Why do you think I never considered getting married before?”

  “You hadn’t found me?”

  He put his fist to my chin and moved it, like he was giving me a punch, but it was playful. Something he did from time to time. “You changed everything,” he said. “I never wanted this before you. I didn’t need it until it became mine without permission. Love complicates things in this world, and rarely does it win. ”

  I turned away from him, going to sit at the table. He took a seat across from me.

  “One thing at a time,” I said, mostly to myself. “We need to talk about my cousin.” My heart beat painfully in my chest, but we could not go on this way.

  At some point in time, the truth had to be set free. Mari agreed, and that was why she had come to see me at Bella Luna the night before. She felt it was time to tell him. She knew who Corrado was, but he had no idea about her. The rest would just have to come and be dealt with.

  “You have many,” he said. “You’ll have to remind me which one.”

  “You will remember him,” I said. “He was in Modica with Mariposa.”

  “Mari,” he said, correcting me. “Her husband, your cousin, only calls her Mariposa.”

  I nodded. “We call him Amadeo.”

  He nodded.

  “But only we call him that.” I took a deep breath. “This world calls him Mac Macchiavello.”

  He stared at me blank-faced for what felt like forever, but was probably only a few minutes. “Your cousin is Vittorio Scarpone.”

  “Sì,” I said. “I did not know they called him that here. Not until the day I went to eat with Mari at his restaurant. Most of his life, he has kept himself hidden from the world. After what his father did to him for not doing the same to your sister.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Rocco Fausti told you.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Amadeo’s wife told me.”

  “His wife.”

  Then he became quiet. I could see the gears turning behind his eyes, working it all out. “She’s my sister. He married my sister. The girl sitting next to me on the bench.”

  “She wanted to talk to you. Get to know you. She was hoping that you would—”

  He stood from his seat, placing both hands on the table. “Accept him?”

  “Accept her son,” I said. “Her family.”

  “She was only five when he stole her!” he roared.

  “No, no!” I stood, waving my hands. “There is more to it. He saved her and then he hid her. A family, a daughter and father, took her in.” I explained to him what happened after that. How Amadeo had left her with money, changed her name, erased her identity, and years later, they met again. “When she was old enough.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” he said. “That he waited until she was old enough?”

  “Yes,” I said. “My cousin would not lie to me. I believe them both. It wasn’t done on purpose. Fate brought them back together.”

  “He’s a Scarpone,” he said. “I don’t believe a fucking thing that comes out of his mouth.”

  “He’s more than a Scarpone!” I yelled. “He has more than one side. He’s a good man and he loves your sister. He almost died for her.”

  “So what are you saying? That I don’t love you as much because I didn’t almost die for you?”

  I almost stumbled back. What was he talking about? He had to be in shock. I could see the surprise he tried to hide. His sister had been sitting next to him and he had no idea, and he was a man who made it his business to know everything. “I did not say that!”

  “You didn’t have to,” he said. “You think he’s a hero for what he did. It doesn’t take a hero to not kill a child. Even a somewhat decent human being wouldn’t do it. Anything less is a rabid animal. Like the rest of his fucking family.”

  “He does not want thanks for it,” I said. “But they still tried to kill him for it! In many ways they did. And again, I am his family, too! We share the same blood.”

  “How was her life?” He stood to his full height. “That girl on the bench. Mariposa. Mari. Marietta Bettina Palermo. Fucking Scarpone.”

  “Macchiavello,” I said.

  He waved it off. “I could tell she had a hard life. I could tell she wanted family. She needed me to acknowledge her. To see her.”

  “Right!” I slapped the table. “If you do this, you will take away the life she has fought so hard to have. You do not understand, Corrado. He loves her like you love me! She is worried that her husband will kill her brother, or her brother will kill her husband. That one day you will go looking for her son. Your nephew. Then I am certain she will kill you.”

  He stood still, and I walked over to him, putting my hands on his arms. “You are not a mercenary,” I said. “You are Don Corrado. You know the rules. You live by them. That is why you are where you are in this life. If you do this, though, you are breaking the most sacred rule of all. One that is not set by any family, but by a greater law. If you do this, you will not only destroy your sister’s family, but your own.”

  36

  Corrado

  It wasn’t her I came to see at Macchiavello’s, but it didn’t surprise me that she came in his place. She was curious about me, which answered so many questions about the day in the park.

  My sister took a seat next to me at the table. “That’s one of my favorite dishes, too,” she said, nodding toward my plate. “I still can’t get enough of it. Though I love the pasta and crab dish more. I get it whenever I can.”

  I finished my piece of steak and then took a drink. I nodded. “The food here is good.”

  She grinned at me. “That must have hurt coming out, huh? A compliment.”

  “Not at all,” I said, offering her a plate of asparagus. Green foods weren’t usually my thing. “The truth is the truth. I don’t sugar coat it, and I don’t shy away from it. I expect the truth, so I give the truth. Rarely is it anything personal.” To experience emotions meant that care had to be involved. I reserved that for special circumstances. Most things were this or that. Nothing more.

  She pushed the plate between us. “I like salads, but green foods are not my favorite either.” Her grin turned into a smile. “We look nothing alike.”

  “No,” I said. “We don’t.”

  “I look more like my mamma,” she said. She studied my face openly, without worrying about if she was going to tip me off to the secret we once had between us. “My son has your features. Your eyes. Even the color of them.”

  “Saverio.” I nodded. “I didn’t realize it at the time.”

  “I noticed it right away,” she said. “Now I can say he resembles my brother, not that—”

  “Man,” I finished for her.

  “Yeah,” she breathed. “I don’t have good feelings toward him.”

  “You remember him?”

  “One or two things.” She shrugged. “It’s not so much what I remember about him specifically, but what I know he did to our family. My mamma. I don’t have one because of what he did.”

  That was true. Corrado Palermo had set all of their fates in motion when he attempted to kill the boss of his family. I wondered if she reali
zed that her husband had killed her mamma, though, when he could have spared her.

  One look at her and I knew she was going to defend him if I brought it up. She was going to tell me that Arturo would have never stopped. Neither would have Achille. That was true, too. The son was worse than his father. He was the one who had killed Emilia.

  Sylvester came into the room, bringing her a glass of water with lemon. He sat a plate in front of her. Then he brought me another beer.

  “Grazie,” she said to him.

  He nodded and left.

  She smiled. “I ordered the steak, too.” She stared at it for a minute before she cut off a small piece. She ate like she appreciated every bite. “How much do you know about me?”

  I found myself staring at her. I cleared my throat. “Nothing. Other than we share the same father but different mothers.”

  She nodded, taking a sip of her water.

  “Is that all you know about me?” I said.

  She cut another piece. “A little more, which is plenty, but nothing too specific. Like. Do you get angry in traffic? Do you like music? What’s your favorite thing to do? Do you read? Take naps? Are you a world traveler?”

  “No to the first,” I said. “It is what it is. I do enjoy music. The opera, too. I do read, but not as much as I should. And no, I don’t take naps. Not in New York anyway. I sleep hard at night.” I took a pull of my beer. “I’ve been a few places, but my life limits me. Answer those things for me.”

  “Okay,” she said, setting her fork and knife down, getting more comfortable in her seat. She rubbed her hands together.

  I almost grinned. She became more animated, like she couldn’t wait to tell me.

  “I hate traffic,” she said. “Though I don’t usually get angry. Unless someone cuts me off. Then I can get testy.”

  “Which happens every second in New York.” This time I grinned.

  She stared at me for a minute, like she was dazed, and then she shook her head. “Where was I? Oh. I love music. I love to cook. I do read—lately, law books. Naps are a hard no for me. At this point in my life. I wake up not sure what century I’m in and then I get irritable. Then I can’t sleep at night, which irritates me even more, unless…” She waved a hand.

  “It ruins my entire day, usually. And I am now. A world traveler.” She dug in her purse and pulled out her passport, showing it to me. She had some stamps. “One of my favorite places to visit is Greece.” She took her passport from me after I’d looked it over and stuck it back in her purse. Almost protectively. She got back to work on her steak. “I love to eat, too.”

  “I can tell.” I pushed my plate closer to hers. “You want mine?”

  She threw back her head and laughed. “No! I’ll finish this one, but not much else.” She patted her stomach. “Good portions.”

  I decided then that she had character. She was charming. Someone a man like me didn’t meet every day. She had to get that from her mamma. I assumed all the bad things came from him, which was why I was who I was. It came from both sides.

  “Tell me about your life,” I said.

  She finished her bite, set her fork down easily, and then took another drink of water. She set her cup down so quietly that it didn’t even make a sound. She wiped her mouth. She cleared her throat. “It was hard.” Her eyes focused on a piece of lemon floating in her glass. She used her nail to trace the shape of it.

  “I’m not going to sugar-coat the truth. We have that in common. I had no parents, but I did have two people who loved me. Two people who took me in and treated me like a daughter and a granddaughter. But it didn’t last long. My adoptive grandfather died, and then my adoptive mother not long after. I became a system kid after that. Some homes were good. Some were terrible.” She looked at me. “I’m going to leave it at that.”

  “We were close,” I said. “In distance.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “Both on Staten Island, but worlds apart somehow.”

  “I agree. To a certain extent.”

  “I get it. We had a bridge because of who that man was,” she said. “He connected us, and not only to each other, but to this life.”

  She was smart. Perceptive.

  “However.” She sighed, and then she looked at me, really looked at me. “I have no regrets. I’m where I’m supposed to be. This is my place in the world. I’ve been seen. I know who I belong to.”

  “You were just a kid,” I said. “He took advantage—”

  “You don’t know anything,” she said, “about anything. You don’t know him. I do.”

  “Yeah,” I said, taking another long pull of my beer. “I don’t know him. No one knows him. He’s a ghost.”

  She smiled, but it wasn’t as friendly as before. “Vittorio Scarpone is a ghost. That family took his life.”

  I could hear the bitterness on her tongue, the anger, and it simmered in her eyes. His pain was worth more to her than her own.

  She took the last bite of her steak, finished the potatoes she had, and then drank the water until the last drop. She surprised me by taking my hand. “You have a beautiful family, Corrado. I love Alcina. I’ve loved her since the moment I met her in Modica. And I love Ele.”

  She took a deep breath. “To hold my son changed my life, and to hold my niece…it’s hard for me to put into words how much that day meant to me.” She squeezed my hand. “I love you, and I don’t even know you. But I see. I see him in you. In the way you think. You get an idea, and it haunts you like a ghost.”

  “Your husband,” I said. “He’s a ghost.”

  “To you,” she said. “But I don’t care what he is to the world. I know who he is to me.” She released the pressure on my hand. “I know that you have this idea in your head, an idea that you refuse to let go of. It might be different from the one Corrado Palermo had, but the ending is the same. He killed his family because he couldn’t let go of how things were supposed to be.

  “The funny thing is, you are exactly where he wanted to be. He wanted to be who you are in this life. He died for it. He sacrificed his entire family for it, including you.” She pointed at me. “What are you going to sacrifice for this idea of yours? Your family?”

  She shook her head. “I refuse to allow you to sacrifice my family—for anything. I don’t abide by your rules, Corrado. I never have. I never will. So make no mistake. I know who I belong to, but I also know who belongs to me.” She pointed at her chest. “If you even look at my son, ever, with anything other than affection, I’ll kill you.”

  I fell in love with her then. Her strength. Her character. Her unwavering principles.

  It was too fucking bad mine were unwavering, too. We had that in common.

  I stood from my seat, fixing my suit. I took measured steps, stopping when I was right behind her. I put my hands on her shoulders, and leaning down, placed a kiss on her head. “No matter what happens,” I said, “I’ll always be your brother. I’ll always be here for you, even if you don’t want me to.”

  She reached out for me, putting her hands where mine had been, but I was already gone.

  I took a card out of my suit pocket and handed it to Sylvester on my way out of the restaurant.

  He lifted it up, questioning it.

  I nodded to it. “My home address is on the back. I’m inviting your boss over for dinner. Make sure he gets that.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, tucking the card in his pocket. “Does he need any other information?”

  “Such as?”

  “Date and time.”

  “We’re family,” I said, giving him a mocking smile. “He really doesn’t need an invite. He’s welcome anytime. But if he needs something more formal, tell him day after tomorrow.” I shrugged. “After dark.”

  After all, ghosts couldn’t be seen during the day—their time to fucking play was at night.

  37

  Alcina

  Something had changed.

  The day after Corrado had gone to Macchiavello’s, after he had lunch w
ith his sister, I could sense a shift in him. No longer was he obsessed with a thought, but he seemed to have accepted the outcome of it.

  He made no plans.

  He told me I was with him, which meant that the entire day, he wanted us to be together.

  He woke up before me, bringing Ele to our bed. He watched her face as she ate. He carried her to the kitchen after, and even when she cried a little, he tried to make funny faces at her.

  He fed her.

  He dressed her.

  He took her outside.

  He was more present.

  She did not smile at him, but she kept lifting her eyebrow, like she was trying to decide what his motives were before she gave him what he wanted.

  Papà had flown in the night before, upset that mamma had not come home, and he wanted to see his granddaughter for the first time.

  Ele had taken one look at him, at the face he made, and giggled.

  “If it’s the last thing I ever do,” Corrado had said, watching them, “I’ll get her to smile for me.”

  “You’re almost there,” I said, grinning at him. “But she is going to make you work for it.”

  I had grinned to cover up what I truly felt. His words made me uneasy.

  If it’s the last thing I ever do. I wanted it to be the first thing he ever did to set us in a different direction. But he did not give me time to dwell on it. He had told me earlier that morning that he was taking me out on a date.

  After we put Ele to bed, I started to get dressed.

  He’d dressed in a black suit and a gold tie. He adjusted it in the mirror while I fixed my hair.

  I took note of his hands. How big they were. How strong. How I could trace the veins underneath his tan skin with a finger. Even his wrists were strong, a part of him that I found erotic.