Page 75 of The Mad Don
“Just keep your word,” I say. “Do the split.”
He cups my face. “If you want me to do that,” he says, “then kiss me.”
His eyes are desperate. I don’t know why. There’s a thing underneath them I can’t reach. I lean in and kiss him despite myself.
He bites my lips gently, the upper one first, then the lower one. Then he kisses me, his hand warm against my jaw.
A sound comes from beneath us; it’s the commotion of raised voices.
I pull back as footsteps pound up the stairs, more than one set, fast. I look at him.
He isn’t alert; there’s something detached in his face, like he is somewhere else, like he was waiting for this, and it has just arrived.
I stand to get up, put my back to the wall, and be a guard again. He grabs my hand.
“Whatever happens next,” he says, “trust that I would never hurt you.”
He kisses my cheek as the door flies open.
I’m up off the bed. He rises behind me, and I look at the door. Fabiano comes in with men behind him. He lifts one hand, and the men raise their guns and point them at me.
“What is this about?” Giovanni asks.
Fabiano turns to him.
“The maids went to check on your sister this morning,” he says. “She’s been poisoned.”
He pauses and looks me dead in the eyes. “She’s dead.”
He says it so calmly, but the words resound in the room as if he had screamed them. My leg gives out under me, but I grip the edge of the vanity just before I fall to the floor.
Chapter Twenty
Yana
Giovanni turns to look at me, but his face is empty. Nothing moves in it.
“That’s impossible,” he says. “I put her to bed myself.”
“Then come and see for yourself, Don,” Fabiano answers.
Giovanni walks past him. The men with the guns gesture at me to follow. My body shakes as I walk. This is a dream. It’s a dream, or it’s a mistake; somebody made a mistake. Lucia was in the garden yesterday with the sun on her face, the porridge steaming, and the color back in her cheeks. She stood up by herself. She talked and joked with us; how could she die in her sleep? Somebody got it wrong.
We go to her room, and she is on the bed. I see her face. She is as pale as paper, and her lips are blue. Her skin feels lifeless. My legs quiver.
No, no no no no
Giovanni reaches out with shaking hands and touches her neck.
“There’s no pulse,” Fabiano says.
I force my way past the man beside me and drop to my knees at the bedside.
“That’s impossible. That doesn’t make sense. She was fine; she was fine yesterday. Call the doctor! Call the doctor!” I scream.
I press my fingers to her throat. There is nothing under them. Not a flutter, no warmth. I press harder; this has to be a lie. There has to be something; why isn’t there something?
I’m not finding it because I’m doing it wrong, that’s all; my hands are shaking, let me do it again —
