Page 115 of Promised to the Don of Naples
"No."
He laughed quietly against my neck. It was a short laugh, held back, the way he did it.
His hand moved up my waist. I pulled him by the damp cuff—that man was going to destroy me, I thought, and I was going to let him—and he pressed me against the edge of the stone tub, both hands open on my face.
He kissed me.
Slow at first, then with more weight. His hand moved down the neckline of my dress, and my hand slipped inside his robe.
Cazzo, I thought. I've become a mafioso's wife. I'm kissing a man who still has blood under his thumbnail.
And I wanted him anyway, but he stopped.
His hand was open on my face, his forehead against mine. His breathing was fast.
"Not today."
"Luca."
"Bella mia, not today."
"Why?"
"Because tomorrow I have to kill a friend of forty years."
I went still.
I didn't ask who; I understood I would find out. I knew he'd tell me before he did it.
I kissed his mouth lightly. I rested my forehead on his chest, over the Latin tattoo.
"Va bene," I murmured.
"Brava."
He carried me to bed in his arms, slept with me held against his chest, and the white shirt stayed forgotten in the sink, with the stain almost out.
Luca MORETTI
My father's study smelled of old cigar.
Twelve years shut. Donna Beatrice went in once a month to dust. No one else.
The Cuban cigars were still in the humidor. The whiskey decanter, empty. The photo from Raffaele's baptism, on the desk—my father in the center, holding six-month-old Raffaele; Carlo Acquaviva on the left, Salvatore Rossi on the right.
Two godfathers, both of them false.
Raffaele leaned against the door behind me.
"Fratellone."
"Fratellino."
It was the first time in fifteen years I'd called him that without irony.
"You want to tell me?"
"I do."
