Page 12 of Mafia Bride
VIOLETTA
We’re alone on the little porch with Zia watching from the other side of the screen door.
“Where are we going?” I ask, hesitant and anxious.
“Around the corner for a bit. This way.” Santino gestures. “I just want to talk.”
The way he says “talk” feels ominous. But just around the corner is just that—around the corner. I can survive a conversation for that long. I go down the steps first and hear the screen door squeak open. Zia exits, buttoning her jacket. Her sister, Zia Donna, slings her bag over her shoulder, staring sternly at the space Santino occupies between us, without looking directly at him.
Are they coming with us?
Santino slips by me and opens the wrought-iron gate to the sidewalk. I pass it, and he holds it open for my zias, who follow looking imperious and empowered.
Santino comes to my side, and we walk down the block. The spring air is cooling, and I enjoy the chill on my skin. The night birds chirp and the highway buzzes half a mile away. My aunts walk behind, their footsteps hard on the pavement.
Once I confirm they’re following, I know the ritual. Its purpose is to provide witness if he tries to treat me dishonorably. It comes after a request for marriage. It’s courtship, and it’s terrifying.
It’s also secretly, very secretly, a little thrilling, though I still refuse to see why I’m being courted by this powerful and devastatingly handsome man.
“What do you want to talk about?” I ask. Looking at him feels impossible, so I study the street trees and the stop sign at the corner, trying to think of anything but my proximity to him.
“Tell me about yourself.” It’s not a question, but another demand in the life of a king.
“That’s a little vague.” Before the words are all out of my mouth, I can’t believe I came back at him like that. My heart races, so I focus on the cracks in the concrete instead of trying to gauge just how imposing he is.
“If the question is vague, the answer can be,” he says with a joking lilt to his voice I didn’t think he was capable of. “One for one. See?”
I sigh. I can say whatever I like, then, so I might as well start with the bullshit everyone knows.
“I was born in Naples—the same place as you. My parents died when I was five.” I glance at him when I saydiedinstead ofwere shot in the street,and I don’t see much of a reaction. “So,” I continue, looking straight ahead. “We were sent here to live with my aunt and uncle.”
“Losing one parent so young is a tragedy. Losing both—”
“It’s fine,” I interrupt, which probably never happens to him, so I rush in with more words. “I was lucky to have an extended family on this side. Really. I just… I don’t like to dwell on it. When did you come over?”
I pat myself on the back for the adept change in subject.
“Five years in Napoli, then here,” he says, ignoring the question and freezing the self-congratulations. “Do you speak?”
Obviously, I know how to make words with my mouth, but in the context of the Secondo Vasto culture, that’s not what he’s asking.
“No.” I feel ashamed to admit that I come from Italy but can’t speak the language. “I understand everything. Just don’t ask me to conjugate a verb.”
Is that a smile on his face? For a moment he doesn’t look predatory or majestic. He looks like a guy with something to offer. “I can teach you.”
“I get along just fine.” Relearning Italian is literally the last thing on my mind. Speaking in English to my family means I’m simply helping them with their English. And, honestly, I don’t want anything from this man.
Well, there are several things I’d want from this man, under different circumstances, but that’s beside the point.
“I miss home.” His voice rumbles in my very veins, and yet the longing and authenticity of his sentiment softens me. “Our people, we have rules that work. We don’t need to explain them or justify. Here…maybe you don’t have this since you came young. But I arrived only eight years ago, when I was 25, and I was set in my ways. I don’t have to explain them.”
He’s 33? Jesus, that’s old. How is someone so old so attractive? It feels strange. That means the first time I saw him, he was...
“I’ve seen you before,” I blurt out. “When I was younger.” I swallow a strange lump in my throat. “Seven years ago. Eight, maybe?”
“Yes. I moved here shortly before that day.”
We’re at the second corner, and I stop there. “You remember that day?”
