Page 43 of Mafia Bride
“That’s next week,” she says, as if I don’t know what day of the month it is. She glances at Damiano not as a potential partner or a threat, but a potential tipping customer.
Roman nods and Damiano lowers his arms.
“Tu vai.” I don’t want to snap at her but it’s my duty to protect her and that means inventory in the back room. “Subito.”
“That’s Gia?” he asks when she slams through the swinging doors. “Little Gia?”
I don’t answer. She is mine but not the way he’s implying.
“Something for you?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He slides onto a stool, leaning over the bar to Frankie with one huge elbow. “Gimme acaffécoretto.”
Frankie looks to me for confirmation and I nod so he can make it.
“Look at this place.” Damiano waves his hand over the room, then knocks on the wood as if it’s the hood of a used car. “It ain’t changed since 1978 when Sal opened it.”
“You weren’t even born in 1978.”
“I know what 1978 looks like.”
Damiano watches Frankie carefully as he brews up the drink. We don’t talk. I know why he’s here and if he thinks I’m going to give him what he wants, he’s dumber than I ever imagined.
“It’s fine the way it is,” I say.
“If you’re a seventy-year-old hitter with a fat wife and an ulcer.”
“You have an ulcer?” Frankie delivers Damiano’s espresso and places a bottle of Sambuca next to it.
“No ulcer yet. A little agita when I heard you got married and didn’t invite me.” He gives a theatrical shrug. “But otherwise...”
“You brought me a wedding gift?”
“Can we cut the shit, Santi?”
I sip my espresso without the flinch he’s hoping for. We’ve known each other too long and he should know better. No one calls me Santi anymore. No one.
Damiano and I grew up together. We were partners for most of our childhood. Damiano was better at everything—school, sports, generosity. He helped me learn English. When my parents needed money, he brought me in to meet Emilio Moretti—swearing on his mother I was hardworking, reliable, and quiet when it counted.
Emilio hired me on my friend’s word. I was Santi. He was Dami. We were a team.
Until that day on the shore. Winter. The point of it is the beach is empty while waves and wind cover what you’re saying. Emilio and his guy, Jacopo, were negotiating a delivery. Dami and I were point. Jac had two of his own guys behind him. Routine shit, but you can’t take a routine for granted, so my eyes were all over the place. There’s a lady about a hundred feet off, throwing a stick for her dog to fetch. A man smoking on a bench in the freezing fucking cold. A couple necking over that way.
“You think he’s gonna get some?” Dami says, indicating the couple.
“If he can get past her body armor,” I reply. Dami concurs with a chuckle. Her black down coat zips up from the floor to just under her chin. “I don’t like that guy.” I nudge my chin to the smoking man as Emilio and Jacopo argue over drop-off points. “That’s his third smoke in fifteen minutes.”
“His wife probably don’t let him. Hey—” He slaps my chest with the back of his hand. “Did you get a load of Rosalie? That dress?”
The woman kneels to retrieve the stick from the dog, but there’s something off in her movements. Before, she leaned forward to grab the stick, but this time, she kneeled between me and it, taking it from the side.
And when she stood—stick in hand—she pivoted to face us.
“Down!” I yelled, pushing Emilio away with one hand and drawing with the other.
The stick was a thin rifle, pointed at Jacopo. I aimed and squeezed the trigger just as a hotpfftcame from my left shoulder. The woman went down, and the dog barked.
That was when—for saving a business partner—Emilio took me under his wing, Dami started resenting me, and I learned to never underestimate a woman.
