Page 42 of Mafia Bride
Goosebumps explode over my skin. Could it truly be someone coming to save me?
The piercing look on his face doesn’t tell me anything.
“Go. You will be safe.”
“You’re keeping someone out? Not keeping me in?”
“Just go.”
I take my books and go upstairs. It’s not until Armando closes the door behind me that I realize I did what Santino told me to because I trust him.
11
SANTINO
Emilio Moretti called meImpavido. Fearless. A compliment more to my acting than my heart. I fear plenty. Death mostly. Going into the eternal quiet of nothing while the noise of things undone stays behind, crying for you to come back and finish.
Four chambers in a heart. Four rooms to fill with love or sadness. I fill two of mine with the fear of death.
The other two, with Violetta. One chamber filled the day I saw her as an unready, unripe fruit. Her eyes, dark as blood. Her hair, a coiled frame around the face of a lioness. The feeling wasn’t in my cock, but where I kept the things that are mine. My responsibility. My duties and burdens, but also my people. My commune.
She stepped into the last chamber with her laughable attempt to manipulate me by sucking my dick. I already wanted to fuck her. She already pumped my blood full with fire. But her clumsy humanity caught me unaware, breaking the lock and ramming the door.
Death in two rooms. Violetta in the others. The inside walls rattle as if the two are trying to make love through the lean, red meat between them.
* * *
Café Mille Lucirises out of the sidewalk like a slab of cake. The bulk of my operations run out of the corner store of white-painted red brick, and it does exactly what a slice of cake promises. It looks rich but it’s empty—a pretty front with easy calories meant to top off a full meal of plans made elsewhere.
We don’t do much business. We confuse the Americans moving into town. We’ve got cakes, finger sandwiches, thick coffee that used to be a special thing but isn’t anymore, and a full bar even though the place closes at five. It’s a normal selection and the right hours where we’re from, but in the American religion, closing a bar before dinner is a mortal sin. I worship an older God. The college kids from the other side of the river can build their own church.
Today, traffic cones threaten to undo the already chipped frosting around the outside. More roadwork. More jackhammers. It rattles the windows and the stack of short glasses behind the bar, then it stops as if someone pulled the plug just as my cousin Gia walks in.
The guy with the jackhammer puckers his lips behind her back, while another whistles. There’s a comment ending in the word “bambina,” mocking her ethnicity while inviting her into his filthy mind.
“Hey, Cugino Santino!” She waves to me, bouncing to the back room with her ponytail swinging.
I wonder which of the crew’s throats I should cut first.
“I can go handle it, boss.” Frankie wipes down the glasses behind the bar. I wave him off. He’s loyal but not bright. He was the first one to point out the way the crew working on the street whistles at Gia when she comes into work. As if I don’t notice how he looks at her.
He thinks he can go handle it and make a show for her. He must think I’m stupid.
“No,” I say. “I’ll handle it when I have time to slit his throat. Not before.”
You don’t stay in business as long as we have by acting in anger. When Roman interrupted Violetta and me by the pool, to warn me that Damiano Orolio requested a meeting, I wanted to rage at the messenger or the message, but I knew neither would get me far, so I accepted the meeting and went toMille Lucifor it.
An SUV six inches short of a bus pulls into one of the few vacant spaces out front, pushing against one of the cones to fit.
Damiano Orolio has to drop a foot and a half to get out of that piece of shit. He waves to the construction guy who rights the orange cone. It’s not an apology. It’s a dare.
Damiano and I used to be built about the same, but no more. He worked his upper body up to the size of a sofa, while the rest tapered down to the ground, spindling under him like the legs of a card table. The scar on the side of his mouth makes him look like he’s half smiling, and in the summer—when he’s tanned—you can see the white slash a block away.
The bell rings when he enters. He doesn’t have to be asked to raise his arms so Roman can pat him down. He’s in this position when Gia comes out from the back, tying an apron around her waist. He catches sight of her like a hawk spotting a mouse in a parking lot.
“Who’s this?” he asks lasciviously as Roman works his ankles.
“Gia,” I say, “I need you to do inventory on the linens.”
