Page 10 of Mafia Bride
“I’m sorry, Violetta.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “I’m so sorry, my sweet Violetta.”
“It’s okay, Zia.” I squeeze her hand with a tight smile. “You didn’t hurt me.”
She’s not the crazy aunt who leaves scratches and calls her daughter—well, niece—a street whore as we all witnessed with Zia Donna. The event must have shaken Zia more than usual for her to apologize for just grabbing my arm.
The things this man, this supposed king, is doing to our house are starting to piss me off.
I drop Zia’s hand and peer over Elettra’s head. Santino and four other men are in our hallway, greeting Zio and three men. They are each dressed in various shades of darkness, all somber and serious.
Santino, though, towers above them. Hulking, tall, somehow dazzling in the light of the late afternoon despite all the funeral colors. He’s just as stunning as the day he pinned my ghost to the hallway floor. Just as serpentine. His jaw is tight, locked, a man coiled to strike at any moment. Venomous. Gorgeous.
His handshake is even something to behold. His hand engulfs Zio’s like ravioli dough folded over a lump of cheese.
Elettra sighs beneath me, a young girl with an intense and palpable crush. I can practically feel Zia Donna coil up herself, ready to put another series of bandages on her oldest and most yearning daughter, but then Santino looks our way, and she goes rigid.
His eyes pinpoint everyone in the doorway, hammer them in place. Surveying, inspecting maybe? Memorizing those who dare to spy on him? Even little Tina goes still.
Finally, his gaze reaches mine, just for a moment, but in that very moment, my soul shakes free from my body. I can’t breathe, think, move. This, I decide, is why they call him the king. He exudes power from across entire rooms, entire houses. A mere shift of his gaze has rendered me marble. I am again a young girl, pinned against my will and very much in accordance with my fledgling desires. Everything fades away in that brief moment, and it’s just him and me, trapped in a long hallway.
Zio leads them into the dining room, Italian flowing like river rapids between them, breaking the curse binding my body. Breathing becomes taxing, like my lungs are relearning how to function once again. Like everything was fine marble, chiseled and perfected, and then God blew life my way, leaving me to fumble through the very actions everyone else seems so capable of doing.
Breathe, stupid girl. Breathe.
For the first time, I do the math in my own head. Santino brought five men, Zio brought three. In the kitchen, there are six of us. The dining room seats twelve. The women will be relegated to the kitchen while the men usher themselves into the dining room.
It is a meeting, not of the families, but ofthe families.
A small tremble creeps down my spine. Earlier, Elettra mentioned the capos. About her brother keeping her safe. Protecting her. Then in walks Re Santino with his crew and Zio standing by with his.
We just made a week’s worth of pasta and bread, with Zia Donna popping the corks on several bottles of basement-fermented red.
There’s no room for the women. This evening is about the men. Dangerous men. What was it Zia told me only yesterday about the different sides of life? “If you’re lucky, you’ll have a man to deal with the cruel one.” If I’ve learned anything from my perch on the landing above the stairs over the years, it’s that talks with men never end in good news.
“Violetta.” Zia’s all business now. Any signs of being shaken are long gone. Zio may be the one to deal with the cruel side of the world, but I’d put money on Zia taking down just as many terrible people as my uncle. “Take the bread baskets to the dining room while Nana Angelina and I get the antipasti.”
She hands me our best bread baskets. Zia Donna finishes polishing the silver trays. We don’t bring out the silver much anymore.
My aunt and uncle are probably more than a little old-fashioned, and very traditional. Moving away from the old country only encouraged their behavior, rather than ease it up, as if they were terrified to forget Napoli. My American friends would never understand our home life or their behavior, and I never bothered introducing the two worlds because explaining it would be fruitless.
But this? This was positively backward. I couldn’t even count on one hand the number of dinners served in this house where the women were relegated to the kitchen as servants to the men. Zia isn’t the kind of woman who sits back and serves the opposite sex. Not even when she’s worried about the cruel parts of the world.
What in the ever-loving fuck is going on?
If I’m to be a mere bread carrier, then I’m going to do some spying. Between the piteous looks and this baffling display, I don’t trust what’s happening in my home, and that’s a terrifying place to be.
In the dining room, thick with the scent of man, cigar, and too much cologne, Santino is at the head of the table, not Zio. How fitting for a king.
The thrill is mostly gone, leaving instead a lump of fear stuck in my throat. What man thinks he can sit at the head of another man’s table in this other man’s own home? What does a man do, exactly, to be revered as such? I don’t think I want to know.
Their conversation is strictly in Italian. I linger, placing the baskets just so, and carefully moving around their large feet, so I can eavesdrop. Figure out what exactly is going on with these soberly dressed men. In all these years, I’ve forgotten how to speak our mother language, much to Zia’s dismay, but I can understand enough to get what’s going on.
One of them is flying back to Italy for a christening. Someone else’s idiot brother-in-law nearly chopped off his thumb while using hedge clippers. There are jokes about the kids left at home. The burden of taxes.
The idiots in the FBI. A younger man with a huge nose and thick eyebrows brings up hismantenuta—a woman who isn’t your wife, but who’s expensive nonetheless—joking about her putting him into such a debt he’s going to have to give Lucinda to American Express. They all laugh, except my uncle and the king, who puts his wineglass down so I can fill it.
“Enough,” Santino says. He’s not even loud or sharp, but the laughter dies as if it’s been shot.
As I lean over Santino, pouring his wine, I can feel his eyes on me.
