Page 110 of Mafia King
“What. You. Want?” Every word is a breath I can barely get out.
“Your ring.” He grunts, but won’t relieve the pressure.
I don’t give a shit about the ring. It means nothing to me. But Santino said not to let it leave my finger before he even told me why. Understanding the reason is one thing. Now I understand the threat.
“Fuck off.” I wiggle, making it harder for Damiano to take his knee off without losing me.
He gets off me to pull my arm, but though he’s strong, I’m quick enough to get out from under him. I back into the window. There’s nowhere to go, and I have to keep my hands behind me so he can’t get at the ring.
“Why?” I ask.
“You don’t know?” He seems incredulous, simultaneously mocking both my witlessness and the impossibility of my ignorance. I’m a stupid woman who can’t possibly be this stupid.
“The stone. It’s big but—”
“Fuck the rock. He never told you what was engraved inside it?”
I gain nothing by telling him Santino told me everything about the engraving. If Damiano knows, he knows. “No.”
“It’s a license number for a lawyer.” He steps forward. “The one with the appointment you’re going to miss today. And when I get it, I’m going to know where to go and get your inheritance. The one that was promised tome.”
As far as I’m concerned, he can have the ring.
He can have the stupid crown.
But there’s a piece missing to all this.
He can’t just walk into the lawyer’s office and pick up what my father left to me.
Maybe if I was dead, or I was married to him, and neither of those things will happen as long as Santino DiLustro is breathing.
I gasp when I think of it.
Damiano knows where Santino is, but Santino’s waiting for Damiano to show up to a house on the other side of the river. My husband’s a sitting duck.
“I’ll give you the ring,” I say.
One of his eyes narrows. He doesn’t believe me.
I hold my left fist to my chest. “But you call Santino right now. Tell him you’re here. By the time he gets here, you’ll be gone.”
“When he gets here, he’ll be dead.”
Damiano grabs my hand, but I hold the fist tight. We wrestle. I twist and fight. He spins and throws me some direction that could be up, or left, or both and neither. I crash into the dresser. Heavy things fall. The ornate clock. A brass lamp.
He punches me in the face. I see every star in the sky.
“We can do this easy,” he says from the other side of consciousness. “Or we can do it fun.”
The stars fade. I’m leaning on the dresser. I grab a fallen plaster statue of a half-naked woman by the throat and swing wildly, hitting his bicep.
The blow sends him rightward by half an inch, but doesn’t slow his advance.
“Fun then,” he says, slapping me this time, but so hard I’m thrown against the wall.
Swinging wildly, waiting to get hit again, I stumble back into the bathroom. I aim the naked woman for his head, but he sees me coming a mile away. He grabs the statue by the base, yanks it from me, and throws it over his shoulder. A gurgle of nausea pushes up my throat.
“I’m going to get that ring whether I hit you again or not.”
