Page 21 of Mafia King
“No.” He smiles and clicks his tongue. “My compulsion, as you say, is I make promises, and I keep them.”
“Oh. Too honorable. Sure.”
“Your sister was all you had.”
He’s stated such a core truth, I twist in my seat to face him. “So?”
“She wanted to wait until you were older. She said you two only had each other and I was taking her away. She didn’t want you to hate me. Obviously, that couldn’t be avoided.”
His comment isn’t glib. It’s stuffed with regret and sealed shut with surrender to things being the way they are because that’s just the way they are.
I believe him for all these reasons, and because I knew Rosetta. This request to protect my feelings is exactly what she would have done.
“And now,” I say, following his gaze to the house, “it’s Sunday dinner as husband and wife.” Two young men with an arrogant bounce in their step and bulges under their jackets mount the front steps. “Look at these harmless church folk.”
“They’re only harmless inside a church.”
One of the men turns just enough for me to see the left side of his face. I recognize him from the photo I spit on.
“Is that Damiano?”
Santino leans forward and peers up the steps. “It is.” He relaxes back into his seat, tapping his fingers on the gear shifter.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” I ask, and he gives me a quizzical look. “I smell wood burning.”
“There’s a fire?” He looks around.
I laugh. His command of English is near perfect, but throw an idiom his way and he turns literal. It’s kind of charming.
“It’s an expression. Your head is wood, and when it thinks too hard… never mind. Just tell me.”
“No one knows you’re learning Italian. They don’t know how much you understand.”
“They know my zia and zio. I don’t think anyone would be surprised.”
“You’re mostly American.” He nods toward me in an assumption that his words are beyond nuanced disagreement. “Don’t persuade them otherwise.”
I exhale in a half-laugh. “After all the effort you put into turning me into a good Italian wife, you want me to keep pretending you failed?”
The insult doesn’t land. He knows what he wants and what he’s done to make it happen.
“Their ignorance is our advantage.” He unlocks the doors. “Keep your ears open.”
“Okay, I guess.”
Santino’s supposed to trust these people, but obviously he trusts me more. That’s also charming, and damn me for being charmed. I can’t help it.
“Bene.” In the moment after we come to an agreement, he’s still. I know by the tilt of his body that he’s thinking of kissing me, but he thinks better of it and gets out.
We walk into the house together, with his hand on my lower back, and greet everyone as if the Sunday meal is here every week and we’re just a regular married couple, visiting the family. I meet Angelo, the man of the house with a shirt-stretching belly. His brother in-law, Marco, has an epic comb-over and a nose that looks as if it’s been busted sideways a few times.
“You know my daughter,” Marco says, waving Gia over.
She shines in a yellow dress and strappy sandals, her hair in a stylish bun caressed by a dainty headband. She embodies a radiant summer and I can’t help but love her. My feelings about dinner immediately improve.
“Gia!” Santino greets his cousin. “Come stai?”
“Va bene assai!” Gia kisses his cheeks and hugs me. “I’ve been dying to see you ever since you got back!” Her English has already improved from when we met. “You have to tell me everything. Everything!”
