Page 89 of Mafia King
“I’m sorry.”
“I just want to know you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. But I’m not okay with the way we are. Things have to change, and if I have to be the one to change them, so be it.”
“Fine.” She shrugs. “But are you inviting me to your party or not?”
I laugh, but no. She can’t come to this party. Nothing on this side of the river is powerful enough to change where I’m from.
She tells me about a guy she met in a fender bender with her new BMW, who she asked on a date in the ensuing road rage—right after threatening to put a tire iron through his windshield. By the end of it, I’m laughing so hard my side hurts.
And unlike the last time I saw Scarlett, I can see the future. There’s no reason not to see her again. I can go to school and have the life I want.
This time, when I hug my friend and say good-bye, I feel as if I have the power to make anything possible.
I do have the power. It makes me smile uncontrollably in the back seat of the car.
Armando looks at me in the rearview. “Happy today?”
“You could say that.”
My phone dings. There’s a message from Gia.
I open it, reading a series of short, textual bursts, and each one is a punch in the face.
22
SANTINO
Engraved inside our wedding rings, where a date or a line about love would usually go, is a number—a lawyer’s bar license, given to me in the days following our meeting with Emilio in the hospital.
After Rosetta died, I looked up the number so I could tell Nazario Coraggio it was all over. The deal was off. But there was no such license issued.
When I heard Damiano had designs on Violetta, I married her, then tried the license number again. Nazario protected himself—the license didn’t lead me to him, but a partner in a generations-old international firm, with an office a hundred miles away, in a part of the state with high rises and a Starbucks on every corner.
The receptionist denied there was a Nazario Coraggio in the firm, then gave me a phone number to call on a certain date.
Today is the day.
I made it. Violetta won’t have to read about the numbers in my will and find the lawyer herself. It’s here. The secret is safe. The crown is safe. She’s safe.
Behind a locked door to the back room ofMille Luci, I take out a new phone and dial the number the receptionist gave me. When the lawyer picks up, I recognize the voice immediately.
“Nazario?”
Emilio Moretti’s consigliere—Il Blocco—coughs dry and hard.
“Santino DiLustro.” He says in Italian, “You made it.”
“So did you. I thought they buried you in the sea.”
Hetsks. “No. I know how to stay low. But you? You’re a big piece over there now.”
“Big piece over a small territory.”
“With a target on your back so big a child could hit it.” Nazario Coraggio is a born consigliere. He never holds back advice, whether you want it or not. “Emilio said you were the patient one. The one who sees the whole…” He stops for a coughing fit. “You lost the picture when you married her so fast. No courtship, no nothing.”
“I had no choice. Damiano was going to claim her.”
