Page 26 of Mafia King
“My wife’s name won’t cross your lips again,” my husband says.
“Of course.” Damiano turns to exhale a cone of cigar smoke. I see his full face in the reflection. He looks past me as if I don’t even exist, straightens his hair, and turns back to the room.
“Do you bless the‘mbasciata?” Marco asks.
Santino is the only thing standing between Gia and the horror I went through.
He doesn’t answer right away. For the first time in what feels like an aching eternity, I don’t despise my husband. Then he speaks.
“Here are the terms. Damiano Orolio. You have one night, chaperoned, to decide if she’s a match for you. You decide yes, you wire the money to Cosimo. Marco…” Santino turns toward his uncle. “You tell Gia as soon as the debt is clear, and you tell herwhy.”
“But, Santi…” Marco objects.
“You look your shame in the face, Marco Polito, and you tell her.” Santino turns back to Damiano. “If you decide no, the deal is off.” He steps close to Dami and mutters, “Don’t talk to me about a repayment schedule like the first one you came to me with. Understand?”
“Yeah.” Damiano looks away, as if regretful, but in the window, he glows with vengeance. “But looks like we’re gonna be family anyway.”
Santino takes a deep breath. Holds it. Clenches and unclenches his fists.
“Finish drawing the papers,” Santino says. “This‘mbasciatahas my blessing. My cousin gets hurt”—he points at Damiano, then Marco—“I’ll skin both of you like rabbits.”
I slide my back to the wall and close my eyes. All of them are animals, Santino included. Well, fuck him and fuck that. I’ll just walk home. Maybe I’ll take Gia with me and we can run away together.
I slink down the hall and around the corner before daring a look back. Damiano’s the first out of the room, and I see him full in the face.
He’s hulking—as tall as Santino and as wide as the doorframe. A deadness slicks his huge, brown eyes, and when they land on me, I remember that he doesn’t like me. I’m a fishwife. A harridan. A threat.
In the marrow of my bones, I am afraid.
Then Santino’s voice rises from the walls, the windows, the mighty air of America itself.
“Coniglio!”
Damiano freezes when Santino calls him a rabbit, but though Damiano’s still for a moment, he does not turn around. His dead eyes are on me as the man who rules us both lays down the law.
“Caveat emptor. You better be sure you like what you’ve bought before you bring it home. I’ve blessed the marriage, but not your life.”
7
SANTINO
We are not Sicilian. There is no—and never has there ever been—head of thecamorra, but Emilio Moretti came as close to being a true king as any man. He ruled an underground empire in Naples and, through a business in transport, held power that reached the shores of America.
I rule a small Italian enclave in America. No capo before, and none since, has had the same reach as the last Moretti.
In Napoli, they said Emilio benefitted from divine intervention and that those angels had set a boundary inside which he would suffer no rivals, no challenges, and no interference from the law.
“My boys,” Emilio croaked, still in the hospital with an infection in his lungs after surviving his first assassination attempt. Damiano sits next to me, and on the other side of the bed, Nazario Corragio, a.k.a.Il Blocco—the Cavalloconsigliere—takes notes in runic shorthand. “You see how even I am not above death?”
“Si.”
I’m seventeen, and I understand this talk of Emilio’s invincibility is a load of bullshit. But I also understand that everyone else in the room smells incense instead ofstronzata, so I know why he needs to make the point.
“But that’s why you’re alive!” Damiano says. This big man is an old woman at heart. It’s one thing to believe in miracles. It’s another to think they’re an entitlement.
“Today,” Emilio objects. “Maybe not next time. And I need you both to be ready.”
My friend and I exchange a glance. If Emilio dies, Cosimo will take control, and anyone who stands in his way will not live long. Dami may move up in rank in that exchange of power. I have nothing to gain.
