Page 6 of Mafia King
“I kept the secret,” he says, seeming unafraid. “Even kept it from my own father. And you won’t even offer me a taste of friendship.”
Loretta puts the bowl on the table. I sit back and jerk my chin toward her in a dismissive motion. Damiano flicks his wrist at her. She goes inside.
“You stole what was given to me.” He jabs his thumb to his chest. “For once, I was first in line and you stepped over me.”
“The crown wasn’t meant for you.”
“Violetta was given to me.”
“She was always mine.”
“You took her.” Damiano pounds the table. “Ripped bread out of my mouth. I come here and ask for crumbs in return for saving your uncle, and you won’t even give me that.”
I cannot discuss who owns Violetta for another moment, because there’s more than a promise to a dying man at stake here. Damiano’s either baiting me to take out his eye, which would start a war, or he’s sincere and is willing to start a war over his version of the truth.
“My friendship can’t be bought,” I say, standing slowly, ready to leave.
“And my silence hasn’t been paid for.” He drops two cubes of ice in his glass.
“You want a war, Dami? You don’t remember the last one well enough?”
“You owe me.” He pours himself more sambuca. “All this time, not telling every capo in the four corners how to get at the treasure he gave you. Peace ain’t cheap, and the note’s gonna come due before her birthday.”
“Enjoy your sambuca.”
I leave him there and give Loretta a quick goodbye before tearing down the hill.
The way home is deceptively less treacherous.
2
VIOLETTA
The mountains shudder when Santino speaks.
“Vai.”
He holds his paper between us, asking nothing else of me for now. I’m hungry and he can fuck himself, so I sit down to breakfast.
“Buongiorno.” His greeting rolls off his tongue like marmalade dripping off burned toast.
I’d like to know where he’s been spending so many of his hours, but since Italy, I’ve only said three words to him, over and over. It’s losing its power, and at this point, it’s more of a habit I’m revving up to break.
“La tua bella.” In our new language, this can be loosely translated as “go to hell.”
The bread in front of me looks like a crumbling bathroom tile.
Santino’s not exactly cowed by my anger, but he isn’t trying to break me. Either he understands what he did to me, or he doesn’t care. No matter how disrespectful I am, nothing makes him tell me what happened with Rosetta.
Did he love her?
Did he ever love me?
Does it matter?
Yet I’ve been too angry to ask directly. I’m starting to think my three-word strategy is backfiring.
“You should go out today,” he says from behind his newspaper. “Do some shopping.”
