Page 74 of Mafia King
“You want to say good-bye or no?”
This is him doing things for me. The house I didn’t ask for, in a neighborhood he’d hate. The death-defying trip for a simple good-bye. All of it, covering the fact that he didn’t do what he told me he’d do.
“You were supposed to stop it!” Both fists shake at him. I want to punch his face, but he’s driving.
“She wants it.” He jabs his finger at me. “I talked to her. Gia wants this marriage. She said so. What are you going to do? Tell her she can’t have it because I fucked it up for you? I ruined your life, so you ruin hers? Soyoudon’t feel bad? Queen Violetta won’t bless the deal so fuck what Gia wants?”
He’s spoken to me like a child and a servant. He’s been heartless and cold. But he’s never spoken to me with this particular mixture of anger and respect.
“She doesn’t know what she’s getting into.”
“Bullshit. You want her to have the choice, but you don’t want her to choose.”
“Fuck you.” I cross my arms and sink into my seat. “She’s being sold.”
“And she knows it. You confuse yourself. It’s her life, not yours.”
“I’m not confused,” I snarl. “I’m very clear about the difference between consent and force.”
“Yes, I forced you. I didn’t take you back to Naples to have a dress made or to getbombonierefrom Abriana Dolce. You had no bobbin lace veil. You had no time to consent. This is what I did. I. Fucked. Up.”
My body stays upright, but inside, I can no longer hold up my own weight and my heart sinks into my gut. My life. My wedding. My marriage. The things he ruined, forced, and took for granted, in that order.
“Why?” I ask. “Why did you move so fast?”
A wrist over the steering wheel and the opposite elbow on the door, he rubs his lower lip, clearly thinking.
“I’ll tell you.” He puts his blinker on, checks his mirrors, and exits to the airport. “On your birthday. Right now, you put on a good face for your cousin.”
The airport closest to us is too small to service international flights, but we pass it right by anyway and go to the smaller, private terminal.
Small planes dot the tarmac and surround the main runway. Santino drives to a jet surrounded by a handful of cars. Men load bags into the cargo hold of the jet that took us to and from Italy.
“That’s your plane,” I say.
“I had to placate them too. The plane ride’s cheaper than the house.”
“Is there anything you can’t just buy?”
“I got the plane as collateral on a loan.” He makes a lap around the little jet and stops behind the last car. “Owner defaulted.”
“Did he offer you his daughter first?”
“I was already spoken for.” He puts the car into park.
“Jesus Christ.” I shake my head. “He’d give up his daughter before his plane.”
“It was the strategic choice. I can take care of her and the marriage would protect him from me.”
The logic is so real and so cynical I can’t refute it.
I get out so I’m not obligated to answer. Santino meets me on the passenger side, putting his hand at the base of my neck as we approach Paola. She’s wearing red lipstick, big sunglasses, and a headscarf, looking ten times more glamorous than the day I met her in an old apartment in Naples. Santino kisses her, then goes to Marco, leaving us alone.
“How is she?” I ask.
“Thrilled,” Paola says, without enough sarcasm to make the statement untrue. “She gets to be married to a man who can keep her comfortable and she gets to stay in the United States.”
“But does she love him?”
