Page 12 of Mafia Queen
Good. When I come for them, they won’t expect it.
Violetta and our child will live. Whether or not I die a second time is not up to any mortal.
God help them, and God help me.
I will kill them all.
5
VIOLETTA
Through my headache, I remember a thing.
Last night, or a few hours ago, or last week, Gia brought two guys into the room. One was the size of an old oak. He had no neck and a hairline behind his ears. The other was young—around my age—with full lips and big brown eyes as tender as undercooked meatballs. Behind them came a balding man with a round, clean-shaven face. I recognized him as Alina Farina’s father…a doctor from our little hospital.
He’d rooted around his bag and asked me how I was but didn’t listen to the response. He took out a needle, and I said, “No. No drugs. I’m pregnant,” but Gia sighed. Oak Tree and Meatball Eyes held me down so he could give me the shot. He either didn’t say what it was or I lost consciousness before I heard it.
“I respect the dead,” Damiano says again, but more softly.
Under my veil, I nod—not because I agree, but because I’m out of stall tactics, and nodding makes my head swim.
Clutching the plaster shard, I decide to die rather than be forced to marry again.
“You’re going to do fine,” Gia says.
Oak Tree and Meatball Eyes lead me down the marble hall, through the bronze door, and into the narthex of St. Paul’s.
From inside, an organ plays. It’s deep and melodic. Almost a little sad. It sounds like my soul’s song. A message, maybe, from beyond—from Santino—to tell me he’s with me.
A bolt of sickness crawls from my guts to my throat…another message from the embryo struggling to grow inside me. The man who planted it inside me may be gone, but it still needs me.
I commit to living for Santino’s child. The last thing we made together.
The suits part to let me inside the nave. Through the veil, I see the length of the long aisle lined with enough pews for an army of the devoted. Gia waits at the front, centered in the width of the aisle, all perspective pointing to her where she waits for the moment she doesn’t need Damiano and she can be fully free.
Behind her is the altar. No bridesmaids, no best man. Just an ancient priest and Damiano with a poorly-bandaged eye and an ill-fitting suit.
I don’t know who shoves me forward, but I go.
From the transept, the Virgin watches me for a second time. Neither she nor God are coming to my rescue.
The protruding edge between the fingers of my right hand grazes the palm of my left as I walk down the aisle of St. Paul’s for a second time, until I can see Father Alfonso’s cataracts.
No matter what happens, I have to live.
Heading up the carpeted path to the altar, I lose my footing up the steps. Meatball Eyes catches me and gets me on my feet, grabbing me by the wrist. Despite his soft gaze, he’s rough, treating me like a plaster statue that almost fell when he bumped into the table. I keep my fist around the shard, sneering at him from behind my veil. He holds up his palms as if no harm was meant, but he’s a liar—harm is definitely intended. He isn’t innocent. None of them are.
I get to the altar without help and face Damiano’s one unbandaged eye.
“Let’s get this over with,” he says.
Through the veil, I see his fear. His weaknesses. It’s as if I’ve known Damiano Orolio since I was a child, and I see that boy in front of me. He’s finally conquering Santino, the man who scarred his face, yet his one free eye darts from man to man, soldier to soldier, unsure of their loyalty.
Maybe it’s the diminishing opiates in my blood or the benevolence of the scapular, but I know that what I see as clear as day in Damiano is what Santino saw through his own eyes.
“Marriage brings us here today, to be witnessed by God,” Father Alfonso creaks, his voice old and warbling.
I close my eyes, breathe deeply, and focus on the priest’s voice.
