Page 46 of Mafia Queen
“Nothing.” I push the dashboard button that opens the sunroof. “I just need a little air.”
The window over us slides open, whipping the wind through my hair. I stick my hands out to feel the pressure of the air. The speed. The resistance.
I am grief, and I am rage, but I am also vengeance. I understand so many of Santino’s decisions now because I understand the power of making them.
Unlocking my seat belt, I get my legs under me. The dashboard lights up with danger and angry beeping.
“What are you doing?” Santino asks.
“Everything.” I kiss his cheek. “Because of you.”
He doesn’t understand.
“Buckle in,” he commands, but it’s too late.
I am lifted through the sunroof.
“Violetta!” he shouts.
But I’m already pulling up through the hole. His voice is lost in the wind. I’m standing on my seat with the edge of the car at my waist. I feel his arm around my legs, holding me still as he drives down the highway. With my arms out, I speed alone, unencumbered, unenclosed, unrestrained but held firm. Trees fly by in a blur of leaves. Their trunks seem to shift like a handful of thrown twigs. But they’re not moving, I am, and the broken yellow lines of the two-lane road are the only things guiding my direction. The world is frozen in place, and I move through it. I am the unstoppable force looking for the immovable object.
There’s only one way, and it’s forward.
This is not freedom. I will never be truly free.
But righteousness has infected grief, and the result is flowing through my veins.
It is power.
Santino pulls on my waistband, and I bend back into the car, sliding back into my seat with rosy cheeks and hair like a haystack.
“What was that?” he asks, closing the sunroof.
“Fun.”
“Don’t do it again.”
“You should try it.”
He laughs as he exits the highway, then he pulls me toward him and kisses my head as if he’s delighted that I’ve had a good time. I lean into his shoulder while he drives.
At the red light, he turns to stare deeply inside me. I am clothed, yet raw in his gaze.
“I’m going to pull over and fuck you blind.”
“Sorry. The doctor says I’m closed for business this week.”
The light turns green. He nods but not in agreement.
“You need more in your belly than that orange. The lawyers haven’t confirmed a time. We eat, then we go whether they confirm or not.”
I assume what we call “the city” where the lawyer’s office is located is tiny compared to New York or Chicago or even Cleveland, but to me, the stone buildings are huge, and the crowded sidewalks are overwhelming.
Santino takes me to a diner with parking in the back, but makes no move to get out of the car. He doesn’t even unlock the doors, so I do. He locks them again.
“What?” I ask.
“We need to talk about what it means when you say ‘closed for business.’”
