Page 93 of Mafia Queen
He closes the door, and I’m left with Loretta and Celia looking back at me from the front seat. The reality of three women in the lead car hits me.
“This is nuts,” I say, trusting they know exactly what I mean.
“Is it?” Loretta asks. “We come from a land of abundance, and it always comes down to the women. Always.”
Celia makes the sign of the cross again and passes through the gate as soon as it’s open wide enough. When she makes the first turn, cutting off the view of the gate and Torre Cavallo, I breathe for the first time in days.
I am free, but I have a purpose that’s as forceful as saving my own life.
Santino. His life. Our life together.
“Okay, Loretta,” I say, holding the box in both hands.
She presses a button on the left armrest. The sunroof slides open.
“Around the next turn,” Vito’s voice says from the speakers.
I take the crown out of the box and stand, putting my head and arms through the sunroof. The tight curve is up ahead, so I hold tight as the car makes the turn and nearly smacks into a black Chevy Suburban driving too close to the center line. Five more are in the opposite lane behind it, screeching to a halt in quick succession. The last car stops gently but across most of our lane.
Through the sunroof to my waist, I hold the crown so tightly the edges hurt, but I stay still.
I don’t have long to wait. In the hard light of headlamps, the car doors swing open. Men get out with guns. I press the fear to the bottom of my heart. So many men. Twenty. Thirty. More gun barrels than I can count are pointed at me. Each is an endlessly deep void.
This is it. We didn’t count on this many. The cars behind need to stay behind or it’ll be a slaughter.
How did I get human adults to go along with this ridiculous idea?
Santino would never have approved. He would have laughed at me. Kissed me. Called meForzetta.
I hold up the crown—then put it on my head.
Counting on another mass hysteria event is the dumbest part of a dumb plan.
I love you, Santino.
Thank you for teaching me how to be brave.
I spread my arms. “Bring me Santino, or shoot me and take it.”
I wish I could have been smarter for you.
Crowned like a homecoming queen, I wait to find out that whatever power this thing has doesn’t work under a waxing moon, or extend past the Torre Cavallo gate, or influence men who pledge loyalty to another family.
I’m sorry, my king. I am so sorry.
A barrel jerks, then another, and I’m sure my time before death is splitting and splitting infinitely, and I’m going to see bullets fly through the air in slow motion, unable to move before they shatter through me.
But that moment doesn’t come. The bullets stay cold in their chambers. The guns are lowered, and the men holding them look at the ground before bending their knees.
“They’re doing it,” I say to Loretta and Celia in the seats below, not expecting them to actually hear me past the roof of the car or even the thrilling heart thrum of the enemy’s mass submission. “Go!”
I smack the roof. I don’t know how long the impulse to show fealty to a piece of metal actually lasts. There’s no time to enjoy it or understand it. We need to go. But though Loretta drives forward, we don’t get far. The last Suburban has left little room for us to get by, and no one’s kneeling near its closed doors.
We stop. If we try to pass, we could get rammed into a cliff face. As it is, I’m still a sitting duck to get shot from behind a tinted window or from behind when the guys we passed snap out of whatever trance they’re in.
And Santino might be in that car in front of us.
I take out the gun he gave me, holding it in two hands as he taught me.
