Page 90 of Mafia Queen
Sam helps him to the door without my dismissal. His last statement is more than an excuse from the room. Nazario’s done with the meeting, and he’s done with life.
The door opens and Remo stops just short of knocking over Nazario, stammering. “I’m sorry… sir. Ma’am, but…they’re coming.”
“Good,” I say, opening the crown’s box. “Good.”
26
SANTINO
I am not strong enough. At first, I blame myself for having a suicidal survival instinct since this escape plan is as likely to kill me as to free me. Then blame goes to the missing finger. Then the pain with a home base in my shoulder. It’s hunger. Thirst. Desperation.
It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. The gas pipe was built not to break. Not from the weight of one man. Not from all his strength, his will, or his fear. Not even his love can bend it enough.
“What are you doing?” Gia says from the other side of the wall.
She fell asleep when she was done sobbing, and I decided I didn’t have time to wait for her to get the hell out of here. If she stuck around looking for salvation from me, she deserved to die in a gas explosion.
Now she’s up.
“Get out of here,” I say, straining to bend pipes a plumber would be able to just cut.
“I can’t see!” She’s standing on the chair again, but she’s no taller. Her fingertips reach the hole as if she’s trying to pull herself up.
“Gia!” I shout, releasing my hold on the gas line. “If you want to live, walk out now. I’m not responsible if you don’t.”
I hear her drop back to the floor. I wait, hoping for footsteps on the stairs and a slammed door. But she doesn’t leave.
“Gia! Go!”
“You care,” she says. “I don’t know what you’re doing in there, but you still care about me.”
“Don’t think I won’t kill you where you stand,” I say to a woman behind a freshly-built brick wall.
“Let me help you,” she says. “Please.”
“Like you helped Armando?”
“I didn’t know they were going to do it!”
“Now you do, so you should go away.”
“Give me a chance to do better than I did.”
“Why are women so stubborn?” I mutter.
“Please. I read about what it feels like to die without water. It can take a week or even more. Your brain shrinks and you go blind because your eyes get sucked into your skull.”
I hear her get back on the chair. I expect a bottle of water to appear in the little hole, but of course, something that welcome and simple would never occur to a woman with no hope for me. Instead, a gun is laid there.
She says, “I know where to stand so you can’t shoot me through that hole, so—”
“Shooting you wouldn’t help me.” I take it down. It’s loaded.
“But you can end it if it’s bad.”
“That’s sweet, Gia. I’m sure St. Peter will look favorably.”
“If I could let you out, I would, you know.”
