Page 74 of When She Unravels
“There’s only one way out of this, Ras.”
His heavy exhale tells me he understands.
Water crashes over the rocks below us. I turn to face him. “War.”
He steeples his palms, his elbows on his knees, and I can see he’s already running through our options. “We need to beef up our security here first to make sure Mari is safe.”
“Would it be better to hide her somewhere until the dust settles?”
He shakes his head. “Better to concentrate our defenses on one area where both of you are. Plus, moving her this early would tip Sal off that something’s up. He watches all the entry points. I’ll call Napoletano.”
“Ask him to come as soon as he can.”
“How much do you want me to tell him?”
“Keep it vague. Him and Sal have their own ugly history, but I want to talk to him in person first before deciding if we should bring him in. What’s your read on the latest sentiments among the families?”
“Hard to say. I’ll have to go to Casal and talk to my father. Last time we talked, he alluded to some rumblings from Elio. If it’s true, we’ll want to meet with him.”
“What rumblings?” I ask, thinking back to the last time I saw Uncle Elio. It’s been many years.
“Something about marrying off one of his two daughters to Vito Pirozzi.”
“Both of the daughters are fucking prepubescent.”
“They’ll wait until she’s eighteen.”
The thought of giving one of those innocent girls to the likes of Vito makes me sick. He’s smarter than his idiot brother Nelo, but not by much. “That’s a match made in hell if I ever heard of one.”
“The Pirozzi patriarch wants his boys to settle down, and Sal loves to pick on the remaining De Rossis.”
“If we can get both of my father’s brothers to back me, along with your parents, it will give us a real chance.”
Ras pulls out a cigarette and lights it. “It’ll be a start. I’ll set up the meetings.”
“I should go to Casal with you.”
“You can’t. It’ll set off too many alarms.”
I rise from the bench. I want to say to hell with it all. The caution, the levelheadedness, the self-control. I developed all of these traits out of necessity. They were the only way I could ensure me and my sister would survive amidst a collapsing world. But beneath all of those civilized layers lives a barbarian who’s hungry for revenge. I feel him inside me now, stretching his arms out and reaching for the bat wrapped in barbed wire. He wants to raise it and slam it into Sal’s head until there’s nothing left but bloody pulp. “I’ll make him pay for everything he did, Ras. Everything.”
Ras comes to stand beside me and peers over the edge of the cliff. “What of your prisoner?”
Valentina’s frightened eyes flash inside my mind. Can whatever she’s running away from be worse than the trouble I’m about to stir? Until she tells me her whole story, I can’t know the answer to that question, but at least here, I can keep an eye on her. “I’m keeping her until I figure out how she can best help our cause.”
“She’s valuable,” Ras says.
“I want to know if her husband is dead.”
“I’ll ask Napoletano to help, but her husband wasn’t the one who agreed to take Martina. You know that.”
Of course I do. Lazaro’s just a soldier, but if he’s alive, he better be counting his last breaths. Even if he hadn’t terrorized Mari, it’s clear Valentina isn’t fond of him. That’s enough for me to wipe him off the face of the Earth.
“The order had to have come from their don, Valentina’s father,” I say. “But it’s Lazaro who put his hands on my sister. The don will make it up to us in other ways.” I rub my palm over my chin. “He was willing enough to grant Sal a favor. The question is why? Garzolo needs something, and when we figure out what, we’ll be able to have a real conversation with him. If Valentina knows anything about it, I’ll get it out of her.”
Ras crosses his arms over this chest. “You sure about that? Your foreplay at dinner didn’t inspire a lot of confidence in your methods of interrogation.”
I scowl. “That wasn’t foreplay. You were the one who told me I couldn’t leave her down there.”
