Indiscretions of a God

by Sunniva Dee

  “To the back lounge. We’ll be locking the door there,”—I jut my chin at it over her shoulder—“and I’ll be fucking you senseless. I think we’ll both feel better after that.”

  The good thing about private jets is you don’t have to worry about layovers. Now, we land on a small private airport on the Venetian countryside. Bully and Fritz get off first, down the rickety staircase, scouring the surroundings through the early morning sun, dark sunglasses on their noses.

  I help Tatiana down. She hasn’t broached the subject of Ariadna since I stilled her jealousy in the back lounge. On the other side, we haven’t discussed her Vatican deal either, so I guess we’re even for now.

  Carlos and Marty are last off the plane. I’m keeping my father’s men out of the issues concerning my involvement with Tatiana; in the wrong moment, it could be life-threatening for her to have their loyalties switch from me to Il Lince. But Carlos and Marty are hired guns, and of the two, my instinct tells me to choose Carlos as the extra eye on my two-faced queen.

  As we stride to the waiting car, I flick a look to his face and see what I already knew; nothing gives away the private pow-wow we had while Tatiana slept off my passion in the back lounge.

  I call Sebastian Nero as I lower myself into the backseat. “Hey. I’m at the airport and heading out of here. Any news?”

  “The boyfriend woke up. He’s hazy on the details, but mentioned having been on Testaprati Island.”

  “Amedeo Santa Colombini’s place,” I say, voice gruff. “I figured.”

  “Yeah. His Palazzo Rosa is on the backside, hidden behind poplar trees and spiked gates. It’s a fortress. There’s the bridge, of course, but if that’s where she is, the best way to get in unnoticed would be by boat.”

  “I agree.”

  I’ve been there. I clear my throat, thinking how different the occasion was, how fatal, how it shaped her future and mine. She was beautiful. We were stupid kids. The chemistry between us hit the roof, especially after a night of drinking.

  “The boyfriend doesn’t necessarily think that’s where they're keeping Gabriela, though.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  “Because she was in the car when they threw him out at the docks.”

  Life is arbitrary and full of split-second decisions. It’s up to you to make the right ones and back them up with might.

  If her father had known she’d run into me, he wouldn’t have let her out that night. If my father had known I’d rock my hips, narrowing in on the prettiest girl in the bar, he would have kept me indoors.

  But there she was.

  High on our youths, invincible and uncaring of the sins of our fathers, we were a prince and a princess raised in the embrace of organized crime. No one understood each other better.

  When we introduced ourselves after twenty minutes of make-outs in the darkest corner of Il Mezzinino, our mouths stayed apart while I stared at her. I’ll be damned.

  She answered by kissing me again then arching an eyebrow. You’re not chickening out, are you, Nascimbeni?

  I arched mine in response, mirroring her gesture. When has a Nascimbeni ever backed down from Santa Colombini?

  Come then. Il Palazzo Rosa is empty tonight. My family is in Rigatone, celebrating the baptism of my cousin. Her smile was small and alluring, the kind that could pull a guy by the dick to the darkest corner of the world.

  I smile wryly, thinking how stupid a teenaged boy can be. How did I accept such an invitation, taking a boat over the canal, and laughingly stepping up on an enemy pier with only a hoodie to cover my identity? Santa Colombini servants were present even if her family was on the other side of the city.

  I shake my head like I have many times before. She, a true princess, promising death to the guard who saw her sneak home with a boy’s hand clasped in hers. The guard looking away, making sure he never caught my face.

  We walked in her front door, over checkered marble, up centuries-old mahogany stairs ending in a gallery above the foyer. It was her Santa Colombini castle, and she took me to her tower. It touched the clouds. I did too.

  I touched the clouds in that room with her under me. She wasn’t my first, but we shared a kind of fire that scorched and needed to rage.

  Later, a servant knocked on the door. We were drunk on what we’d done and doing it again when her most trusted murmured that her parents were on their way home. But they were staying over? Porca miseria!

  And so she rushed me out her window, kiss on my lips and eyes wide with fright. Born mafia, there was no need for details; a Santa Colombini sleeping with a Nascimbeni? Never, never. If we were found out, I’d die a torturous death, and she’d suffer gut-wrenching punishments.

  “You’re smiling?” Tatiana squints at me. “Thinking about Ariadna?”

  “Eh. Just stuff from the last time I was here. I was young and dumb. Others were too. We did shit we regretted, and I guess, didn’t regret at the same time. It’s complicated.”

  She returns her gaze to the window, at ancient walls with flaking paint, a sun that dances over terracotta roofs. It’s not difficult to catch her vibe; Tatiana is fuming.

  “Everything’s complicated when it comes to that chick, huh?” she mutters.

  “That’s sort of true.” I smile wider. Can’t say I don’t enjoy it when my ice queen hits her boiling point.

  “This is it,” Marty says from the driver’s seat.

  “Okay. Let’s get on it.”

  My guys jump out first, boxing in Tatiana and me while escorting us to the entrance of a three-story building. It rests wall against wall with similar weatherworn constructions, top tiles blurring against the sunshine above us. We have the water at our backs, but this isn’t tourist Venice. This is real Venice, where Venetians live and mobsters hide.

  My stare flicks to Tatiana, a brass goddess striding forward. She’s at my side where I want her, but what if she snitches—backstabs—destroys?

  “You’re chuckling,” she murmurs against my shoulder, her hand light on my spine. She hooks a finger inside the rim of my pants, walking with me. I don’t object. Fritz notices. Turns away. It’s not capo behavior to let your woman hold on like she owns you.

  But I’m no capo. I’m here by accident, by famiglia, by love. And I shake the thought off before it can rock the plans I’m weaving in my mind.

  “Signore, welcome. Everyone’s upstairs, waiting for the briefing,” Sebastian says. I scoot the woman I don’t trust in front of me, into a narrow stairway closed in by short steps and dark walls. I keep my palms around her hips, feeling her shift, the undulations of her ascent causing my chest to seize.

  “Looking forward to it,” I say. Adrenaline floods my veins, wanting me on the streets, but for this to work out, I need to join brains and hearts in a common goal.

  We’re in this together. The Santa Colombini have one of ours. It’s an easy hate, an easy death. My mission is to make all energy burst alive with purpose, for all men gathered here to become one organism. As I take the podium under the low ceiling in Maritima Rocu number 59, the situation is clearer to me than ever.

  The Nascimbeni clan in Venice isn’t big enough to pull this off on our own. We’d need sheer luck to jump the Santa Colombini without the full effort of the Nascimbeni loyals, so this meeting is make or break.

  “Amici!” I shout, raise my arms high, the dim lights in front of me keeping the crowd of burly men as silhouettes.

  The room responds with an instant roar. Bully and Fritz flank me, their giant’s arms crossed while they stare out over the crowd. Tatiana is in the front row. Ivory bright, she stands out, small and feminine, between Marty and Carlos. Taller and wider, their shoulders curve above hers in protection.

  “Finalmente sono con voi!” I pump my fist in the air. Clutched fists raise in front of me, twenty, thirty of them, then the whole room erupts.

 
“Cuccio-lo! Cuccio-lo!”

  I inhale the rush of their enthusiasm. I wasn’t born here, didn’t grow up here, and still they trust me. I give Sebastian a nod. He’ll translate from now on.

  “It’s time we stop this terror! Again, they have one of our own. The Santa Colombini have abducted my cousin, a sweet, smart, beautiful woman from under our noses. She’d barely stepped off the plane when they took her, and she came here with no harm in mind. She came here to hug you!”

  I point at the women in the back, relatives with Gabriela’s gaze, with brows pulling down toward the temples in the melancholy way of the Nascimbeni. “Are we going to let them get away with this?”

  “No!” The shout comes from an old man in the front. “No. No. No!”

  I don’t recognize him until the others join him, stomping the rhythm of their No! No! No! It’s my mother’s uncle Guasparre from the Terra clan.

  My chest inflates, their uproar setting fire to my own fury, to my frustration, my panic, my desperation.

  “It’s over!” I bellow. “Amedeo’s reign of terror is over!”

  Every family here has bled at the knife of the Santa Colombini, and they roar their agreement, fists shaking.

  “We’re taking him down. We’re doing this together. Uniti! Who’s with me?”

  Sebastian’s hoarse rendition booms in Italian. Shoulders tense and fists clenched along his thighs, he multiplies the impact of my challenge. The clans pull toward us, closer, tighter, until they’re one will burning, one heart beating.

  A shift suddenly stirs the back of the crowd. It zigzags forward, with big men stepping aside to the appearance of the smallest girl. She could be nine—she could—and she doesn’t stop until she’s all the way at the front.

  Dark braids straight along a thin neck, she lifts her hand, palm forward and fingers spread toward me. Eyes burning with intent, the girl opens her mouth and calls, in a timber so light it’s crystal: “Avanti, Nascimbeni!”

  It’s been a fucking long day. The Terras, the Neros, and eight other clans have been combing the city and the countryside with Sebastian as the point of contact. He reports the most important findings back to me, like Umberto, Randolfo’s brother getting in a car and speeding off from his storefront. Santa Colombinis are everywhere in this area, and the two families don’t usually engage in open hostilities, what with the scrutiny of the polizia. For decades, they’ve had entire departments dedicated to eradicating the mafia.

  Unfortunately, you’re no good unless you can think, and I haven’t slept in two days, so in the end, I cave and let Sebastian drop Tatiana and me off at my uncle’s for a nap.

  “Call me immediately if you find something,” I clip out.

  “Definitely, signore.”

  I don’t even make love to her. I fall into deep sleep with Tatiana in my arms. The last thing I remember is the small girl with the heart-shaped face and the braids, hatred burning in her eyes as she called the families to action. She’s a Terra. Her mother fell to Santa Colombini bullets a year ago, and no vendetta was ever conducted. What injustice.

  I wake up with a start, alone in the bed.

  Tatiana better just be in the bathroom.

  She’s not.

  I walk through the house, which is empty with the exception of my great aunt and the two guys I’ve got stationed up front. Everyone else is out hunting Colombinis.

  “Ciao, Zia,” I begin, kissing my great aunt’s cheek. “Have you seen Tatiana?”

  My great aunt bobs her head and tells me the beauty of l’americanina is as pure as that of a Sardinian wedding doll. She pads ahead of me, leading the way to my uncle’s study, and there she is, my queen, on the phone, turning, smiling, and saying her goodbyes as soon as she sees me.

  I pull her into my arms, mad that she left my bed. Angry that she’s incorrigible. Relieved that she didn’t leave the house. The saucy little thing would have talked her way out if she wanted to, I realize. She’d outsmart the guys up front in a heartbeat. Isaias wanted a new throwaway. I snort while I kiss the top of her head. What the fuck was that?

  My phone buzzes. I fish it out of my pocket and press it against my ear. “Sebastian?”

  “Isaias. It’s time.”

  I’m satisfied when the midnight moon slides behind a black cloud, leaving the world at the mercy of dim streetlights. Ten cars strong, we storm a dilapidated one-story on the backside of a farm house a couple of miles north of the city.

  We splinter the windows on all sides and crash through the front door. Forty of us meet face to face at the heart of its ravaged entrails.

  We’re too late.

  “This is it, though. They were here. Lorenzo’s photos were taken from right there, through the window. They had Gabriela hanging from the ceiling.” He points at a hook at the center of the living room.

  “Well, they’re gone now,” I snap. “Any details on what they were doing?”

  Sebastian’s guy steps forward. “Signore. Intimidating her. Seems they wanted answers, so they weren’t letting her faint.”

  Fuck. I tug at my hair.

  Sebastian’s phone buzzes with new intel. “They’ve been spotted in a dark van heading toward the outskirts, probably Testaprati Island.”

  “Get in the cars!”

  Gravel crunches under our feet, rustling the calm of the surroundings. I slam the backdoor shut behind Tatiana and get into the front next to Sebastian. Then, we rocket out of the driveway, back to Venice.

  “Do we know who lives with the old man at Il Palazzo Rosa?” I ask, forcing calm. The fear of losing what you’ve never had can be crippling. Now, I want him to give me good news, news so new I don’t have it.

  “Amedeo likes to keep his famiglia around.” Sebastian floats a look at me before returning to the road. “The wife is still alive. Randolfo’s eldest brother lives there, and the youngest sister, I believe, never moved out. There are some grandkids, Umberto’s woman and such, apart from the staff.”

  Family ties are everything. Treason from a family member means death in general, and the Santa Colombini are infamous for their cruelty. The odds of Gabriela and Ariadna being under the same hostile roof right now are huge. If the girls can’t keep the truth concealed—

  Intense pain shoots through my brain. It’s like a streak of lightning, and I groan, steadying my head in my hands. I don’t have time for this.

  “I want all women and children alive,” I say.

  Sebastian stares at me questioningly.

  “I don’t care if they’re Colombini. I want them all alive.”

  “Got it.”

  A single man glides off in a motorless boat. We watch him disappear from sight, knowing he’ll dive in once he’s close to the shore of Testaprati Island.

  On our side, every Nascimbeni loyal joins the Terra, the Nero, the Feltrini, and the Casaconti. They congregate silently, forming a circle around us, hands rubbing their guns and talking quietly. It takes our spy fifteen minutes to return.

  Tatiana stands next to me, the only woman in this group. Her eyes are large, the whites of her eyes glinting in the low light.

  “Signori.” Our spy gives a curt nod to me, then to Sebastian, the ocean water glistening in his hair. “You were right. Umberto is back, and his van is in the front yard. All car doors are open as if they were in a hurry.”

  “How many men do you estimate in there?”

  “Hard to tell without going all the way in. The property is large and the fence high—”

  “Just give me a guess,” I mutter. “We’re out of time.”

  “Well, I saw four cars in the driveway. We know he usually has about a dozen men stationed on the property when he’s gone, so it’d be them plus however many were in the cars.”

  I rub two fingers over my chin. “Fifty?”

  “Sounds about right.”

&n
bsp; I look around me. Start counting my men. All these loyals detest the Santa Colombini from the depths of their hearts. They’ve had their stores burned down, their daughters raped, their sons maimed. I stop counting when a small dark man in the front husks out, “Trecentouno.”

  “Three hundred and one men,” Sebastian translates.

  I turn to Tatiana. Those eyes of hers. I don’t want them to shut forever.

  “Please?” I murmur though I could easily have her removed by force. She holds my stare. Then she nods. I swallow, looking her over. “I can have someone drive you back to the house?”

  She crosses her arms, tipping her chin up. “Yeah.”

  “Because I don’t want you hurt.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  “And this is going to be a bloodbath.”

  “I’m aware.”

  I swallow again. Around me, the men shift restlessly.

  I lean forward, grab her chin, and pull her against my mouth. While I kiss her, I inhale the scent of warm sugar through my nostrils. It could be for the last time.

  “Straight home,” I say. “Straight back to my uncle’s house.”

  She nods again, eyes twinkling, and hikes a thumb backward at my little cousin Federico. It’s a good choice; Federico shouldn’t be here anyway. He’s too young to die.

  “Isaias?” Her voice is so low it’s barely audible.

  “Yeah?”

  “Stay safe.”

  “I will.” The air is colder than it should be at this time of year. I watch her walk off. I’m not the only man curving my eyes over her slight shape as she glides back toward the cars. Federico follows. Holds the door of a small Fiat open for her. The car rocks a little as she hops in, and I feel a fucking whole lot lighter when that door slams shut and they drive off.

  “So. We’re three hundred and one men strong?”

  Sebastian curls his lip in a grin. “Almost.”

  “Easy.” I lift my fist in the air and shake it once to my men. And for a nine-year-old with a lot to lose, I roar, “Avanti!”