Ever since I started trying to put my father’s company back together, I’d been getting up at five and sitting in my office chair by six. My hard work in cobbling together the remains of my father’s import business made me feel, for the first time in my dilettante life, that I had earned—and possibly even deserved—a vacation.
The work had been good for me. I’d created a mixed-use development that housed formerly homeless people and gave them a chance to work in the building at the street level businesses below. The idea took off and now I was working with cities in Atlanta and Boston to develop similar projects.
It was a far cry from only a year ago, where I was out every night obliterating myself with alcohol until I left with a one-night stand or the bartender kicked me out.
It was a luxury to sleep in again. And it felt good not to wake up with a hangover.
But I was craving coffee. Inching away from Bobby’s sleeping form, I froze when he grumbled something in his sleep. But then I was at the edge of the bed and able to slip out from under the covers and onto the stone floor.
Throwing a fluffy white bathrobe on, I padded down the curving stone stairs to the kitchen and fished out the moka pot and a fresh bag of beans. Worried the sound would wake Bobby, I took the grinder and hid in the pantry, closing the door until the beans were ground into an intoxicating powder. Bobby had made me a coffee snob. He had worked at a coffee shop with its own roaster in college and now had me hooked on the good stuff.
A lot of the changes in my lifestyle were influenced by Bobby’s solid presence in my life. He had showed me that it was okay to grieve my family’s untimely deaths. We met the night before my brother Christopher’s murder and two years after my parents had been killed.
My fucked-up way of dealing with my grief had been driving too fast, drinking too much, doing drugs, and sleeping around.
I still liked to drive fast. And God knows, I liked my booze, but I now realized there was a time and place for both. I kept my speed trials to the Laguna Seca racetrack and I tried not to drink a lot on weekdays. I learned the hard way that too much bourbon at night made for a shit time at work the following day.
God, I was becoming so boring.
But even thinking this made me smile. The coffee was percolating into the top of the moka pot when I noticed the table outside on the stone patio overlooking the sea had fresh fruit, and a pitcher of orange juice, and loaf of bread. There was also a stack of newspapers. The caretaker, God bless him, had already been here this morning!
Cradling my warm coffee mug, I headed out to the table and flipped through the paper, an Italian newspaper in English. I skimmed the headlines.
“Italian fashion house to go fur-free.”
“Inmates visited by Pope tried to escape with him.”
“Charges dropped against a plastic surgeon who had twelve patients die under the knife.”
“Queen of Spades declares war on La La Cosa Nostra”
I paused on that last one. Who the fuck was the Queen of Spades?
I read on.
“The elusive mob boss, the Queen of Spades, has declared war on La Cosa Nostra after a boy riding his bike was gunned down during an exchange of gunfire between drug dealers and an angry store owner.
“She is crazy. A woman going after La Cosa Nostra? Ridiculous.”
But the Queen of Spades is different than traditional mafiosi, others said in the article.
“She shows up out of nowhere and starts taking out the drug dealers. There is proof that opioid deaths have declined since she showed up. She claims to want to make Sicily’s streets and towns safer. She’s welcome in Calabria, anytime, said Pizzo Mayor Giacomo Camelli.”
But Police Chief Carlo Massimo said just because she’s targeting other criminals makes her no less of a murderer.
I felt Bobby behind me before I heard him. I leaped up to hug him. He buried his face in my hair and started kissing the back of my neck.
“You smell so good. I just want to lick you all over,” he said in a low voice in my ear that made me weak.
“The coffee is getting cold,” I gestured helplessly at the moka pot.
“I don’t care about coffee.” He scooted my chair back and then picked it up and me in one smooth move so I was facing him. Then he reached down and pulled me to a standing position, grabbing me by my hips and pulling me close, grinding himself into me until I was moaning with desire.
“You. Are. Damn. Sexy. Santella.” He said the words in my ear in a deep voice that sent shivers down my spine. His lips traced a path down my neck, down my collarbone and then paused to look up at me. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone in my life.”
He growled the words and ripped the robe off my shoulders so hard I gasped. I reached up and ran my fingers through his silky hair, my mouth hard against his.
We made love like it was the last day before the apocalypse.
I’m not gonna lie. We broke a piece of the patio furniture. But it was worth it.
After a short nap on lounge chairs by the pool, soaking in the Mediterranean sun in the buff, Bobby padded into the kitchen to make more coffee. I took a sip of coffee from the mug he handed me and sighed. “If I could spend every morning like this I would die happy.”
“You can.”
I gave him a skeptical look. “Buying new furniture every day could get expensive,” I said, gesturing to the chaise lounge we had demolished.
“Very funny,” he said. “I meant you could spend every morning... with me.” He sounded tentative. Although he sometimes stayed the night, I had made it clear that he needed to keep his own apartment. Moving in was a big-time commitment in my book.
“Let’s eat,” I said to change the subject. “We’re meeting Dante and Matt at the florist at three.”
I ignored the fact that I’d skirted his insinuation in the old Gia way. The Gia I didn’t want to be anymore. Talk of a life together was a little too soon. I fantasized about it, but was too afraid to say anything out loud.
Besides, we did need to eat now if we were going to make it to the florist on time. It was Italian tradition for the groom to pick out the flowers for the bride. With two grooms, they’d decided to go do it together and, rather than each hold a bouquet, have Mrs. Marino, Dante’s mother hold one. Matt’s mom was boycotting the wedding. While she seemed to accept that Matt was in a relationship with Dante, attending the wedding was apparently too gay to handle. I felt bad for Matt.
“I’ll make us toast for brunch,” I said, slicing the loaf. “Fire up that grill, would you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bobby said.
“Ma’am? Seriously,” I griped. “I’m twenty-three. I don’t think anyone can call me ma’am for another twenty years.”
“I can think of a few other choice names to call you when you’re bossing me around like that ...”
“Watch it.” I threw the heel of the bread at him.
“What?” he said, settling in at the table. “Now that we’re in your homeland, you gonna take out a hit on me or something if I don’t behave? Call your mob family?”
I glared at him.
“Need some reading material?” I tossed him the paper. “Don’t make fun of the mafia. They are probably listening to us right now. Speaking of the mob. There’s an article in there about some mafia boss who’s a woman. Check it out. She sounds like a bad ass. Going up against La Cosa Nostra.”
“Sounds like she has a death wish.”
“Maybe.”
“For sure.”
“Hey, I just remembered. Don’t forget to practice your ‘Per cent'anni’ toast.”
As the best man, Bobby had to give the Hundred Years of Good Luck toast at the rehearsal dinner. He didn’t answer. “Bobby? Did you hear me?”
“Huh?” He was immersed in the newspaper.
“The toast. The best man’s duty. Don’t forget. Tonight.”
“Piece of cake.” He ran a hand through his silky hair and then looked back down at the p
aper. “Wow. This woman, the Queen of Spades? How come we haven’t heard about her?”
“Um, because we live in America.” I refilled his mug with coffee and handed it to him.
He took a sip and made a happy sound. “Perfect!”
I went back to the grill, placing the bread slices on it now that it was hot.
“What’s it say about her?” I asked.
He had flipped to the inside page to read the rest of the article. “Nobody really knows what she looks like or who she really is. She leaves a playing card, the Queen of Spades, on porches and on dead bodies. It’s her calling card.”
For a second, a flicker of something flashed across my mind, but before I could grasp ahold of it, it was gone.
Bobby was still talking. “They don’t know if she’s young or old. Nothing. But she apparently has a band of loyal followers who are highly skilled assassins. This says she’s declared war on Sicily’s mob boss after a boy on a bike was killed yesterday.”
I flipped the toast. It was nicely browned on one side.
“Good for her. My kind of woman.”
I took the paper out of his hands. “Enough reading. Go get some jam. I saw a few crocks on the fridge. And maybe some honey. Oh, and the butter.”
“Cool. Be right back.”
After a few minutes, when he hadn’t returned and the bread was toasted, I put it on a plate and headed in to check on him. He was juggling three bottles of jam and a butter crock. He turned and, startled by my sudden appearance, dropped the jam jars, which went skittering across the counter and sent a bottle of olive oil crashing toward the floor.
I stood, frozen, looking at the seeping mess.
Bobby touched my arm. “Gia? You okay? I was talking to you and you didn’t answer. It’s just a spill. I’ll clean it up, no problem.”
“Oh.” I stared at the glinting slivers of glass and the seeping yellow-greenish oil on the tile floor.
“What? Was that some million-dollar brand of olive oil or something retrieved from the ancient ruins of Pompeii.” He was joking but my throat was dry.
I smiled and tried to brush off the dread that had streaked through me. It was just a dumb superstition, anyway.
But I couldn’t shake the memory of my godfather’s horror when his wife had dropped the small carafe of oil onto the floor at their Carmel home. She had made the sign of the cross, but my godfather had cursed up a blue streak in Italian, saying she had cursed them. She clutched her protruding belly with wide eyes. Within six months, both she and the baby died.
“It’s just a stupid superstition. God, I wish my parents would’ve never told me about them. I’ll never be able to put a hat on a bed again in my life.”
“I thought that was something they made up just for Drugstore Cowboy?”
“No, it’s an old superstition. Something about the priest putting his hat on the bed when he gave last rites or something. They’re all absurd.”
“And yet,” Bobby said. “You still let them bother you?”
I shrugged, unrolling a massive stack of paper towels to blot the oil once he got the glass picked up.
“What’s the broken glass mean?”
“It’s not the glass breaking, it’s the spilled olive oil,” I said.
“Okay. But what’s it mean?” He met my eyes.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Come on, spill it. No pun intended.” He was on his knees, plucking fragments of broken glass out of the oil slick and putting them in a big bowl.
“Something stupid, like bad luck and misery spill into your life with the oil.”
“Whatever.” He smiled.
I couldn’t manage to smile back.
“What other superstitions do you believe in that I need to know about?” he asked.
“Birds that fly into your house. Whistling indoors. Not marrying on a Friday.”
“Phew. Glad Dante’s wedding is Thursday.”
“Right?” He took the broom from me.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “If you’re single and someone else is sweeping, don’t let them touch your feet with the broom.”
He jokingly reached for my feet with the bristles. I shrieked and backed away. “No, seriously, if the broom touches my feet it means I’ll never get married.”
He paused and smiled. “What are you trying to say, Gia?”
I glared at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Tipping the broom toward me, he said.
“So, should I touch you with the broom?”
“Knock it off.” I was getting angry.
“Are you trying to say that you do want to get married someday?” His grin melted the anger away.
“I’d like that possibility.” I said, haughtily. “But only with someone who doesn’t make fun of my superstitious nature.”
He laughed. I did, too. I took a deep breath, exhaled and tried to brush it off and lighten the mood. “Okay, here’s one for you. It’s the most important Italian superstition you need to know about. If you forget the rest, you must remember this one.”
He rolled his eyes. He blotted up the oil with the paper towels and put them in the bowl.
“No, really. You ready?” I hollered from the walk-in pantry as I searched for a broom.
“I guess you’re going to tell me no matter what, right?”
“Right. So ... the most important one to remembers is always, always, always make eye contact when someone makes a toast.”
“Or you have seven years of bad luck?” He was clearly still irritated.
“Worse. You’re right about the seven years. But it’s not bad luck. It’s seven years of bad sex!”
His eyes widened. “I’d rather have the other misery. You know, the one from spilling the oil.”
“I know, right?”
“I’ll go grab my jacket and we’ll leave,” he said.
As soon as he turned away, my smile faded. I was too superstitious to say it out loud, but knew that if I lost another person I loved, I didn’t think I could go on. I stared out at the lanai. Shards of sunlight reflected off the sea below and scattered prisms of light across the pool area.
Just then a massive black bird swooped down onto the open-air patio and perched on the top of a chair. Startled, I jumped back and knocked into a table. The bird just stared at me.
My heart was pounding. But I took a deep breath. The lanai was an outdoor and indoor space. Really it was a room open to the elements. That meant the bird wasn’t actually inside, right? It wasn’t another bad omen, right?
Right?
CHAPTER FIVE
FOR SOME REASON, I’D thought “florist” meant crowded little shop in town packed with bouquets. But when I plugged the address into my phone, we were led up a winding dirt road that hugged the cliff a little too closely for Bobby’s taste. His knuckles clutched the arm rest in the passenger seat of our Fiat 500. I patted his arm.
“Don’t worry. I’m a professionally trained driver, remember?”
“You are trained to race on a track, not keep small, Italian go-carts on goat paths.”
“Ha.” But he was right. The car we’d rented provided as much protection as riding in a rickshaw.
I sneaked a glance over at the sweeping views. An island was visible in the distance. The crunch of rocks alerted me that I’d gone off road a little. No harm, no foul.
“Jesus Christ, quit sightseeing.” Bobby said.
“Oops.” I gripped the steering wheel and concentrated on the curve ahead.
As we neared the crest of the hill, I jerked the wheel. A woman with a bent back and a head scarf, all in black, walked along the narrow edge of the road. She looked up and met my eye. It was a strega. A witch. I knew with every fiber of my being.
Her eyes looked at me as if she knew me. She put up her hand as if to ward away my car, but it was unnecessary. I gave her plenty of room as we passed. I didn’t want to be responsible for sending an old woman plunging off an Italian cliff. Even a
witch. A harmless keeper of the ancient ways. Something I didn’t believe in, anyway.
My mother had spoken of growing up in Sicily where there was a village strega who read Tarot cards, called Tarochi. The woman had accurately predicted my great grandparents’ deaths, apparently. But whenever we came across anyone reading the cards, my mother would make the sign of the cross.
Once she did that in a dark alley during a festival in Monterey and the woman sitting at the table flipped out and nearly attacked my mother. She accused my mother of ruining her cards. The woman, bedecked in flowing scarves and layers of necklaces, ranted, face red, waving her arms. My mother didn’t say a word, not blinking, her chin held high, holding firm to my hand. Not challenging the woman, but waiting patiently for the tirade to end. She didn’t flinch or show a sign of weakness, but I noticed her hand rested on the cross at her neck. Finally, the woman backed off. Mumbling under her breath, she packed up her things and left. My mother stood her ground, not moving until the woman had disappeared.
My mother wasn’t scared of any witch and neither was I. But still a wave of unease rippled through me as I watched the hunched figure grow smaller in my rearview mirror.
“Everything okay?” Bobby was always tuned in to my every emotion.
“Yeah.” I smiled at him. I didn’t want to admit that this morning still had me on edge. There’s being superstitious and then there’s just being stupid and letting shit ruin your day.
But he was more worried about the cliff on the side of us than any old wives’ tales. He clutched the door handle as if he were going to leap out any minute.
Finally, we turned a corner and saw a stone house with fields behind it and a large circle drive with a few cars parked on the edge.
I looked over at Bobby. “We made it. See, silly, you had nothing to worry about.”
He didn’t answer. His face was a little green.
As we approached, a white vintage Lancia Aurelia spun its wheels on the gravel driveway as it zipped past, kicking up a puff of dirt. I caught a glimpse of the driver. Dark, sleek, slicked back hair. Dark sunglasses. That movie star dude from the restaurant last night. Dante had said this florist was internationally famous. Millionaires from around the world had arrangements overnighted for special occasions. Suppose it made sense celebrities would shop here. He probably ordered a ten-thousand-dollar bouquet for his hotel room. On a whim. For the hell of it.
Gia Santella Crime Thriller Boxed Set: Books 1-3 (Gia Santella Crime Thrillers) Page 35
