“Boundaries are there for a reason, Mariposa.”
“You didn’t say that we couldn’t share anything. You only said that in time you’d give me the heart and all its veins. Just like I said in time I’d give you my body. I did.”
He sighed. “Twenty fucking questions.”
“Ooh! I’ll go first.”
“I didn’t agree, Mariposa.”
“You didn’t say no, either. And you kinda said yes. You said—”
He put his hand over my mouth and I tried to bite him, but he didn’t have enough fat on his palm. “I know what I said.”
“Ten questions.” My voice was muffled.
He released my mouth. “Two.”
“Two? That’s one each. That’s measly. That’s nothing. That’s being tight. You’re so free with money, why not with all your words?”
“Words are worth more than money.”
“Words are free, Capo. This is costing me nothing. See? There is no little man running around with a collection jar, screaming, ‘Tab! You have a tab!’ There is no tab for words.”
“Both questions are for me and I’m sure it’ll cost me something.”
“You don’t have one for me?” That was about right. He knew everything about me. And what he didn’t? It didn’t matter. I was boring. All I did was survive. I hadn’t even had sex until him.
He studied my face for a moment. “Actually. I do have a question.”
“Just one?”
“Uno.”
All right, I mentally rubbed my hands together like a villain in a romantic novel. I had a bargaining chip. “For your one question, about me, I can ask you more than two, as long as they don’t cross any invisible lines. And I go last.”
“Twenty fucking questions.” He sighed. Then he dipped down and took my nipple in his mouth, and as his tongue did really magical things to me, I pushed against him. My lower stomach contracted, and immediately, the ache between my legs started to make me feel sensitive all over. He bit me, hard, and I pulled his hair. He released me suddenly. “Ask.”
“What?” I panted. “Now?”
He chuckled and told me to stop pouting. “You wanted to do this. Play this ridiculous game of info hunting.”
“I do.” I lifted up, resting on my elbow, facing him. My nipples tingled, craving the friction against his chest, but I soldiered on. “Have you ever been in love?”
“No. Next.”
“Wait. Wait.” I held a hand up. “That’s it? No?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “That question deserves no more than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.”
I waved a hand, dismissing his clipped tone. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Gold.”
My questions continued in this vein for a while. I kept the questions basic, because after the first one, I knew he’d say that I tripped some invisible line and use it to get to my question. I was saving the burning questions for last.
After I ran out of the basic ones, I asked, “Is your dad a bad man?”
I had seen pictures of his mother, was told stories of her, but no one had ever mentioned his father. It was like he was a hot subject that no one wanted to touch. I tried to bring him up with the sisters, but they refused to gossip about him, claiming that he was rotten, and that was all I needed to know.
He became quiet. “He’s not a bad man. He’s a bad soul.”
The intensity in his eyes made me turn mine away. I looked at the sheet, picking at nothing. “Is that why you’re so close to the Faustis? They treat you like family?”
What Keely had said to me before the wedding, about how lonely people find criminal crowds to get close to, came back to me. Was that what had happened to him? Was his father missing from his life? Abusive? So he ran to the Scarpone family? Then to the Faustis when that didn’t work out—when he refused to let them kill me?
From what I had learned about the Faustis, their word was as good as their blood, and if they took you into their fold, you were there for life, as long as you didn’t double cross them. They seemed exceptionally close to Capo.
Of course, Uncle Tito shared blood with Capo, and Uncle Tito was married to Lola Fausti, so there was a connection. But it seemed stronger than that. They were loyal to him. Just as loyal as he was to them.
It seemed…a little overkill to me, though. Why go looking for that kind of family, swearing fealty to them, when you had an amazing one, a real one, right at your fingertips?
“Use all of your words, Mariposa, since they cost so little.”
I breathed in and then out. “Do you…do illegal things for the Faustis?”
“Yes.” The word was clear-cut, but far from simple. “I have and I do. The Faustis were there for me during a really hard time in my life. They didn’t have to help me, but they did. I call the people on this land my family because I share blood with them, and they’ve never been anything but good to me and mine. Including you. The Faustis are my family because when I was in the trenches bleeding out, they sat beside the angel and promised me that vengeance would one day be mine.”
“You’d kill for them.”
“I have.”
I swallowed hard. “Do they…protect you?”
“They keep an eye out, but for the most part, I make my own way. I asked one thing of them, Mariposa. That they give me time—that means a few different things. They keep an eye out. They tell me when someone that’s not supposed to come close does from time to time. I needed to secure time to set things in motion, and that’s what they’ve done for me. But when the time comes to collect dues, it’ll be my enemies and me. No one else.”
“I really don’t understand.” His words made me nervous. I knew he was into bad dealings from the moment I saw him outside of the restaurant. Each time I was near him, something around him alerted me to the fact that he was powerful, in control, and there were people who wanted to test those hard lines.
He had never hidden anything from me, but I knew there was more. The heart, as he had called it during the meeting, and all of the veins that led to it. When was he going to share them? My life was on the line. So was his. And that made me nervous. More than it should have. The thought of never seeing him again did wicked things to my thoughts and feelings.
Keely and her brothers, the Faustis, all of Capo’s family, they all felt like veins in my body. Capo. He felt like my heart.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Where did that come from?
“You will,” he said. “In time.”
I couldn’t understand the look on his face. Either he had gone deep enough to see the thoughts I’d just had, or he was close to discovering them. Even though it wasn’t love, it had to do with matters of the heart. He couldn’t find out, or he might terminate the deal on grounds that love, or anything close to it, was never supposed to be a part of our deal.
“Time to pay up.” He squeezed my thigh, bringing my attention back to him.
My eyes found his. I’d been staring at the tattoo on his hand. “If words have a price, take my money,” I barely got out.
“Have you ever liked a boy?”
“You mean like a crush?”
“Whatever you kids call it these days.”
Despite my sudden fear, I smiled to hide my earlier thoughts and the feelings they left behind. “No.” Lie.
“Have you ever been in love, Mariposa?”
I squeezed the sheets, and then pulled the covers up to hide my breasts, or maybe my heart. “That’s two questions.”
He shrugged. “Since your words cost niente, I might as well go for broke, since they cost me so much. Tell me if you’ve ever been in love.”
“Love wasn’t created for girls like me.” Avoiding a lie.
He was right. Words were not free, and mine had cost me il tutto. Everything. I had never been so broke in my entire life.
The breath whooshed out of me when Capo suddenly flipped me on my back, his body hovering over mine. When I’d thought of him as a wave sweeping me
out to his ocean? Yeah, I’d hit the mark. Half of the time, he could steal my breath without even touching me. Luckily, he hadn’t slammed into a metaphorical rock yet.
“Game over, Mariposa.” His eyes were intense on mine. After a few heartbeats, he said, “You trust me.”
That took me for a wild turn. “What? Are you in my head now, Capo?” His chest barely touched my breasts, and a soft, whimpering sound came from my mouth.
“More than words, Mariposa,” he said. “Learn what it means to speak to me without words.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, exactly, but my head was getting too clouded by him to figure it out. I looked at my wrist pinned in his grip. “I do. Trust you.”
“You do. I had my hand over your mouth earlier and you didn't even notice.”
Shit. I hadn't.
“You trust me,” he said again.
Something told me his statement had nothing to do with my feelings, but something more...sexual. I was thankful for the turn. Maybe he wouldn’t see how broke my words had made me while he was busy with other…things.
“I do,” I said again, pushing my hips up to meet his erection.
He grinned and the look went straight between my legs. His hands slid between my thighs and I sucked in a breath, slowly pushing it out. His fingers slid, slid, slid, until he started to massage my behind. “See, you do,” he whispered. “You understand me without the use of words.”
Whatever he had in mind was the best distraction, and inevitably, I would understand without the use of words. I’d be consumed by nothing but feelings.
19
Mariposa
Before I knew it, we’d been married (again) for two weeks. When we had first arrived, I couldn’t keep my eyes on Capo long enough to keep track of him. After we were married (again), his eyes were always on me, mine on him, and we were inseparable.
It seemed like he was purposely trying to make an effort to spend time with me. Maybe it was because our honeymoon, to some unknown destination that Capo had picked, had been postponed. It didn’t seem like he had it in him to feel sorry for anything, but it seemed like he was trying to make up for it. After all, it had been a part of our deal.
We had forever to honeymoon. There was no telling how long his grandfather had left, and I wanted us to stay and hang out with him.
Since we had some time on our hands, and Capo found out that I didn’t know how to ride a bike, or how to swim, he took the time to teach me how to do both.
The beaches in Sicily were something out of an aquatic fairy tale. The colors of the water were vivid, from sea-glass green to sapphire-lagoon blue. The sun was hot and the sand white. And the smells—lemon, fresh water, coconut, even seafood—made me drunk on summer.
It took me about a week to really feel secure in the water, but I didn’t worry too much because Capo stood close to me at all times, even after I felt secure in what he had taught me. Evening swims were my favorite, when the sun sunk down into the water and the prettiest colors lit up the sky, right before the stars fell from heaven.
Heaven. I decided it had to be real after being consumed by something so perfect as the ocean.
Capo taught me how to ride a bike in front of our hidden villa on the days we didn’t go to the beach. I did a lot of shimmying from side to side at first. I fell three times and then once on purpose. After that, I caught on, and some evenings we took rides through the groves not long before sunset.
The air was perfumed with fresh lemon zest and overly ripe blood oranges. The scents came out in the evening, like they had been holding on to the heat, and after the blazing sun went down, they released their perfumes. Sometimes we continued to ride even after the sun had set so I could get lost in the fallen stars.
Paradiso. I decided it had to be real after being consumed by something so perfect as a simple bike ride through hundreds of fruit trees.
How kind and good the world seemed when the devil stumbled and fell over your heels instead of being on them.
Some days, Capo came with me to the hammock I liked to sleep in at the hottest time of the day. The oversized hat I wore shielded my eyes from the sun while my body soaked up the heat. He’d read to me his grandfather’s poems. He’d read to me his grandfather’s poems. The old man never would. He’d said that if I wanted to read them, I was welcome to it, but he’d rather make up stories, or read to me from someone else’s book.
When it was bearable for his grandfather to enjoy his garden, Capo walked him out and then took a seat next to him on a wooden bench. While the two men sat close, I listened as Nonno directed me—move this there, it needs more sun. Move that one there, it needs less. Prune that a bit. Let that one go for a while. It needs time to grow wilder.
During one of our visits, he had told me that plants were a lot like people. They were all so different, but at the same time—they all need the basics to grow, and without roots, none of them can survive. Right after he had said the words, he had searched for Capo and found him watching us from afar.
“He enjoys your beauty,” he had said to me. “He does not feel that he deserves such a gift.”
I had fixed the floppy hat on my head and continued to water. Enjoying my beauty was stretching it, I thought, but Capo had been watching us. Even though we had spent time apart before the wedding, I never felt like he was too far away. Part of it, I knew, was the fact that his grandfather was dying.
I saw the way he looked at Nonno when he thought Nonno wasn’t looking. It was like Capo was trying to absorb the memory of him, but he didn’t want to face the last moments he’d ever have. Whenever someone made a comment about how tired Nonno was becoming, or how his coloring had turned paler, or he wasn’t eating as much, Capo turned away and refused to listen.
Maybe the family saw something I didn’t. Comparing the man I first met to the man sitting on the bench, his face turned up to the soft sun, I thought he looked better. He looked…content. When I’d first met him, I felt no peace, but I didn’t know it then.
After we’d arrived, and especially after our wedding, something in Nonno had changed, something that made me feel the life in him again, even though all of his doctors said that he was fading.
Turning from the plant I’d been pruning, I narrowed my eyes at the sight in front of me.
Both men said nothing as they sat beside each other, watching me tend to the garden. They were being quiet with each other. Whatever Capo held back bothered Nonno. I think Nonno knew that Capo wanted to tell him things, things he’d never be able to tell him again, but his refusal of the situation stopped him.
I wanted to tell Capo that even though I was a girl from the streets and didn’t have much experience with living life, I knew that he didn’t have to use his words to speak to his grandfather, just like he’d told me to look past words and understand something deeper in him.
Since Nonno had worked with words all of his life, he seemed to understand what words could only hint at. There were deeper meanings to be found, if we only opened our hearts, not our eyes or ears, to them.
Nonno wanted Capo to be happy.
Capo wanted to tell his grandfather all that his mouth (or was it his heart?) refused to say, but he couldn’t; that would mean final. So Capo found joy in nothing. Even when we were intimate, he buried the pain of this. Sometimes, of what felt like so much more.
I knew Capo Macchiavello was not a good man, but he was mine. As long as I lived, I’d be the woman standing next to him. I’d do whatever it took to take care of him like he took care of me.
An idea hit me then.
Grinning, I lifted the hose, testing out the water pressure. The world had turned pink from the setting sun, and as a soft shower sprayed out, it reminded me of glitter being tossed in the air. A second later, it settled on the ground like dew, and I did it again.
The action got Nonno’s attention, but Capo was watching some of the men who worked the groves as they came and went.
Pressing the handle, I sprayed a
gain, and this time the spray was more like a bullet shooting out of a gun. “Precision,” I whispered to myself. “Is a girl’s best friend.”
Then I lifted the hose, squeezed the trigger, and hit Capo directly on the forehead. It took a moment for him to realize what I’d done. He blinked as water ran down the slope of his nose, and then his eyes connected with mine. Before he could move, I shot him again, some of the spray hitting Nonno.
The old man was already in hysterics. His laughter caused some of the family to gather around, and it seemed like they kept multiplying from there. His daughters all touched him while he laughed. They were laughing, too, shouting out taunts.
Capo had shot up from his seat the second time I’d hit him and, moving like a wolf on the prowl, was trying to get the hose from me. I wouldn’t go down without a fight, and until he had the weapon, I refused to let up on the trigger.
I stuck my tongue out at him. “You can’t catch me!”
“You are so childish,” he said. His hair was saturated, and when he slicked it back, those eyes were the color of sapphires, reacting to the draining light.
I grinned. “Maybe so, but who has the hose?” I hit him right on his crotch.
He was getting closer to me, and the closer he got, the more I lost it. I couldn’t control my laughter. It grew in volume when I hit Gigi next. She let out a blood-curdling scream, which made everyone else laugh even harder, too. Here, they treated her like everyone else, but in her world, she was treated like glass. Her eyes narrowed into an ‘I will get you, child’ look.
“Oops!” I yelled toward her. “I can’t keep my arms steady!”
My revenge had caused me to turn a blind eye on the wolf, and he’d grabbed me around the waist while we wrestled for the hose and it sprayed wildly. All of a sudden, everyone was throwing buckets of water at everyone else. Kids giggled. Adults shrieked like Gigi when that first blast of cold water hits warm skin.
Then it was on. The garden and surrounding areas were in mayhem.
I was still trying to hold on to my weapon, but Capo had somehow turned my weapon on me. My simple summer dress was soaked and clinging. My laughter did me in in the end—slippery fingers were a disadvantage, too—and he got the hose and refused to let up on me. I ran around, trying to dodge, laughing like a loon (one of Nonno’s favorite words) while Capo took his revenge.
Machiavellian: Gangsters of New York, Book 1 Page 25
