“Your father had you killed because you let an innocent child go?”
“Yes and no.” He sat forward some, pressing his palms together. “Yes. In that world, you leave no member of a rival family alive. For example, if you would’ve found out later on what I’d done to your parents, you might’ve wanted revenge. If you no longer existed, that takes care of that. The yes also includes disobeying his orders. I was instructed to make your father watch as I killed you and your mother in front of him. Arturo wanted him to suffer for challenging him, for trying to slit his throat. Your father had that same ruthless streak about him. He was hungry to lead and thirsty for blood. He wanted Arturo’s place in that world. If I wouldn’t have killed Palermo, even knowing you and your mother were in danger, he would’ve gone after Arturo again.”
“Why else?” I said when he stopped talking. “You said yes and no. You gave me the yes.”
“It was only a matter of time before I did something to get myself executed. Achille wanted the throne for himself. Time and time again, I proved myself as ruthless as him, even smarter, and he couldn’t stand it. No matter what I did, he’d run back and tell Arturo how I somehow fucked it up. I was ‘too pretty to rule.’ No one would take me seriously. Arturo gave me an out, and I refused to take it. I even told him I’d challenge Achille to a fight, if that’s what it took. He told me there was no need to fight Achille. I’d rule beside the king, and after he was too old to rule, the kingdom was mine.
“Then one night we were at a party. All of these powerful political figures were there. Arturo had been out to get this one guy in his pocket but never could. Arturo saw the two of us talking and came over. Political told Arturo that he wanted someone like me to work for him. I was smart. Had a plan. ‘As charming as they come.’
“After that—” He paused, stretching his shoulders, like the custom-made suit had grown too tight all of a sudden. “—I noticed a difference in him. He talked down to me more and gave Achille more to do. And when Achille complained about me, the pretty-boy prince who got everything he wanted, Arturo ate it up. He was starved for it. He was worried that once I married Angelina Zamboni, an arrangement he made, I’d take over his kingdom without him handing it to me. Angelina could charm a vagabond out of his last penny, if she wanted to. She had high expectations for her life, for her husband.”
For her husband. The man sitting beside me. My husband. “Why did they kill her?” I asked softly.
“Punishment. They did to her what I was sent to do to your mother and you. Kill you in front of your father. But Angelina’s fate was worse. They didn’t just kill her. They violated her from every side until they tore her in two. I couldn’t stop it. There were too many of them and only one of me. The man they sent to slit my throat had already started cutting—sometimes the moments are a blur. Other times, I can still smell the blood.”
“That’s…” I didn’t even have words.
“They probably would’ve raped her and let her go, if it was only me they meant to punish. But she was fucking Achille and me at the same time. She told me she was pregnant the night it happened. He admitted, right before he left us to be slaughtered, that she’d been telling him things about me. Loyalty is valued in that world, Mariposa. Valued above anything else, even money and gold. Achille had the woman who was pregnant with his child killed because she had double-crossed me. The man he was about to send to his grave because he threatened to take all that he wanted.”
“The baby wasn’t yours,” I breathed out.
“No. His.”
Click. Click. Click. The pieces started to fall into place.
“It happened right outside of Dolce.” I bit my lip, hard. “And she told you she was pregnant on the way.”
“Right after a Broadway show,” he said.
“She set you up.”
“The Zambonis have gone down in history as traitors. None of them were ever truly loyal. They were all out to rise above the rest, no matter the cost. Shiny things. They loved shiny things to collect. If you would’ve searched a little more, you would’ve found that most people have dubbed them the family of Judas.”
“You were controlling the results of my searches.”
“I control everything,” he said.
That’s why there are no pictures of him. He took them all down.
We both became quiet, but a burning inside of me refused to allow me to keep quiet.
“Did you love her?”
It took him a moment. “Who?”
“Angelina,” I said. “Your fiancé.”
He smiled and it gave me chills. “No. It was an arranged marriage. Love kills the soul quicker than a sharp dagger to the heart.”
I swiped at my eyes, hating that tears were on the edges, blurring my world. I didn’t know how to feel about all of this. I softly got out of the bed, afraid that if I made any sudden movements, it would disturb something. Him. And all of the fight had drained out of me. I needed time to think, to process all of this.
I stood by the door, and he tilted his head to the side, watching me.
“Why weren’t you honest with me before? Why didn’t you tell me from the start that you killed my parents? You gave me no choice! I had no idea…I thought you maybe ran with the Scarpone family. I had no idea you were one of them. The king’s son. His prince.”
He was on me in a minute. I tried to back away, but I couldn’t. The wall pressed against my back and I was forced to look up into his cold, cold eyes.
“I let it slide when you called me Vittorio. I’ll let that last comment slide this time, too, since you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. I’m not his son. I’m not his prince. When you call me the king’s son. When you call me his prince. When you call me Vittorio. When you call me anything that has to do with that life, you’re speaking the ugliest words of all to me.”
Suddenly, an ember seemed to burst into flames out of nowhere. The last fight I had in me. “The ugliest words? No, I don’t think so. You want to hear three ugly words, my husband? Words that are nastier, and more twisted, than all of those words you strung together? I love you, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. And what’s even better, I don’t want to! I don’t want to love you, but I do! I love you. I love you. I love you! You’ve damaged me with this…love! That dagger? You stuck it right in my heart. You made me fall in love with you before you were honest with me—before you used the dagger on me.”
Without taking any of my stuff, I started for the spare room, the room I planned on decorating for the baby. My husband followed me, no expression I could make sense of on his face. But I didn’t want to see his face. I wanted nothing to do with him.
He killed my parents.
He saved me and then he hid me.
And the Scarpones had killed him for it. Made him watch terrible things. They were going to throw him in the Hudson after he bled out on the cement right in front of a bunch of dumpsters. The Prince with Scarpone blood running through his veins. Blood that belonged to them.
Then I found him years later.
Then he saved me, again, from a fate he’d put me on a path to. His father and mine both at fault, too.
Then, in the midst of all that fucking madness, somehow, I fell in love. So deeply in love that I couldn’t tell the difference between passion and anger anymore. I wanted to slap him and kiss him all at the same time.
Slap him for not telling me.
Kiss him for saving me. For suffering for me. For all that he had been through in my honor.
Marry for loyalty, not for love. Love kills the soul quicker than a sharp dagger to the heart.
He had taken a dagger to his throat. For me.
I took one to the heart. For him.
I touched my stomach. I’d forever be connected to him, the proof of his blood vow taking up space in my womb.
We both had to bleed for this.
I wondered if tomorrow our arrangement would be null and void due to…love. A weapon he
had no defense against.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. After he’d slammed me into that metaphorical rock, I was set adrift.
I slammed the door in his face right before I slid into bed and hid myself in the darkness.
* * *
A week had gone by. We hadn’t spoken. We hadn’t touched. We hadn’t even looked at each other.
In the morning, I used to cook him breakfast before he left for work. We were in contact during the day. We’d make dinner plans. Sometimes he would even send me a dirty joke. There wasn’t a night since our wedding, or day for that matter, that we didn’t have sex. I hadn’t gone even a day without seeing him. When he worked too much, I felt it, the absence of the most important person to me.
I struggled with missing him and wanting nothing to do with him. When I smelled coffee in the kitchen after just waking up, or his cologne in our bathroom, or saw one of his shirts in the hamper, it made me want to burn it all down, but at the same time, savor each scent, each touch.
Love doesn’t make you sick, like people claim. It silently goes in, nick by nick, causing cuts that might never heal. Noemi was right about one thing: Love isn’t a disease. Love is a dagger.
On the seventh day of silence, I got an unexpected visitor.
Uncle Tito.
He hugged me tightly before patting my stomach. “How is our boy?”
I patted the same spot. “The Dr. said all looks good. He’s still looking like a little boy.”
Uncle Tito laughed at this. He handed me a loaf of what looked like bread. “Scarlett wanted me to bring this over. Would you mind putting on some coffee so we can enjoy it? The baby will like the blueberries, I am sure.”
After pouring him a cup of coffee, I cut us each a slice of the cake, and we ate in silence. Every once in a while, he took a sip of coffee. On one sip, my eyes rose to meet his, and the kindness in them almost knocked me off the chair. It happened at the most unexpected times.
“I know,” I said. “You were the man who saved…my husband.” It was hard for me to call him anything but husband. The other names seemed wrong, and when I thought of the name he was given at birth, Vittorio, it made me think of talking about a dead man.
He patted my hand. “A different time. A different place. I am only thankful that I was there for him.”
Silence came between us again. I didn’t know what to say. I still hadn’t settled on one feeling. Loyalty kept me rooted. Love was killing me because it gave him the power to stick the dagger in further. His secrets were the poisonous tips.
When I looked up, Uncle Tito was watching me again. “He sent me here.”
“Who?”
“Your husband. He is unsure.”
“That’s a new one for him, right?”
“Right.” He nodded. “In my humble opinion, it can do a heart good to feel things it has never before. He is feeling everything now, not just existing for vengeance.”
“I disagree about the heart. Sometimes when the heart feels things it never has before, it hurts. Really bad.”
“Good thing the heart has the amazing capacity to heal itself after time when it comes to such things, ah?” Uncle Tito took a sip of coffee and then placed the cup down. “All that Amadeo did, farfalla, he did for you. You understand that, don’t you? You showed him something he had not seen in a long time. Such innocence…an innocence he hadn’t seen since his mother.”
“Why…” My knee bobbed under the table. “Why didn’t he tell me? Who he was? What he’d done?”
He smiled, but it made the kindness in his eyes turn to sadness. “He was unsure then, as well.”
“Unsure of what?”
He picked our plates up and set them in the sink. “Perhaps in time you will understand. It is not my place to say. The words should be shared between husband and wife. If you would like to know, speak to your husband. Open the lines of communication.” He took a deep breath. “You speak of the heart. The heart cannot beat without an open flow. If it has clots.” He shrugged. “It will die. Think of a marriage in these same terms.”
The good doctor stayed with me about an hour longer, and after we shared normal, family gossip, from Noemi’s side of the family, he kissed my head firmly and left.
After he’d gone, the house seemed too quiet. All I did was stew on the same issues over and over, my brain starting to short circuit, my heart bleeding out or maybe backing up. Uncle Tito had given me more to consider, which made my need to get out stronger.
Giovanni would have to okay it with my husband before any plans were made. I knew my husband would make me take Giovanni if I left the house.
I needed to be away from everything related to him.
Maybe without his influence, I could think clearly, and if things were not as bad as they seemed, maybe my heart could start to heal. Or maybe get rid of the clot, as Uncle Tito had said.
I called Keely and told her to meet me at our place in thirty minutes. We could have some of the cake Scarlett had sent with Uncle Tito.
You see, I’d figured out a few things after I moved in.
My husband really knew everything, but the watch was a way for him to keep track of my movements. Giovanni, too, once I crossed over into the other side of the house. I always came down from the bedroom, so he had no idea about the secret firehouse.
Right before the thirty minutes, I asked Giovanni to look for a pair of boots in my closet. I told him my legs were hurting. Lie. He gave me a suspicious look but did as I asked. I’d never asked him to do anything for me before. I quickly called the control room and told them to check the cameras in the back of the house. It seemed like two men were fighting out in the street.
Leaving my watch on the kitchen counter, I took off out of the front door, using my hands to signal to Keely to not get out of the car. She understood right away and restarted the car before I was even in it. She took off once I was in, and I had to slam the door shut while we burnt rubber.
“Okay.” She eyed her rearview mirror, making sure we were not being followed. “Why are we running from your house?”
“I...need a break. I don’t feel like being surrounded by men today.”
“Ooh. The honeymoon is over. Let the games begin!”
“It’s not a game, Keely. It’s marriage.” I waved a hand. “We just had a fight.”
“Over what type of diapers to use?”
Only if our issues were that domesticated. I couldn’t give her the entire truth, so basic would have to do. “Something like that.”
“Answer one question. Do we hate him or not?”
“Not.” My answer came quick. How could I hate him after he sacrificed his life for mine? But how could I not be angry with him for not telling me the complete truth right away? Having enough of my issues, I turned to face her. “Who’s Cashel Kelly?”
The car swerved and I glanced at the mirror, wondering if one of the guys had caught up to us. It seemed all clear, but they were sneaky. I expected them to act like cops and pull us over at any minute.
“Cash,” she said underneath her breath. “Almost everyone calls him Cash. And Stone told you about him.”
“Not exactly. He was fishing for information the night we had dinner.”
She nodded. “What did you tell him?”
“What could I tell him, Kee? I have no idea what’s going on!”
“Cash Kelly is Harrison’s new boss.”
I waited a few minutes. “And…?”
“He’s not all he seems to be.”
“That seems to be a trend lately. Go on.”
She turned to me and narrowed her eyes. “Wait. Where are we going?”
I told her about the little figurines, but asked if she could just pass by, so I could get the name of the shop. She agreed and took a detour, heading in the right direction.
“Are you in love with Cash, Kee?”
She threw back her head and exploded with laughter. “If New York was a wild cement forest, I’d be the archer and
he’d be my target.”
“I don’t like the picture you painted in my mind. I keep seeing him running away from you, a bullseye on his back.”
She grinned. “We shouldn’t talk about this anymore. The baby. Let’s talk about the baby. Tell me more about these figurines and the theme you’re going for.”
Even though I wanted to call her out on her odd comment, I told her about the figurines and how cute they were. When she found a parking spot not far from the store, right in front of Dolce, I shook my head. “I only need the name, Kee! Let’s go. We’ll go shopping somewhere else.”
“Why is your face pale? You have bubble sweat over your lip, and it’s colder than a polar bear’s oonie outside. Did something happen to you here?”
I bit my lip, fiddling with my purse. “Yeah. I had some bad veal parmigiana. Just awful.”
“Liar.” She squeezed my hand. “You stay put. Keep the doors locked. I’ll just run in and see if they’re still there. They obviously mean a lot to you.”
Before I could stop her, she was out of the car, hustling to get to the little shop.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I chanted. I was in the heart of Scarpone territory. Dolce. The name almost made me want to puke. There was nothing sweet about that restaurant or what had happened right outside of its doors. I wondered how many people had been murdered in that alleyway. If the Scarpone family owned it, there was no telling. My legs bobbed up and down. I pulled out my rosary, worrying the beads again. This time I kept thinking please let her hurry up.
As I looked up, I saw four men coming out of the restaurant. Achille. Arturo. One of his grandsons, I thought; the one who looked like Armino. And, maybe, the guy Achille called Bobby.
They all looked like big dogs with their expensive coats and suits, three out of four smoking cigarettes, and all of them wore identical “I own this fucking place” looks. The wolf tattoos only upped their scary factors.
Machiavellian: Gangsters of New York, Book 1 Page 32
