He slapped me on the back of my head. Hard. From the corner of my eye, I saw Rocco grin.
“Exactly! I am an old man compared to you! Your wife! What of her?”
“I wouldn’t have a wife if it wasn’t for you.”
“Your son? Who would have raised him?”
“You,” I said. “And again, without you, I’d have no son.”
He started to curse in Italian. Even though he was pissed at me for what I’d been willing to sacrifice for him, I really thought he was pissed at himself for getting abducted by a dumbass like Achille. The men would probably start calling him Tied Up Tito or some shit to give him a hard time. No way was Rocco going to let him live it down.
Then my phone rang. Giovanni.
“Mac.” He was breathless, as though he’d been running. He was a big dude, and his voice was naturally deep.
“Talk to me, G.”
“It’s.” He took a deep breath. “Your wife.” He started to ramble off words. Left with Stefano. The store. Vanilla ice cream. Taking too long. Couldn’t get a signal on either Stefano or your wife. Went out to look for them. Glass in the street. Ferrari. Burnt to a crisp. A body in it. Passenger side. Not sure who. Couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. Firemen and police on the scene.
Without a word to him, I hung up and dug out my phone from my pocket and turned it on.
New text.
Your wife: I’m going with Stefano to get ice cream. We can watch an old movie and drink root beer floats tonight. You’re coming home to me, Capo.
“Fucking bullshit,” I said. “She was going the wrong way. Going toward Dolce. She was coming to check on me.” Then I told Rocco to stop the car. As I pulled up a different program on my computer that I’d designed, I gave them the gist of the situation. My voice came out calm, controlled, maybe even cold, but on the inside, Mount Vesuvius had gone off.
Giovanni was right. Her watch showed no signal, and neither did Stefano’s work phone. I even traced his personal device, and it couldn’t be located either. Neither could Mariposa’s phone.
“Come on, my little butterfly,” I whispered. I switched gears, checking my last resort—it was the way I’d always tracked her. Even to Harry Boy’s house.
Her wedding ring.
She never took it off. There was a device located in the metal behind the diamond. Her band, too, if she ever decided to wear one without the other. If whoever did this wasn’t doing it to rob her, he wouldn’t have thought of taking her ring. Her watch. Yeah. Her car. Yeah. But her ring? It was inconspicuous as a device.
As soon as the heart started beating on the screen, I closed my eyes and squeezed the rosary around my neck. Stefano. Stefano had been killed. But then a cold hand touched my neck and my voice was low and tight when I spoke. “Rocco. Bring me to the Hudson.” I told him the area. “As fast as you fucking can. And on the way, call Brando.”
Brando Fausti had once been in the Coast Guard. He had been a rescue diver in Alaska. He was the best of the best. The motherfucker was like a shark in the water. He had all of the right equipment and could see in almost blind conditions.
The second man needed, the doctor, was already in the backseat, sitting forward, listening. He mumbled things, medical things.
Whoever took my wife was taking her to the Hudson River. I could see the heart on the screen, making its way closer and closer to the water. Whoever took my wife, the dead man, was going to drown her.
30
Mariposa
Sicily. I kept think about my time in the water there. Going under just to pop right back up. My head breaking the surface before sound made it fully to my ears.
My head. It was doing the same thing.
Hands groped for me. I fought them the best I could. I clawed and bit and screamed. I wasn’t sure if the screaming was loud enough. I was under and everything was distorted.
Would anyone hear me?
If not for my baby, I would’ve given in, given up. The devil had caught me, and my husband was probably dead.
I was done for. I was sick and tired of the fight, of the chase.
My will to live had burnt out.
I had been so tired when I found Capo. And after he took me in, gave me shelter and food and protection, not to mention what I’d been missing for so long—love and security—I slept. I took refuge. But my will to live was still tired, still aching for sleep, for rest in a safe house, a comfortable bed, and to be held in strong arms.
It wasn’t only me that I fought for, though. He deserved a chance to live a life he hadn’t even tasted yet. Not to merely survive but to live. A life I’d been willing to sell my body to have.
Turned out, I’d given it instead.
Capo. My baby. Saverio. I hadn’t even told Capo how much I loved the name and the meaning behind it. New home. Saverio was the home we’d always share. He was our blood vow in physical form.
I clawed even harder. I hoped my teeth felt even sharper. And my scream—even if it came out hoarse, maybe someone would still hear me.
My back slammed against something hard, the breath escaping my mouth in a whoosh. I lost even more focus, even more control over my limbs. My entire body was on fire.
Mumbling. There was so much mumbling.
Shut up! I wanted to shout. My voice was muted, but his wasn’t. It was right in my ear, screaming inside of my broken skull. It seemed to bounce from one side to the other, making my head ache even more.
I felt sick. Nauseated.
The burning was so hot.
My feet. I couldn’t move my feet. My hands. I couldn’t move those, either.
I had nothing, absolutely nothing to fight him with.
The fire came closer, licking every inch of my skin, and then there was a free fall into nothing, a hard slap of frigid water against scorching flesh, and then it took me under. Sucking me down, down, down, faster than I could take a breath.
The pressure was immense. All-consuming. It put out the fire but sent me in another spiral.
Frozen arms held me tight, and thousands of hands stabbed me with hundreds of sharp, cold daggers. Then the water ran into my mouth, invaded my nose, and consumed my lungs. A different kind of burn, but still a burn, one that seized instead of charred.
There was no use fighting it. I was bound. Being dragged to hell through a watery grave. Fast. It was worse than when Capo pushed the speedometer in one of his cars, almost like we were flying instead of cruising.
I wondered if touching hell would bring me to a pathway to heaven?
It had to be easier than this, more peaceful. Maybe that’s why death is so hard. We had to pay for our sins before we were given complete peace.
I thought of the rosary, the safety I found in stroking the pearls between my fingers, and then I let go, giving over to something greater than me.
31
Capo
Before the car came to a complete stop, I jumped out, running toward the pier that stretched to a platform with construction equipment.
The water was dark, and I couldn’t see past the surface. A small light lit the platform, but a bigger light was centered on a specific area of the river. A man stood next to a ladder that had been clipped to the pier and touched the tip of the Hudson.
Romeo waited on his brother. Brando had already taken the plunge. Diving equipment was laid out on the pier next to Romeo, along with emergency apparatus.
Romeo’s head snapped up when he heard me. He held out his hand, and when we connected, he drew me in. “Amadeo.” He stood back, his dark eyes solid on mine. “My fratello went in after tua moglie. We heard the splash as we rushed up. Brando was able to see where Mariposa went under. That is a good thing. A few seconds later and he would have had to search the entire area.”
Rocco and Tito caught up to us. Tito stared down at the water for a minute before he went over to dig through the stuff Brando and Romeo had brought.
Rocco stared beyond Romeo at a man sitting on the pier. His hands and l
egs were tied up. His mouth was full of blood, white specks on his legs. His teeth. The area around him was littered with cement blocks, lines of rope, knives, scissors, packets of cement, molds, and tape.
He was going to make specific molds to fit my wife’s feet, set her in them, and then make sure no one was able to pull her up. Time. He ran out of fucking time.
Bruno. That motherfucker had slammed into my wife with a truck, abducted her, did who knows what to her on the way, and then threw her in the Hudson with cement blocks tied to her legs. And he had killed a good man. Stefano.
Romeo nodded. “I am sure you have plans for him. I was able to stop him before he disappeared. Unless he wanted to jump into the water, he had no other choice but to face me. He was too much of a coward to take the leap. Therefore.” He rolled his shoulders. “He got me.”
I rolled my teeth over my bottom lip. “The water would have been the kinder choice,” I said in Italian.
Romeo agreed. “He shall suffer for this.”
Then we said no more as we turned and waited for Brando to break the surface with my wife. Tito came to stand next to me, putting a hand on my shoulder, squeezing. I hadn’t realized how hard I trembled until he touched me. His was a steady hand in a tilting world. Each second felt worse than getting my throat slit a thousand times. My heart felt like it was going to burst from my chest.
Any second now, Fausti, any second now, I chanted underneath my breath. The longer she stayed under, the less of a chance she had to—
I refused to entertain the vicious thoughts attacking my worn-down sanity. All of a sudden, my knees gave out and I landed on them, the pier taking my weight. I closed my eyes, clutching the rosary around my neck, wondering if this was payback for my sins. The cost of living in a body that had a soul made of hate and revenge.
Until she came along.
She set me on a different path, and when we collided, we both shattered into a million pieces from the impact. She snuck in through my cracks and ran over every strip of lead I’d put down to keep myself together. Her colors bled with mine, and the stained glass no longer showed a solitary figure, but one with a butterfly on its shoulder, its heart on its sleeve.
No longer able to bend or I’d fucking break, I stood, kicking my boots off.
Any fucking second turned into now. I refused to wait a second longer to bring my wife home. Back to me. Even if it meant that I drowned at the bottom of the Hudson with her. That was my fate. It had been meant for me. We’d share it. She’d be my Juliette, and I’d be her Romeo.
Rocco put a hand to my shoulder, Romeo the other, and they held me back while Tito came to stand in front of me.
“Nephew.” His voice was as serious as when he’d been saving my life. “You will do your wife no favors if you go in after her and we have to get you out.”
“I’m not Brando Fausti,” I said, “but I can fucking swim.” I hit my chest. “I refuse to stand here and wait for him to bring my wife back to me.”
“You are as close to me as a brother.” Rocco squeezed my shoulder. “So trust me when I say this. Brando will bring her up. He will retrieve her. He is the best there is. Let him do his job.”
His job. My wife.
As soon as the thought came to me, the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard seemed to explode around me. Brando broke the surface with my wife in his arms. He seemed to move quicker than a shark in the water. Once he carried her up the ladder, he set her on the pier.
Tito went straight for her. Brando flung his mask off, and after Romeo helped him with his tank, he went straight to Tito, and they both started working.
“Hypothermic,” Tito muttered while he checked her pulse. “We must be very careful. Brando. Cut her out of these clothes. Then get the warming blankets on her. Now!”
My wife was lifeless on the pier. Her skin had no color. Her lips were blue. She had a gash on her forehead. It was deep and red, but there was no blood.
I crawled to her side, taking her wrist in my hand, checking myself. “Uncle.” My voice was tight, raw, low. “She doesn’t have a pulse.”
Tito watched my face while Brando stripped her down to her bra and underwear and then covered her in blankets. “The water—we had a hard winter—it’s too cold. She’s too cold. We need to get her body temperature up.”
“CPR,” I said, clearing my throat. “Chest compressions. Do them—”
“I will start CPR, but not until the ambulance gets here. I need to continue once I begin. There will be no stopping until I can bring her back. Right now, her pulse is too low to detect. But that does not mean we cannot get her back.”
Sirens wailed in the distance. An ambulance was on its way. But if Tito couldn’t save her, I knew no one could.
Romeo walked Bruno to his car before the police arrived. Our eyes met as he passed. He smiled at me, no more teeth in his mouth, but nothing but satisfaction on his face. I’d skin him alive, from head to toe, and then fit him for cement blocks. Then he’d take a ride to the bowels of the Hudson River. The crabs could feast on his insides. They wouldn’t have to worry about his skin. They’d get a peeled snack.
“Nephew!” Tito roared.
It took me a minute to turn to him, to focus on anything but my anger. My desire to kill tasted like blood in my mouth, and I was a starved animal. The dead man’s cry when his skin peeled back, inch by inch, would represent what was happening to my heart and soul.
“Keep your focus here!” Tito nodded toward my wife. “Talk to her!”
Talk to her.
My wife.
She had no pulse, but I was the dead man.
I didn’t want to think about why Tito had ordered me to talk to her.
I refused to.
But if this was it, the end, it was final, for the both of us.
I’d never see her again.
She’d be in heaven. I’d be in hell.
We were never meant to be longer than we were on this earth.
I lifted her hand to my mouth, blowing warm air on it, my lips close. “Mariposa.” My voice cracked. “You left something important behind, Butterfly. You left me behind to die the worst death. You being away from me is the worst death. It’s more painful than anything I’ve ever known. But words are useless. Hear me, Mariposa.”
There was a time when I didn't know if I'd ever be able to speak, the knife had cut me so deep. I knew then how useless words were. I demanded more than words, and that was what I vowed to give to her.
Feel my pain and let it bring you back to me. You’re the only one who can save me from it. My life and my death. My dash in between—
Brando’s voice cut through my thoughts, a jumble of words standing out: Temperature. Water. In too long. Rope. Cut to release her from cement blocks. Hypothermia. No pulse. Pregnant.
The words slipped into my mind, pushing out everything else, poisoning my soul, as the men discussed my wife and her current state of life.
No life.
She had no life.
All that she had left to do on this earth assaulted me. All that she had missed out on stabbed me like a thousand knives. All the days and nights she suffered. She’d told me that she’d never touched true peace until we were married. For the first time in her life, she could sleep, she could rest, and it wasn’t only physical. The devil on her heels was too far behind to catch her—her shoes finally fit and kept her steady.
She had struggled so damn much with life. Struggled to change from surviving to living. And she was gone. My butterfly was gone after getting her wings.
As the men drew closer, I pulled her closer, not realizing I had her pressed against my chest, rocking her.
I refused to give her up.
I refused to allow them to take her from me. I’d rip their hands off with my teeth.
She was so cold. I could feel the iciness of the water seeping into my shirt. Her skin felt even colder, as though all of her blood had been drained.
Our son. He had no life if she didn’t
.
My all gone in the matter of minutes.
An unforeseen circumstance. A man out for revenge.
My own revenge had me there when she needed me here.
“Nephew.” Tito leaned down, looking me in the eye. “Give her to me. I will take care of her. Trust me.” He hit his heart.
I allowed the EMTs to take her, while Tito directed them every step of the way.
“I am the doctor! You listen to me!”
Tito kept saying that there was a chance her pulse was too low to detect. If she warmed up enough, there was a chance she could still live.
Chance. Chance. Chance. My wife’s life, mine, depended on a fucking chance.
The EMTs didn’t argue, but they’d already pronounced her dead in their heads.
They watched me warily, one of them eying my tattoo, as I kept up with them to the waiting ambulance. I refused to leave her. They hooked her up to monitors once inside and…nothing. Nothing but a flat line, and the sound of a machine alarm.
Controlled chaos ensued.
Tito barked out orders like a solider on a battlefield. They were doing chest compressions while they used another warming blanket to try to get her temperature up.
“Nothing,” one of the EMTs said, checking the monitors and then looking at Tito. “Still no pulse.”
“We keep going!” Tito snapped. “Mariposa. Come on, butterfly. Come on. Breathe for me.”
I looked away, my newly beating heart dying a thousand separate deaths at the sight of it. The sound of the machine going off in panic because it couldn’t detect life seemed to echo the unrest in my soul.
“Mariposa,” Tito whispered.
The sound of his voice ripped the last shred of hope from my chest.
“Tell me,” I said. I refused to look at him, because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I met his pitiful stare. The tone of his voice confirmed my worst nightmare. My butterfly was gone.
“Farfalla,” Tito said a little louder. A second or two went by. “I have it!” he almost shouted. “A pulse!”
Machiavellian: Gangsters of New York, Book 1 Page 38
