by CD Reiss
Donna Maria pulled the trigger.
Click.
There were no bullets left.
With my last breath of life, in the interval between milliseconds, where atoms play and thoughts happen so quickly they’re lost before they’re remembered, I lunged for her throat, knife in front of me. Because I was a killer in my heart, the knife understood what I wanted and lodged itself right below her jaw, where life pulsed.
She didn’t even yell. She just sprang forward, blood spurting, mouth open in a soundless scream. I did the impossible and got on my feet. Zo stood in the doorway, meek and boring. Harmless, except when he wasn’t. He’d shot Antonio, and I couldn’t touch him. His world would continue, and Antonio and I had died together, as promised. I felt a profound loss as my last real emotion, and I understood what drove vengeance all of a sudden.
Envy.
That a wrongdoer would continue with their life while you could not.
That they took something and walked away unscathed.
That they had everything and you had nothing.
Envy. So insidious it could disguise itself as anger or righteousness and travel over seas and mountains to see itself satisfied.
Not having the strength or balance to support myself, I spun around. The edge of the railing bit my side, then nothing nothing nothing as I fell.
The ground.
Hard.
Harder than anything I’d ever felt.
Stuff crunched.
A bag of chips.
The bag was fine.
The chips.
Crushed.
But my name.
Contessa.
The mud hadn’t made the ground any softer.
At the bottom of a ravine, a stupid boy twisted.
I’d felt nothing.
Oh my God, Theresa.
Oddly empty.
I’d killed him.
That hard earth under him.
Broken like a bag of chips.
I will kill them.
What had I done?
Wrong.
I’d done wrong.
And Paulie.
Who loved.
Who hurt.
And I felt.
All of them. I will God oh god oh
Regret.
Theresa. Theresatheresatheresa
My family would have to grieve again.
Margie would hate herself for giving me the car.
And Antonio would blame himself forever.
He would kill someone for this.
And that was hell enough.
To be loved so well.
That your death inspires regret.
And envy.
And you die swimming in it.
I opened my eyes. Everything was hard to do. Especially this. Opening my eyes. Breathing. Swallowing blood. But I knew the voice, and I had to see the sweet brown eyes and the lips curved for love one last time.
“Capo,” I said. I think.
He had blood over one side of his face, under a gash where the bullet had swiped the side of his head. His mouth was twisted in a rictus of anger and sadness. I wanted to kiss it happy.
“Contessa.”
“You’re not dead.”
“No, no. A scratch.”
It was still bleeding. I couldn’t see much, but I thought I saw bone.
“Please,” I said, guts twisted so tight I could barely get the word out. “Do something for me.”
“Anything.”
I realized when I heard the sincerity in his voice that the rush of white noise in my ears was gone. I didn’t know if it was the fall or if hearing Antonio’s voice was God’s last gift to me for something I couldn’t give words. Not yet. Not until he promised.
“No revenge,” I said. “Do not avenge me.”
“Theresa—”
“Say it.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to see past all that.”
He moved my hair from my face. “I can’t see in front of me. You are my life. I have nothing to hope for without you.”
“Promise me.”
He didn’t answer. My lungs weren’t holding air, and he was holding himself together with thread. Even in my state, I could see it. I could catch him now. I could get him to promise, then I could remember the thing and I could rest and—
“Promise.” I barely breathed it.
He waited forever to answer, as if he couldn’t lie to a dead woman so he had to make sure he’d only speak the truth. I kept mouthing the word, waiting for a response, but it got harder with every repetition. Because. The thing.
Promise promise promise
“Yes,” he said. “I promise.”
“No vengeance?”
“Come vuoi tu.”
The thing was the flood of memories of my years on earth. The adult years between the boy and his fingers and the man with the espresso eyes. All those years I was good. All those years I’d chosen happiness. I remembered my sisters and school, and pretty dresses and stupid kindnesses. Katrina. My brother. Rachel. The assistants I’d trained and the good, honest, ethical years of work I gave. None of it made up for what I’d become, but my life hadn’t been a waste. Hadn’t been a lie.
“Thank you.”
I started falling before I even pronounced the first syllable, the gratitude catching my fall into a blackness that grew into the darkness of a truck that smelled like gunpowder and pine, rumbling from Tijuana to Los Angeles. I remembered olive orchards and a life not lived. The wheels under us hup-shh hup like a heartbeat. Antonio above me, stroking my eyelids closed and whispering, This is the day they went to live in the olive orchards. When you close your eyes for the last time, this will be this day you remember as the first day of the long happiness of your life. You will smile your whole journey to heaven.
fifty-two.
daniel
here’s an old Italian saying. I can’t pronounce it, and I’m probably misquoting it entirely, but it goes, “When the snake is dead, the venom is dead.”
I don’t think that’s true. Not in every case. For me, the venom died when I thought Theresa was dead after the wedding. For Antonio, when he was leaning over Theresa on Donna Maria Carloni’s compound, I knew his venom was dead. He was broken. Utterly broken.
It was a fucking mess, the whole thing. I’d rushed to the compound as soon as I realized the sheriff’s office wasn’t going to call the feds and no one gave a shit because the snake had paid all of them to leave her alone on her land.
I knew that because I’d gotten my share.
I’d seen Valentina chewing her nails on the side of the road. She stood near a silver Mercedes that had been having a make-out session with a chain-link fence and barbed wire. She couldn’t explain a word in English, so I put her in the car and took her into the compound, following the divots she’d made with the gate.
I took her hand. I hadn’t touched her before, but I had a feeling her husband was dead. She broke down crying. I didn’t love her then, but I thought I could, maybe. If I got out of that compound in one piece. They’d already trussed me up and hung me from the ceiling. These families weren’t known for lowering the stakes from encounter to encounter. I was unarmed, unskilled, and I’d be unaccounted for for a long time if they decided to bury me here.
In retrospect, I was either really brave or really stupid. At the time, I’d felt as though I didn’t have any choice but to, at the very least, witness what was happening. Jesus, what a way to get myself killed.
But I kept going. I told Valentina to stay in the car, and she drew the tops of her fingers under her chin and flung them at me. I think she was telling me to go fuck myself. Must have been, because she got out with me.
I’d never seen the actual compound. It was more modest than I thought it would be, and it was a wreck. In the front yard, two women and four children, from twelve to a few months, huddled in the morning light.
“Are you all right?” I asked one of the women. I recognized her as
Irene Carloni.
They didn’t answer.
“Stai bene?” Valentina asked.
Irene, who I knew spoke English, made the same motion Valentina had, a drawing of the fingers under the chin.
“Omertà,” Valentina said as I headed into the house. “They will never say.”
I smelled gunpowder, heard the batshit squeal of small animals, and ran out to the back. I saw a man’s body, his face in the mud. Simone Fiore and Lorenzo Desano stooped together. Hutches of animals. A bloody grate. My eyes fell on Antonio Spinelli, on his knees next to Theresa.
Blood, everywhere. I mean… everywhere and—
Valentina fell apart, but I couldn’t—
So I went to them. Antonio looked up and said—
I didn’t know what Lorenzo and Simone were up to. Enzo Priole appeared. There was some conflict. Some questions that hadn’t been answered.
Jesus Christ, she’d been gutted. I just—
“Can you kill me?” Antonio’s question was absolutely sincere.
He was losing his mind, and I couldn’t blame him. I couldn’t even process a story around what I was seeing. He had blood pouring from his head, and his bruised and welted torso was bare to the winter air.
“I’m not killing you.”
I knelt by her. I thought I looked calm. I pushed back the creeping emotions, but I’d feel them later. I knew that. I was a heartless asshole, except when I wasn’t.
“How did this happen?” I asked. Even in death, she was beautiful. I touched her face. I didn’t care if I got blood on my hands.
Antonio just shook his head. He was in shock.
“Spin.” Lorenzo stood over us.
“Get the fuck away from me,” Antonio shouted. “You’re so fucking lucky you’re not dead.”
“The Sicilians. Their boss is dead. She—”
Antonio sprang up, took Lorenzo by the collar, and slammed him against a wall. “This is on you, Zo. On you. You got ambition and no brains.”
“If you’re gonna kill me, just do it!”
“I can’t!” Antonio let him go, and Lorenzo dropped.
“Her people are coming. Donna’s dead.” Lorenzo pointed at Theresa. “She did it, and she’s dead. What the—”
“Fuck you!” Antonio was beyond reason.
Lorenzo had a point. If Theresa had killed Donna, a crazy thought I had to just accept at face value, and Donna killed Theresa, the Carloni family had no leader.
“There’s a power vacuum,” I mumbled, leaning close to Theresa’s face.
“Say you done her,” Lorenzo said. “Say it, or they’ll crush us. Take charge.”
“No! No more. I’m done!”
Their fight fell into the background as I bent over Theresa. I’d seen so many dead people, and the one thing I could say about them was that they looked like statues of themselves. Glass blue eyes and hard lips. I put my thumbs on Theresa’s eyelids and closed them, and I felt something I shouldn’t have.
Warmth.
“You stupid motherfucker,” I said, standing. “There is no power vacuum.” I had only a second to see Antonio’s red eyes on me before I stared at my phone, trying to figure out who to call.
“What?” Antonio said.
“She’s alive.”
fifty-three.
antonio
didn’t realize how crazy I was until I came out of it. It was like being on a descending airplane with compressed ears that whooshed until I yawned or swallowed. Then everything cleared up. I didn’t even think I was foggy and deaf until the pressure equalized.
Daniel saying she was alive was that pop. I didn’t know what I’d been feeling or doing. I only knew what I couldn’t do, which was kill Lorenzo. I’d promised her I wouldn’t. Not being able to take him out meant I didn’t have a distraction. A little shiny violent thing to experience or a problem to solve. I had to lose her and feel it without diversion. I didn’t think I could live through actually feeling that level of pain.
I was a child. I’d been naïve and inexperienced. I thought I’d grieved before, but no—I hadn’t allowed it. In the seven or so minutes that I lost Theresa, all I saw was a long descent into oblivion. I despaired for myself as much as I did for her. I couldn’t handle it. I didn’t have the tools to comprehend a part of myself getting ripped away. I couldn’t even finish a sentence in my head. I was half a man. Half a human. Immobilized by a promise and sucked dry by the only death that mattered.
That all came to me after the pop.
She was alive and broken. She could still die, but what I’d been missing in those minutes filled me. Hope. It was the nature of clarity. It set off everything against it. In that tension between what I hoped for and everything else, the world was in focus. I came to myself. I had something to do.
I put my hand over Daniel’s phone.
“Who are you calling?” I asked.
“Nine one one. We can’t move her.”
“Trust me.”
I made the call crouched over her, noticing the signs of life I’d missed in my despair. The team from Marymount who had taken shrapnel out of Bruno’s hand were coming. They were discreet and expensive. I prayed while I told them where we were. I prayed they’d be quick, that I hadn’t delayed too long.
Enzo came to me when I got off the phone. “Zo wants—”
“Keep him out of my sight.”
“Are you taking charge? Is it you?”
I pulled Enzo away from Daniel. “Did I kill Donna Maria?”
“How should I answer that?” he asked.
“The truth. Who killed her?”
He pointed at Theresa timidly, as if afraid to say.
“There’s your capo. Now back up. I said I wouldn’t kill anyone. I made no promises about shooting your legs out from under you.”
***
In the minutes before the ambulance arrived, Zo, Simone, and Enzo whispered. Two of Donna Maria’s men showed up. I heard a car in the driveway, and my three crew, the three betrayers who now officially worked for Theresa, subdued Donna Maria’s men. Daniel fidgeted. We were both holding back a panic that Theresa’s life was pouring out of her and we couldn’t do anything.
“You should go,” I said, bending over her, afraid to touch her for fear of something broken inside her.
“Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you. Get Valentina out of here.”
He nodded. “This won’t stay under the radar. Too big. It’s too big.”
The sound of the siren reached us.
“Go,” I said.
He took one last glance at Theresa then jogged into the house, passing a cluster of mob soldiers as if we were all commuters on the same train.
fifty-four.
theresa
ain. I remember pain. My insides. My bones. The place where the needles were. And the itching. The itching was so intense, I thought I’d go mad. But I couldn’t move, or talk, or even control my own breathing. I was half conscious, immobilized, in a fog as thick as peanut butter.
I knew I was moved. I knew I was cut open and sewn up. I smelled alcohol and latex, so I knew I was in some kind of hospital. But none of that was important. My body became the responsibility of other people, and my job was to stay still and endure it.
I knew I wasn’t alone. That was what was important. That kept me from a confined madness. Margie was there. And my mother. Deirdre. Even Daniel.
But Antonio wasn’t. I loved my family. I wanted them, craved them. But I had a creeping concern in my half consciousness that my demand that he not take vengeance wasn’t the end of the story of that day.
I prayed for him a lot. Every day that passed with the light coming in, diffused by my eyelids and warming my face, my worry grew. He wouldn’t just leave me. Something had to have happened. Something terrible.
“Sit.” Margie’s voice came through. I didn’t think she was talking to me.
“I’m on my ass all day.” Jonathan. This was his second visit.
“You h
ad a heart transplant three weeks ago. Your ass isn’t half finished.”
A chair scraped. “I hate this.”
“I’ll be an old woman one day, and you can make me sit down when I need to.”
I listened for a third person, but no one came. Not one of the hundred doctors. Not a nurse. Not Antonio.
Where’s Antonio? I tried to say it and failed.
“You’re never getting old, Margaret. Not if you can fix it.”
“There are some things a fixer can’t even fix.”
Every time they came and went, I forgot then remembered. They bickered and joked. They did it out of rote. All of them except Deirdre, who’d prayed out her sense of humor. Even Mom could cut deep with a single word, and just that day, I couldn’t bear it.
Antonio.
“You need to put that as an exclusion in the contract,” Jonathan quipped.
“Once I can get some blood out of you to sign it in.”
Antonio. Please.
“Did she just say something?” Margie asked.
A chair creaked.
“Sit down,” Margie snapped.
I opened my eyes. The light felt like knives in my head and my tear ducts went into production mode, fogging everything. I blinked. I felt the drops rush down the side of my head. When I opened my eyes again, Margie’s face blocked the light.
“Well, hello.”
Antonio.
“Eyes open,” she said to Jonathan then looked back at me. “How are you?”
“Antonio.” I couldn’t believe I got the word out. Every syllable was exhausting.
“He’s fine.”
“Swear?”
She held up her hand. “Pledge open.” She pulled two of my fingers off the sheets.
“Open,” I whispered.
“Antonio is alive and healthy. He walks, he talks, he is very, very worried about you. I’ll tell him you asked about him. He’s going to shit a brick with joy, but he can’t visit. Don’t be mad at him.”
“I’m not.”
“All right. I’m going to call a doctor to look at you.”
“Tell him…” I swallowed. I didn’t know what to say. Everything. “Tell him he’s my capo.”
