Queen of Spades

by Kristi Belcamino

“I have dreamed of this day for years, Eva Lucia Santella,” he said. “You took everything that mattered away from me.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  Her mind raced. Obviously, he was one of her enemies from long ago. But which one. And why had he spared her life only to imprison her?

  “You might be wondering why you are alive when there is still a price on your head,” the man said and crouched down before her. Eva gauged the distance, he was beyond the reach of her good leg.

  If he scooted any closer, she would rotate her leg and thrust her boot into his nose sending fragments of bone into his brain.

  The man sighed. “I see you are not ready to talk.” He started to stand.

  Eva needed to keep him at her level and bring him closer. She opened her mouth and whispered. “Who are you?”

  The man smiled and cocked his head. “What’s that my dear? I can’t hear you?”

  She mumbled it again, this time lower. He leaned in. There. He was close enough.

  Concentrating all her power on the heel of her foot, Eva thrust her leg up and out, aiming for the man’s nose. But he drew back in time. The blow was not an instant kill as she’d intended. Instead, blood gushed from his nose. Before Eva could draw her foot back for another strike, he grabbed it and twisted, making her scream in agony. The sound was stifled by a rain of fists on her face. She gasped for air, jerking her head back and forth trying to avoid the blows. But they had already moved to her chest and abdomen. She gasped for air.

  She kicked at him, but the man sat on her legs, pinning her down as he pummeled her, sometimes with his fists, sometimes with an open palm. She felt the wound on her leg burst open and felt a new rush of pain.

  Meanwhile, he continued to strike, muttering a slew of curse words with each blow. Finally, he sat back, breathing heavily and clutching at his chest.

  For a second, a glimmer of hope filled Eva. But then he smiled and stood, hands on his knees. He met her eyes.

  “I’m a little out of shape. But I’ll be back for more.”

  He frowned as he glanced down at his shirt, now spattered with blood. He ripped it off, and the buttons clattered on the floor. He wore a white undershirt. His chest heaved from his attack on her.

  “I liked this shirt,” he said. “It was custom made. The seamstress is the finest in all of Southern Europe.” He flung the shirt to the ground near Eva. She heard the slightest sound of metal striking the floor. Eva’s chest filled with hope, and she lifted her eyes to see if he had noticed, but he was still spouting off details about the shirt.

  “I am having a party tonight. You are invited. But I think it’s best if we bring the party to you. One man at a time. Or maybe I’ll bring some chairs down so there is an audience. I will ask the men what they desire. You see, each of them has something to say to you.”

  He cocked his head. “The party will consist of all the mob bosses you betrayed so many years ago. You are the pre-party before the cupola meeting tomorrow. You might have forgotten the old ways in your new life in America, but we, Sicilians, we never forget a wrong. We take vengeance on those who have done us wrong. Our ancestors will haunt us if we don’t. You are going to bring peace to these men who have waited much too long to fulfill this vendetta. I, for one, have dreamed of this day for years. That is why I am savoring this moment. This day.”

  The cupola was a group comprised of the Mafia’s general staff. It was the most senior organization in the Mafia, and its members dictated who should be murdered and what crimes Mafioso would commit. It was the cupola who’d convened and ordered Eva’s death so many years ago.

  This man was obviously a capo mandamento—a member of the cupola and chief of the cosche—the other Mafia families in the area.

  Eva shifted, trying not to look at the pool of blood seeping out from under her left leg. She needed him to leave so she could try to stop the bleeding.

  He grabbed his crotch. “The anticipation is nearly as sweet as the act itself sometimes. Sometimes even sweeter. Don’t you find that true?”

  “Fuck you.”

  She spit the words out, tasting blood as she did. She closed her eyes, waiting for the blow that was sure to come. Instead she heard a door open and close and then footsteps and the creak of stairs.

  Eva nearly wept with relief but then scolded herself: If you feel sorry for yourself, you will die. If you do not stop the bleeding from your leg, you will die. If you are not strong and brave and impervious to the pain you feel right now, you will die. If you do not outsmart him right now, you will die.

  Her eyes snapped open.

  First things first. Distance herself from the pain and staunch the bleeding.

  For a few seconds, she sat and scanned her body, lingering on the parts screaming with pain until she was able to look down on herself from afar, impassively acknowledging the pain but staying separate from it, immune to it. Her yoga and meditation practice over the past decade had paid off.

  In the Bhagavad Gita, the 2,500-year-old Sanskrit text on yoga, Krishna talked about titikșā—the art of feeling and enduring pain and suffering while remaining detached enough to not react. Eva had been working on this for five years. Now was the true test.

  Leaning over, she reached for the man’s discarded shirt. It was blood-stained but cleaner and more sanitary than her own clothes. Her fingertips didn’t reach the shirt. She stuck her good leg out, arching her foot until her toe touched the shirt. Almost. She stretched further. Finally, she was able to scoot the shirt close enough to grasp with her right hand.

  As she did, she felt something hard on the ground. Cufflinks. She used her mouth to rip them free. She dipped her head, dropped them from her mouth into her hand, and examined them.

  Perfect. Something that could, at the very least, take an eye out. She tucked them behind her, between her back and the wall.

  She rolled the shirt into a strip and bent her left knee. She winced at the pain and forced herself to rise above her body again, looking down from outside the pain. Using her mouth and one hand, she managed to tie the shirt around her thigh and yanked it tight. And then tighter still.

  The blood soaked right through. She was going to bleed out. She was already feeling dizzy and faint. If it was from blood loss, it was a sign that her body was going into shock and shutting down. If it was, instead, from the injuries she’d just sustained, she had a chance.

  Her eyes grew heavy. She fought to keep them open. An icy cold settled on her in the dank basement, making her entire body shake spasmodically. Her heart raced and she felt nauseous and overwhelmingly thirsty.

  If she were to die today, let her die before this psychotic Mafioso and his cronies had their way with her. Let her die with honor. Let her deprive him of the satisfaction of fucking her. With this thought, she smiled and drifted off into a shadowy haze.

  Forty

  1990s

  Sicily

  “Lift her. Gently. Take her other arm.”

  The voice was feminine and concerned. Opening her eyes, Eva saw a flash of strawberry blonde hair glinting in the candlelight.

  She felt several arms on her. There was a click, and her head dropped forward. A damp washcloth was pressed to her lips. She sucked at it greedily, extracting water from it.

  “Easy now.”

  She felt something tighten on her upper thigh. She winced in pain.

  “Sorry, love. It’s a tourniquet. You’re bleeding something fierce.”

  It started to come back to Eva. She was a prisoner in a basement.

  She began to struggle. “Hold still. We are getting you to safety, but we have to hurry. Luigi is in the bath. We only have a short time.”

  Eva did a slow blink. Luigi. Ludovicus “Luigi the Arm” Mazzo.

  A vague memory came back to her. Her men had tried to kill him years ago and instead killed The Arm’s underboss and a woman and child at a secluded farmhouse. She blinked again, trying to take in the scene before her.

 
; A group of women, maybe five or six of them, surrounded her. They tended to her leg, lifted her onto a sheet, and then carried her up the stairs. She weakly gripped the side of the sheet, hoping it would not flip and send them all plummeting down the stairs. The women’s faces were red with exertion.

  A burst of sunlight blinded her as they summited the stairs and entered a room.

  “Put her in the main floor guest room. Leticia, you stay with her. Lock the door. Doctor Agnelli is on the way. Don’t let anyone in but him.”

  “Why? Why are you doing this? He will kill you,” Eva said.

  “No. I am going to kill him. Tonight. In front of everyone.”

  Eva examined the woman’s face. She was dead serious.

  “What is your name?”

  “I’m Francesca Scalia Domenico Ribaldi.”

  “You are Mazzo’s wife?”

  She nodded.

  “Why must you kill him?”

  “He had a secret family. Your men killed them many years ago. But I only now learned of this.”

  That explained why Mazzo wanted her dead and why this woman was going to kill her husband. Sicilian women would tolerate just about anything except adultery. Vincenzo was another story. She still hadn’t figured out the motive behind his oath of vendetta against her.

  “Who is attending the party?” Eva asked.

  “Nearly a dozen capo mandamentos from Sicily,” she said and listed ten names. Eva recognized seven of them. “Tomorrow is the cupola. Tonight’s party is to celebrate your capture.”

  “Is the capo dei capi going to attend?” The capo dei capi, was the godfather of all godfathers. Eva wasn’t even sure who that was now.

  “No. Rocco Ferraro is going to join them online.”

  “Wow. Things have changed.”

  Francesca smiled.

  “And you must kill him tonight?” Eva asked.

  “As soon as he sees you are free, he will know it is me. He will kill me for releasing you.”

  “Well, that’s a problem.” Eva’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have to kill him at the party? Why not now? Before they arrive. He’s in the shower, right? Can we sneak up on him?”

  Francesca pointedly looked at her lying in the guestroom bed, a mixture of humor and doubt on her face.

  “Okay. I see the problem,” Eva said.

  “The problem is that I am not a killer like you. I have never killed. Not once. I have one chance. I have a gun. I will walk up and shoot him in the back of the neck, at the brain stem where the bullet cannot miss its mark.”

  “I see you’ve done some thinking about this,” Eva said.

  Francesca dipped her head in graceful acknowledgment.

  Eva watched her. She wore makeup that just barely disguised the many bruises in various stages of healing on her face and neck, from blackish purple to yellow. Francesca needed to avenge herself. But there was also no reason for her to ruin her life doing so.

  “I have a plan,” Eva said. “You helped me. Now it’s time for me to help you.”

  “Look at you,” Francesca said. “You can barely move on your own.”

  “Will you agree to help me if I guarantee you that Mazzo will die, and you and I will be able to walk away and start a new life?”

  Francesca raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m going to need some heavy firepower,” Eva said. “At least one assault rifle. I’m going to give you a list of drugs. I’ll need your doctor to bring them to me when he comes. And I’ll need a shot of vodka.”

  A fiery spark appeared in Francesca’s eyes, and she pulled back her shoulders.

  “It will be done.”

  She turned to the other women. “Call the doctor, give him the list of whatever Ms. Santella says he needs to bring. Now!”

  Forty-One

  1990s

  Sicily

  Francesca leaned against the velvet wallpaper on the ballroom’s east wall and surveyed the crowd. Ten of the most influential men in Italy. Ten mob bosses convened at her house for a night of debauchery before an important meeting with at least ten others in Palermo the next morning.

  Soft music piped through hidden speakers. Two massive bouquets as large as Francesca adorned tables on either end of the room. A massive oak table was piled high with the best selection of food in all of Southern Europe—the finest fresh seafood crudo, comprised of briny sea urchin, red shrimp, baby squid, and salty anchovies; croquettes made with cheese and mint; a pesto pasta with sundried tomatoes and pine nuts; ricotta with honey and pistachio; gelato and cannoli and more.

  Another entire table had been transformed into a bar, laden with aged wines and spirits and prosecco. There was no bartender and few staff. These men trusted no one. Too many of their enemies would love to stumble on these men all in one house. Even the polizia—maybe especially the polizia—would look at it as a great opportunity to test out a confiscated pipe bomb. The only people allowed to work the party were Luigi’s manservant and two of Francesca’s most trusted handmaids—Leticia and Anna.

  At least that’s what Luigi thought. Francesca had other plans.

  Two of her most trusted men from the stables were waiting in the massive guest bedroom off the main first floor hallway for her signal.

  Francesca played the part of a wallflower. The men were so busy boasting and bragging about their conquests and riches, they didn’t seem to need female attention. For once.

  Her husband had arranged the meeting with these southern Italian bosses to assert his dominance and to give them all a piece of Eva.

  Each of these men had a personal vendetta with Eva. She had taken someone from all of them. Each had been waiting years to take their vengeance.

  Luigi had not told them the details; he had just told them a special gift awaited them at his house.

  Earlier, he’d told Francesca to keep herself busy between eight and nine, preferably somewhere out of earshot, because she might not like what she heard.

  As the clock struck eight, she waited and watched, her nerves on fire. Finally, at nearly one minute after eight, Luigi’s manservant nudged him. Luigi nodded and jutted his chin toward the door. The manservant, a young man that her husband was grooming to be the next Vincenzo, was unearthly in his beauty. Francesca wondered if her husband had chosen him just for this reason. Although her husband had never expressed a predilection for men, now that she had learned he was an adulterer she wouldn’t be surprised.

  As the manservant slipped past, Francesca smiled at him. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. Aha. He was fucking her husband. That was too bad. She’d originally considered sparing him.

  As soon as he passed, she gave the slightest nod and then looked away. Leticia and Anna slipped out of the room, carrying dishes as if they were going to the kitchen.

  Francesca counted to herself, regulated her breathing, and then walked over to the bar. She poured herself another glass of wine and returned to her spot near the door, pretending to sip on it. From her vantage point she could see down the main hall.

  With hooded eyes, she watched her husband’s manservant emerge from the door to the basement. The poor man’s face was pale, and he paused, taking a deep breath and running a hand through his hair nervously before rushing back down the hall and into the ballroom. Francesca remained by the entrance, eyes lowered but trained on Luigi. He was speaking with Vincenzo, laughing heartily and slapping the dark-haired man on the back. Even from across the room, Francesca could see Vincenzo’s eyes narrow at the slap.

  But as soon as the manservant delivered his message, her husband whirled, scanning the room until his eyes landed on her.

  “Francesca!” At his shout, everyone else in the room grew quiet.

  Luigi stomped over to her, continuing to yell. “Francesca! Where is she? If you had anything to do with this, you will pay! I promise. Tell me this instant! Where is she?” His face was red. The vein in his jaw throbbed. It looked like his head was going to explode.

  She hadn’t expected this—a public scene
. She’d thought he would take her aside in private. That was fine. She could pivot.

  She plastered a huge smile on her face and turned toward the men in the room.

  “Surprise!” she said. Everyone stared. “Ludovicus and I have a wonderful surprise for all of you. And I’ve surprised my dear husband even more by adding my own special touches. Sometimes a woman’s touch is needed in matters like these, you see.” Leaning down toward her husband, Francesca said in a lower voice, “You are going to be so thrilled when you see what I have done for you.”

  “What?” He looked around. The other men raised eyebrows and snickered.

  Francesca turned toward the men in the room.

  “I know this is a very special night for all of you. Some of you have waited a decade to make…let’s just say, to make things right. But I was thinking about it. You are all sophisticated men of superior taste.”

  She paused and met each man’s eyes one by one. At her words, chests puffed out and shoulders drew back at the flattering words.

  “As I thought about tonight’s festivities, I realized that you all deserve a superior experience. Much like the difference between street food and fine dining. Here at our lovely home, we insist on offering you the fine dining option.

  “You don’t want to tromp down to the dark and dingy basement to seek your vengeance, do you?”

  “The basement?” One man sniggered.

  “Yes,” Francesca said. “That’s where we were keeping her.”

  At the word “her” eyebrows raised all around the room.

  Again, Francesca gave a dramatic pause. The men looked at one another. “Because that was initially the plan,” she said. “That’s why my dear husband seems a bit surprised. I took matters into my own hands to create a five-star experience for you distinguished gentleman. Follow me.”

  She pirouetted and with a swish of her skirt headed toward the guest bedroom. She held her breath, waiting. Finally, her husband laughed. “God, I love that woman. She always keeps it fresh. Come on, gentlemen. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. Francesca knows how to please her man. And if she can please me, I know you will be pleased with what she has in store for you.”