My feet feel heavy as I make my way upstairs. I pass my childhood bedroom, Rosa’s room… and pause, my eyes landing on a door.
It looks the same. Battered romance novels fill the space from floor to ceiling, uneven stacks precariously placed against the wall and bursting out of the bookcase. Her dressing table is clean, her bed freshly made.
She hadn’t been here for months before she died, but her scent still lingers, the patchouli oil she was obsessed with.
I stop beside the bed, bending to pick up the photograph.
None of us are looking at the camera, besides Nicci. Her face is squished into the corner, grinning. At our kitchen table, Rosa and I are arguing over the rules of a game, playing cardsscattered around us as her finger jabs into my face. My parents watch on with slightly exasperated smiles, their hands linked.
A different life.
My heart feels heavy as I set it down, adjusting it minutely. There’s no dust in this room, I realize suddenly. This room is kept spotless. Preserved.
As if waiting for someone that will never come home.
I knock on their bedroom door, waiting for a response that doesn’t come before pushing the door open. “Mamma? It’s me. Gio.”
The room is dark and warm. My mother is alone, a dark bundle on the bed that faces the wall and doesn’t turn. I sweep my gaze across her table, the plastic bottles scattered there. Some of them are full. Most are not. “Mamma.”
I cross to the bed, dropping down to one knee. My mother blinks at me. Her hair hangs around her face, older than I remember it. “Gio.”
I nod around the lump in my throat. And my mother… she starts to cry. Silent, wracking sobs that make her body shake as she reaches a trembling hand to her bedside table, searching blindly for the small bottle and opening it.
“You don’t need those.” But she pulls her hands away from mine, shaking out two white tablets and swallowing them dry.
“I need Nicci.”
At the slurred words, a heavy weight settles in my chest. “I know.”
“You took her from me.”
A knife to the chest would hurt less than those words. “Joseph Corvo—,”
“No,” she snaps it, sagging back against her pillow. “You. You, Carlos, theCosa Nostra. All of you, with your politics and your games and your wars. I told Carlos, but he wouldn’t listen. TheCosa Nostra took my children from me and sent them back in pieces.”
“Rosa is still here,” I say hoarsely. “She needs you, mamma.”
I try to take her hand, but it clenches into a tight fist.
“Get away,” she hisses. “Get away from me.”
Her voice rises to a shriek, and I back away as she presses her palms against her eyes, blocking me out. “Leave us alone. Leave usalone.”
My heart shreds beneath the weight of her grief, her anger. My strong, vibrant mother huddles back into the bed, shaking and crying as I feel for the door and yank it open, closing it behind me.
My face burns, my body tingling as I sit on the floor and listen to my mother cry.
You took her from me.
The accusation weighs heavily, sinking down around my shoulders.
Soft footsteps. And when she settles next to me, her hand slipping into mine, I grip it tightly. “She thinks it’s my fault.”
“This does not sit with you.” Cat stares at the wall opposite, her thumb running over the back of my hand. “The responsibility is ours, Gio. The Corvo line.”
“Not yours,” I say roughly. “We are not accountable for the sins of our families, Cat. It took me too long to work that out.”
She sighs, resting her head back against the door. “We’re going to get him.”
