“Ooh!” One of the men squealed like a woman. “I can’t believe you would do this tome!”
“After she tried to play you and him?” The other man scoffed. “She deserved everything she got.”
“Bobby, you got a cigarette on you?”
When the men grew closer, Capo pressed even harder, and then came down and kissed me, the hand with the tattoo in my hair. As they passed, I could smell whiskey like a fire in the air.
Capo’s entire body trembled beneath my hands. Hewassweating. And after the men had gone, I truly noticed his eyes. His pupils were dilated, all of the blue chased out by black, and he looked…mad. Not angry, but almost insane.
Four more men came from the alley a second later, and it felt like my heart was stuck in my throat. The brick dug into my back from the pressure.
These guys were younger, and they didn’t even bother to look at us. One of them looked familiar to me, though. He reminded me of Armino Scarpone.I tried to see if any of them had the wolf tattoo, but they moved too fast, leaving behind strong scents from the restaurant.
It still wasn’t made clear to me how my husband knew the Scarpones, or what he’d done for them, and why he had saved me from them, apart from the fact that he felt I was innocent in whatever war my father had gotten himself into. Capo had told me that much. My father’s actions had set the Scarpones on my mother and me. We were to pay for his sins.
Even after the men had gone, Capo still held me against the wall, not moving. It was getting hard for me to breathe. “Capo,” I whispered, sliding my hands underneath his arms. “It’s all right. Come on. Let’s find somewhere else to eat.”
He didn’t answer me. It was freaking me out. He had never acted this way before.
“Capo,” I tried again. “I’m cold. We can eat at home.” I squeezed his coat, resting my head against his chest. I kissed him there, hoping he felt it. “We have leftoverlasagne al forno. Let’s just go home. Call Giovanni and have him pick us up. I’ll press the button on my watch.”
Finally, his hands covered mine. He pulled me to the side of him, almost making me stumble, and before I could say another word, he forced me to walk. Keep up with him was more like it. As we passed the alleyway, he moved me faster. Not fast enough that my eyes missed it, though. The area seemed colder, and steam rose in white, ghostly shapes from the kitchen. I shivered, and goosebumps rose on my arms.
I had no idea why the sight of it scared me, but that night, I had a nightmare.
Capo’s blood collected on the cement right outside of the kitchen in large, dark pools. The smell of iron was thick in the air. His eyes were too blue for his pale face. His lips were almost white. The rosary I’d given him was clutched in his bloodstained hands. His warm breath in the cold night made fog.
Once. Twice. Then he took his final breath.
His third breath.The devil comes in threes.
My limbs were too heavy to move. Frozen solid. I couldn’t save him, and I screamed out in agony—the same noise that I’d heard from one of thezia’swhen they closedNonno’scoffin. Someone had taken my Capo away from me and torn my soul in two.
Forcing my eyes open, I reached out for Capo with one hand, and with my other, the rosary on the bedside table. As I set the light beside the bed on the softest setting, my eyes were drawn to a spot on the rosary that was stained with what looked like rust. His old watch had stains of the same color.
A sob almost tore out of my throat when I realized it wasn’t rust, but blood.
23
Mariposa
February was brutal with cold. No matter how many layers I wore, I still felt the chill. But I often wondered if it had to do with the weather, or the freeze that had settled over us after what happened in December, after Keely’s Broadway debut.
Capo had never felt so far from me. He worked more than he ever had, and not once had he brought up the baby. I knew that it was my decision. He was my responsibility in the real sense, but I was hoping Capo would at least show some kind of emotion toward having a son. I hoped that someday he would look at him with more on his mind than what Rocco had called him in the meeting—Capo’s financial responsibility.
A son.He.The ultrasound technician had said that, even though there was a possibility she could be wrong—we still had what she called the “big ultrasound” to confirm—the tech was almost positive the baby was a boy. His tiny parts were already visible to her. Capo had come with me to that appointment, and it was the first time since Dolce that I’d seen some kind of emotion flicker across his face. It died as soon as we were out of the doctor’s office.
I tried to talk to him about it, about everything, but he’d always change the subject. I wasn’t any closer to the “heart” and the “veins” he had promised me during our arrangement meeting.
When?I often wondered.When will he trust me enough to share his secrets?
Whatever happened that night in front of Dolce had hardened him, and I found myself on the outside again. He had drawn a hard line without giving me an explanation, setting us back. His demands on me became harder, too. The places I could go were limited. The Faustis sent in more reinforcements to watch over our place. And Giovanni was on higher alert at all times, to the point where I felt smothered.
I couldn’t take it anymore, so I decided to call Keely and ask her if she wanted to grab a bite to eat. We agreed to eat at Macchiavello’s. Giovanni deemed it safe since it was listed on his “allowed places to go” sheet.
“I’m driving,” I said to Giovanni. Capo had surprised me with a candy-apple red Ferrari Portofino for Christmas. It was automatic, so I wouldn’t have a problem with gears. He had taught me how to drive in Italy. He’d even made some joke about keeping me off the main roads until I was a safe enough driver to notrun some poor three-wheeled car off the mountainside. I hadn’t driven the Ferrari yet, and I wanted to. It seemed like the perfect time.
I needed some kind of control in my life. I needed to… justdowithout having to get permission from a man who reminded me of an Italian version of Shrek. Keely had put the thought in my head after she had seen Giovanni. She wanted to know why I got the ogre when everyone else had Italian gods to guard them.
