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. “Myfratellowent in aftertua 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 legs 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 intonow.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.
