Rocco put a hand to my shoulder, Romeo the other, and they held me back while Tito came to stand in front of me.
“Nephew.” His voice was as serious as when he’d been saving my life. “You will do your wifeno favors if you go in after her and we have to getyouout.”
“I’m not Brando Fausti,” I said, “but I can fucking swim.” I hit my chest. “I refuse to stand here and wait for him to bring my wife back to me.”
“You are as close to me as a brother.” Rocco squeezed my shoulder. “So trust me when I say this. Brando will bring her up. He will retrieve her. He is the best there is. Let him do his job.”
His job.My wife.
As soon as the thought came to me, the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard seemed to explode around me. Brando broke the surface with my wife in his arms. He seemed to move quicker than a shark in the water. Once he carried her up the ladder, he set her on the pier.
Tito went straight for her. Brando flung his mask off, and after Romeo helped him with his tank, he went straight to Tito, and they both started working.
“Hypothermic,” Tito muttered while he checked her pulse. “We must be very careful. Brando. Cut her out of these clothes. Then get the warming blankets on her. Now!”
My wife was lifeless on the pier. Her skin had no color. Her lips were blue. She had a gash on her forehead. It was deep and red, but there was no blood.
I crawled to her side, taking her wrist in my hand, checking myself. “Uncle.” My voice was tight, raw, low. “She doesn’t have a pulse.”
Tito watched my face while Brando stripped her down to her bra and underwear and then covered her in blankets. “The water—we had a hard winter—it’s too cold. She’s too cold. We need to get her body temperature up.”
“CPR,” I said, clearing my throat. “Chest compressions. Do them—”
“I will start CPR, but not until the ambulance gets here. I need to continue once I begin. There will be no stopping until I can bring her back. Right now, her pulse is too low to detect. But that does not mean we cannot get her back.”
Sirens wailed in the distance. An ambulance was on its way. But if Tito couldn’t save her, I knew no one could.
Romeo walked Bruno to his car before the police arrived. Our eyes met as he passed. He smiled at me, no more teeth in his mouth, but nothing but satisfaction on his face. I’d skin him alive, from head to toe, and then fit him for cement blocks. Then he’d take a ride to the bowels of the Hudson River. The crabs could feast on his insides. They wouldn’t have to worry about his skin. They’d get a peeled snack.
“Nephew!” Tito roared.
It took me a minute to turn to him, to focus on anything but my anger. My desire to kill tasted like blood in my mouth, and I was a starved animal. The dead man’s cry when his skin peeled back, inch by inch, would represent what was happening to my heart and soul.
“Keep your focus here!” Tito nodded toward my wife. “Talk to her!”
Talk to her.
My wife.
She had no pulse, but I was the dead man.
I didn’t want to think about why Tito had ordered me to talk to her.
I refused to.
But if this was it, the end, it was final, for the both of us.
I’d never see her again.
She’d be in heaven. I’d be in hell.
We were never meant to be longer than we were on this earth.
I lifted her hand to my mouth, blowing warm air on it, my lips close. “Mariposa.” My voice cracked. “You left something important behind, Butterfly. You left me behind to die the worst death. You being away from me is the worst death. It’s more painful than anything I’ve ever known. But words are useless.Hearme, Mariposa.”
There was a time when I didn't know if I'd ever be able to speak, the knife had cut me so deep. I knew then how useless words were. I demanded more than words, and that was what I vowed to give to her.
Feel my pain and let it bring you back to me. You’re the only one who can save me from it. My life and my death. My dash in between—
