“I gave them enough money to take care of you.”
“You—what?”
“What happened to it, Mariposa?”
I stood, putting some distance between us. “She was so sick. We used it for her treatment. Then they took the house. There was no money left. No one to take care of me.” I bit my lip. “How do you know all of this?”
Capo was still down on one knee, the dirty shoes dangling from his fingers. “I knew your parents, your birth parents, Corrado and Maria. Your name was Marietta Palermo.”
“Marietta Palermo.” I tasted the name. It felt foreign. Wrong. “I was five when—You had something to do with me going to live with them, didn’t you?”
“I did. I brought you to live with them. I changed your name.”
“Mariposa,” he said, using an Italian accent on the Spanish word. “I’ll call you Mariposa. The butterfly.”
The bastard had named me.
“Why?” My hands clenched at my sides.
“Marietta means sea of bitterness, or something close to it. I wanted you to have something better to direct you. I wanted you to become the thing you loved the most. The butterfly. You deserved the chance. Both names started with Mari, something your mother called you. I wanted you to keep that part of her with you as well. And I knew it would make the transition easier. For a small child, you could still tell people that your name was Mari. It wasn’t such a stretch.”
“That’s not what I meant. Why did you bring me to live with them? What happened to my mom and dad?” Those two simple words almost ripped me in two, but I held myself together.
“Killed,” he said.
“In a car accident?” That was what Pops and Jocelyn had told me.
He set the old shoes down reverently, and then stood, facing me. “The Scarpone family murdered them.”
“The…” I couldn’t even say the word.Mafia.
“They demanded your blood, too.”
“I see.” I sat, all of my weight plopping down. I couldn’t stand, though I reached for the bag to hold it close. It was the only thing Jocelyn said had come with me when I arrived at her door. The bag held two coloring books. One filled with butterfly pictures and the other princesses. A box of colors. The butterfly hair clip.
“Barely,” he said.
At the one-word response, my eyes turned up to find his. He was looking at me, always looking at me, with an intensity that kept me rooted but made me feel like I could fly.
“You knew I liked butterflies. Coloring.”
Mariposa. Butterfly.
“You told me,” he said. “You asked me to color with you. Blue was your favorite color.”
“Still is,” I said, thinking of the color of his eyes.
I was going to be sick. I closed my eyes, taking deep breaths in and out.
“You…” I had to take another breath. “You’ve been keeping tabs on me.”
“No,” he said. “After I left you with Jocelyn and old man Gianelli, I cut all ties. It was safer that way. I had planned on having someone close to me check every so often, to make sure the money was still there and that you were taken care of, but then something happened, and life got in the way. When you showed up at Macchiavello’s the first time, I thought you seemed familiar. When you showed up at The Club, I knew. The ice pack you left behind confirmed it. I ran the DNA from your blood on it.”
“You saved me. Saved me from those people.”Your people?The question burned the tip of my tongue. I wanted answers, but we were talking about the Scarpone family—they seemed to be entering my circle a lot lately. Anyone who knew anything about anything knew who the Scarpones were. They were not the Faustis, not by any means, but they were known to be ruthless to the core.
Five families ruled New York, and the Scarpone family was one of them. They were the top dogs. Because of people like them, I had learned early on to keep my head down and my eyes averted. It was one of the reasons I didn’t rat on Quillon Zamboni, the man who touched me while I was in foster care. To be curious went against all that I knew, how to keep myself safe, but I was marrying this man. I had to know this, at least.
“You’re one of them.”
