Corrado wanted me to get a feel for the different areas of New York, even though he mentioned staying close to where we were. Instead of buying something already there, he decided that we should build.
“So we can put in hidden rooms?” I turned to face him in the car.
He didn’t respond, so I called his name. He still did not look at me. He was in his own world, and it was only getting worse.
“DonCorrado,” I said with force.
He looked at me then, narrowing his eyes before he turned back to the road. Of course he would respond to that. It was all he was lately.
He nodded. “I feel it’s necessary.”
“You heard me?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I hear everything.”
I cursed in Sicilian.
“That’s why I didn’t answer,” he said. “I don’t want to argue with you. I know where the conversation is going. And I’ll do what I have to do to keep my family safe.”
I shook my head. “My walls will not be stained with the blood of men who had no idea they signed up for a death sentence!” I understood the concept of it, but I refused to live with ghosts. We had enough of them roaming around. “What about Dario Fausti? He’s an architect. He understands this life. He would be trustworthy enough to do it.”
The mention of the Faustis made him visibly change. He became harder, more difficult to read. I knew he had a problem with Rocco, but Dario, his middle brother, was different.
Corrado had a problem with one, and he blamed all. I could trace the vein of it in my mind, like I could reach out and trace one on his arm. It was the same vein where vengeance for my cousin lived—he blamed one man for an entire family’s wrongdoing, not able to see that my cousin had more than one side. Our side was good people.
I sighed, looking out of the window. “If we must have the rooms, and you’d prefer him not to do it, I’d rather stay where we are. That sacrifice was enough.”
He said nothing as he turned the car around and headed back toward his grandparents’ place.
It was hard to think about anything else, though, when I started to think about the situation between my husband and my cousin. Now was not the time tell Corrado that his sister was alive, because once I did, I would have to tell him that she married the man he desperately wanted to kill. His son, when he was old enough, too. His nephew.
I sighed again, clutching my purse. “Tell me one thing,” I whispered.
“Anything,” he said.
“Why? Why do you want to kill him? The real reason?”
He didn’t even question who. He already knew. It was all he thought about when he wasn’t dealing with family business. “That entire family needs to go. They never followed the rules. Killing kids is not a part of our business. It will never be, as long as I’m alive.”
“What about Corrado Palermo?” I said. “He did not follow the rules.”
“He didn’t.”
“I understand about your sister. There are no words for that. But why do this for him, too? Why avenge a man who knew the rules and broke them anyway?”
“I’m not doing this to avenge him,” he said. “Other than ridding the earth of the Scarpones, I’m doing this because I want to kill him.”
“You’re angry that—that man killed Corrado Palermo first?”
He nodded. “Angry is not the right word for it.”
“This is not about avenging Corrado Palermo,” I said, suddenly understanding. “You hate him so much that you want to kill him, but you can’t.”
He became quiet for a while. “Maybe if I could kill him, I could rid myself of him,” he said quietly. “I can’t get rid of him, angel eyes. He’s too much a part of me. He’s in my blood. I hate myself for it.”
All of his life he had been programmed to get rid of a problem, and then move on. He could not get rid of this. There was no one to touch, to strangle, to kill. He was dealing with two ghosts. Vittorio Scarpone and Corrado Palermo. Both phantoms of the past.
I took his hand and brought it to my heart. “You can’t kill a ghost,il mio amore. A ghost is already gone. You bring them to you by calling them, by giving themyourlife to cling to. It is you who won’t allow them to go.” I squeezed his hand even tighter, hoping to get through to him on his side of this life we shared. “If you hate yourself for what’s in your blood—how do you think Vittorio Scarpone feels?”
