“He’s a Scarpone,” he said. “I don’t believe a fucking thing that comes out of his mouth.”
“He’s more than a Scarpone!” I yelled. “He has more than one side. He’s a good man and he loves your sister. He almost died for her.”
“So what are you saying? That I don’t love you as much because I didn’t almost die for you?”
I almost stumbled back. What was he talking about? He had to be in shock. I could see the surprise he tried to hide. His sister had been sitting next to him and he had no idea, and he was a man who made it his business to know everything. “I did not say that!”
“You didn’t have to,” he said. “You think he’s a hero for what he did. It doesn’t take a hero to not kill a child. Even a somewhat decent human being wouldn’t do it. Anything less is a rabid animal. Like the rest of his fucking family.”
“He does not want thanks for it,” I said. “But they still tried to kill him for it! In many ways they did. And again, I amhisfamily, too! We share the same blood.”
“How was her life?” He stood to his full height. “That girl on the bench. Mariposa. Mari. Marietta Bettina Palermo. Fucking Scarpone.”
“Macchiavello,” I said.
He waved it off. “I could tell she had a hard life. I could tell she wanted family. She needed me to acknowledge her. To see her.”
“Right!” I slapped the table. “If you do this, you will take away the life she has fought so hard to have. You do not understand, Corrado. He loves her like you love me! She is worried that her husband will kill her brother, or her brother will kill her husband. That one day you will go looking for her son. Your nephew. Then I am certainshewill killyou.”
He stood still, and I walked over to him, putting my hands on his arms. “You are not a mercenary,” I said. “You are Don Corrado. You know the rules. You live by them. That is why you are where you are in this life. If you do this, though, you are breaking the most sacred rule of all. One that is not set by any family, but by a greater law. If you do this, you will not only destroy your sister’s family, but your own.”
36
Corrado
It wasn’t her I came to see at Macchiavello’s, but it didn’t surprise me that she came in his place. She was curious about me, which answered so many questions about the day in the park.
My sister took a seat next to me at the table. “That’s one of my favorite dishes, too,” she said, nodding toward my plate. “I still can’t get enough of it. Though I love the pasta and crab dish more. I get it whenever I can.”
I finished my piece of steak and then took a drink. I nodded. “The food here is good.”
She grinned at me. “That must have hurt coming out, huh? A compliment.”
“Not at all,” I said, offering her a plate of asparagus. Green foods weren’t usually my thing. “The truth is the truth. I don’t sugar coat it, and I don’t shy away from it. I expect the truth, so I give the truth. Rarely is it anything personal.” To experience emotions meant that care had to be involved. I reserved that for special circumstances. Most things were this or that. Nothing more.
She pushed the plate between us. “I like salads, but green foods are not my favorite either.” Her grin turned into a smile. “We look nothing alike.”
“No,” I said. “We don’t.”
“I look more like mymamma,” she said. She studied my face openly, without worrying about if she was going to tip me off to the secret we once had between us. “My son has your features. Your eyes. Even the color of them.”
“Saverio.” I nodded. “I didn’t realize it at the time.”
“I noticed it right away,” she said. “Now I can say he resembles my brother, not that—”
“Man,” I finished for her.
“Yeah,” she breathed. “I don’t have good feelings toward him.”
“You remember him?”
“One or two things.” She shrugged. “It’s not so much what I remember about him specifically, but what I know he did to our family. Mymamma. I don’t have one because of what he did.”
That was true. Corrado Palermo had set all of their fates in motion when he attempted to kill the boss of his family. I wondered if she realized that her husband had killed hermamma, though, when he could have spared her.
One look at her and I knew she was going to defend him if I brought it up. She was going to tell me that Arturo would have never stopped. Neither would have Achille. That was true, too. The son was worse than his father. He was the one who had killed Emilia.
Sylvester came into the room, bringing her a glass of water with lemon. He sat a plate in front of her. Then he brought me another beer.
