“He had some news from my grandfather.”
“Good news, I hope?”
“The bull is dead,” he said.
I stopped walking, and Corrado did, too.
“Wh—” I swallowed hard. “When?”
“Last night.”
I looked around and only saw a few people rushing toward their seats. Adriano and Nunzio appeared among them. Adriano looked at me and his eyes showed nothing but remorse. I noticed a pack of nuts sticking out of his pocket.
“Yeah, the motherfucker was eating,” Corrado said. “He dropped the bag and bent down to pick it up, and that’s when he lost you.” He took me by the arm and started ushering me back toward our seats. “Tell me what happened, Alcina.”
“Nothing,” I said, trying to catch my breath. He had broken the news so smoothly, as though he was telling me that the rodent problem we had at home had been taken care of. Like the only reason it mattered was because it mattered to me.
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
“A man,” I said. “I thought—he was following me. But if the bull is dead…” I took a deep breath. “Maybe I was imagining it.”
“No,” he said. “Silvio might still have people looking for you, which means they’re looking for me, too.”
“What does that mean?” I looked at him, at the set of his face, and there was nothing showing there but a man determined to get back to his seat before the show began again.
“It means that if Silvio decides he wants me dead because I ordered his son dead, we will not agree to disagree.”
“We should leave?”
We took our seats again. This time it seemed like Adriano and Nunzio were on higher alert. Nicodemo took the seat directly in the back of me.
“No.” Corrado fixed his suit after he sat, taking my hand again.“My wife will enjoy the rest of the show. My grandfather exiled me to Italy for his own reasons, but when it comes toil mio cuore, I’ll die before another man puts his hands on you.”
He looked at my arms, where Rocco had touched me, his eyes hard. After a minute, he turned in his seat, his face as solid as the amber in his eyes.
The lights dimmed, the music started, and the curtain lifted. Conversation over.
20
Corrado
Iwatched my wife as she took her bag and followed the land down toward the boat slip. I told her to stay close. She took a seat in a grassy area not too far away.
Her back faced me, her hair pulled up and a scarf around it, her sunglasses on, but her face was set toward the fading sun. It was going to kiss the water soon—that was something she said—and she always wanted to be there for it.
Adriano stayed close to her, more eager than usual after the fuckup from the night before. It was the first time I’d ever had an issue with his eating. It usually didn’t stop him from doing his job. He claimed to have not eaten much the entire day. His blood sugar was low, so he needed protein to keep from passing out.
“Cugino,” Nicodemo said.
He sat across from me under the pergola.
“You’re still here,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Nicodemo was like smoke. The only time you really saw him was when there was a fire. He wasn’t a motherfucker you wanted to draw close, because unlike the animals who prowled in the night and were afraid of the flames, he wasn’t.
“I found the man. He was waiting outside of the theatre—as I would have been. He was sent by Silvio. To kill you both.”
I rubbed my chin. “Silvio knew where to find us.”
