Alcina had always enjoyed eating, but ever since she found out she was pregnant, she was on an entirely new level.
“Shouldn’t you be sick right now?” I cut off another piece and took a bite. The steak was damn good.
She laughed, twirling the pasta around her fork like a fucking pro. “All pregnancies are different. Some women get sick.” She shrugged. “Others do not. I do get a little bothered by smells—raw chicken. But nothing severe, or you would know.” She twirled more, but this time she fed it to me.
I nodded. “Good, but not as good as yours.”
“Myziein Modica make a pasta like this.” She smiled. “Paired with the smells, it brings me home.”
We didn’t talk much after that. We enjoyed our meals in companionable silence, swapping bites and a little conversation every so often. We were sharing three plates of desserts when Adriano stuck his head in the room.
I could tell he was trying to inhale the food through his nose; his nostrils flared. “Company.”
I dropped my napkin on my empty plate, meeting his eyes.
“Silvio and some of the men.”
The sit-down wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow. I guess he got the feeling he was going to get walked into a room but never walked back out. He was fucking right. Why go ten rounds with a guy when I could knock him out in one? It was that fucking simple.
What wasn’t simple was having my wife with me.
Sylvester stepped back into the room and cleared his throat. “There is another room,” he said, pointing to the left. “Mrs. Capitani is more than welcome to wait for you in there, until business is over.”
I nodded at Nunzio and he nodded back.
“I guess you are sending me away,” she said.
“Just for a minute.”
She huffed and stood. When she was almost to the door, Silvio stepped in front of her. She stopped like she had run into a wall. Her eyes moved up to his and hardened. He couldn’t hide the shock in his eyes—he wasn’t expecting her. What she looked like.
“In a different league than Junior,” I said, forcing his eyes on me. “Makes sense now. Why he had to force her into something she didn’t want.”
Her lips moved without sound again, and I wondered if she was cursing him as Nunzio escorted her into the next room. If Silvio believed in what the old folks said, he should have cupped his balls to ward off themalocchio.He had so much heat coming for him, though, that even cupping his balls wouldn’t have saved him from the evil eye.
“Sit,” I said, after she had gone. “Let’s talk.”
He moved deeper into the room, a few guys following behind him. They took their seats, and so did my men. Vito, the guy Silvio had appointed his underboss, as if the position was his even after I’d been inaugurated, refused to move his eyes from my face. He was Junior’s godfather.
I took a drink and set it down. “Our meeting is tomorrow. You’re a day early.”
“This is a personal meeting,” he said. “We’ll deal with business tomorrow.”
“Let’s get down to it.”
“I owe you for finding Junior’s wife.”
“No payment needed. I foundmywife. The only record of marriage you’ll find for Alcina Maria Parisi is to me. Their sham of a marriage was never legal, nor was it consummated. It was forced, which means it’s void in the eyes of the church—and me.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You have proof of this.”
Silvio thought he was slick. Part of the code was that we didn’t mess around with other member’s wives. We didn’t look at them the wrong way. We were never alone with them. We couldn’t even mess around playfully with wives, sisters, or claimed women unless we had honorable intentions.
Silvio thought he had me there, and even if he did—my grandfather would come back to haunt me for this—I would have broken the code for Alcina. The day I told her I would die for her in that pistachio grove, I meant it literally.
I grinned into my glass. “The proof was the loss of your son’s balls. He wanted her. She had a difference of opinion. When he forced the matter, after he beat her, she settled it. The only thing she did wrong was not going for his jugular instead of his balls.”
“No wonder the Scarpones wanted to rid the earth of the Palermos,” he said. “The only thing the Scarpones did wrong was not killing him before he had the chance to procreate. Luna was so in love with him. Stupidly so. I remember.” He touched his temple. “I didn’t know it was him at the time, but I know now. He left her for Maria, a girl from the old country.” He nodded toward the door. “A girl like that one.”
