“Assolutamente,” he said, watching me move around him from the side of his eye.
“I will name a candle after my husband.”
“That depends.”
“On?” I stopped in front of him.
He reached out and pulled me toward his body. I lost my breath when I crashed into him. He looked down at me, moving a strand of hair from my face.
“The name.”
I grinned. “Lo scorpione.”
He threw back his head and roared with laughter again. “I fucking like it,” he said.
“Ifuckinglike it,” I said.
He put his fist up to my chin, like he was going to give me a punch, but instead, he brought my face closer so his lips could claim mine.
“That mouth on you,” he said after he’d pulled away. “I fucking love that.” He turned and blew out all of the candles he’d lit. Then he swept me off my feet, carrying me toward the door of the shop. He stopped before he stepped out of it. We stared at what was starting to become something special.
“This is all you, angel eyes,” he said. “This isyour thing.”
“It is,” I whispered. “And this—” I put his hand against my stomach. “This isours.”
“Il nostro sangue in un cuore,” he said.Our blood in one heart.
I kissed the pulse in his neck. “It is an honor to carry a piece of you within me,” I said in Sicilian. In that moment, I could not remember a time when I did not love him.
L'ho amato per sempre. Lo amerei per sempre.
I loved him forever. I would love him for always.
He had been warning me of the hurt he could cause. I accepted the warning. All things in life worth bleeding for are worth livinganddying for.
24
Alcina
Pulsing music blared from inside of The Club. I felt it rattling the cement underneath my heels as we made our way to the door from the car. Corrado put his arm around my neck, pulling me closer.
A line wrapped around the building, hundreds of people waiting to get in.
I looked at Corrado as we passed the crowd. He kept his face forward, his arm tight around my neck, ushering me past.
Some of his men were ahead of us, a couple on each side of us, and a few behind us. The men working the security at the door allowed us in without even looking at us. They wore headpieces, and I heard one speaking in Italian. “He has arrived.”
Corrado wasn’t flashy, but he was stylish, and the papers were reporting that he had started a new era of bosses. He was an ode to days long gone, when men wore suits to be respectful of the job. They said he was bringing back the Golden Days of Capone.
He is quiet about his dealings, one paper said,like his grandfather. Even though they knew what he was, they couldn’t prove it. He was exactly what had gone missing in this modern society—he didn’t exist even though people knew he did.
Hisnonna, Teresa, made sure the news was on whenever I went into the kitchen. She’d leave me newspapers and articles to find.
I kept to myself in the house, because the women who spent most of their time with her did not like me.
The feeling was mutual.
There was one—the one with the evil eyes—who cursed me every time I walked into the kitchen. Her name was Martina.
