Part I
Chapter One
Brando
The thought of a woman could rouse a man during the final countdown when he’s a second away from losing. Arms tired. Legs weak. Heart hammering so hard it's about to burst. A soul so weary that the mind starts to wonder if all has slipped through the cracks.
Then she comes to you. Somehow arms strengthen, legs harden, the heart knows nothing but the win, and the soul—she releases the part of it she was safekeeping at the last.
The thought of mine—my woman, that is—could rouse me from the dead.
I kept images of her at different times of our lives for this specific purpose:
The nightI laid eyes on her when she was fifteen, dancing in the window of her parent’s dance studio while I watched through falling snow.
The nightshe wooed an entire crowd in Paris, as she became an Etoile, the brightest star in the ballet world.
The eveningshe became my wife on the same date—December 11—that she had become mine the night out in the snow. She was so beautiful, she nearly brought me to my knees.
Our wedding night,when she stood before the fire in the castle and melted with the heat of my stare, more nervous than she had been the first time I claimed her for my own.
The timewe were summoned to Greece by thefamiglia—though I never told her, there was one memory from that trip that I treasured: Scarlett in a skin-tight white dress that swept the ground like a mermaid’s tail.
Most recentlywas the image of her in Fiji, where I took her after we had lost our son: Scarlett in a white—what had she called it?—sarong, and nothing else, standing behind a waterfall.
She was the common occurrence in all these memories: Scarlett and the proverbial apple (or in her case, a pear, her favorite) that she held in her palm, forever keeping me satisfied when I took a bite, yet forever making me lust for more. And more. And more.
As much as she inspired me to win, nothing else would drive me to lose, I thought to myself, and not with a little bitterness. I looked down at the note my wife had sent through her carrier, Chiara:Let Livio win one round.
When I turned to look at her, my eyes narrowed. She gave me a brief nod that held so much more than the action; it spoke loud and clear—if you love me, you’ll lose in the name of love.
“Even saving her from a shark wasn’t enough,” I said to myself, taking a drink of water. I poured some over my head, my hair already soaked with sweat. I ran a hand through it, slicking it back. A few wild strands still came loose.
Summer had come with a vengeance, and though the stone barn (turned gym) usually stayed a degree or two cooler, with all of the bodies crowded around, it was almost suffocating. That didn’t stop the men from sparring, from going after each other like lions with sacred territory in mind. If anything, it made us thirst for the fight even more.
The women usually stayed in the kitchen or drank tropical drinks in one of the gardens, but today they had found their way into our world. It seemed to up the game. Every man wanted to impress his woman, if he had one to impress. If not, there were still females around.
I snorted, looking at Scarlett once more. She held Diego, Carmen and Dario’s new son. At only three weeks old, he was the apple of his mamma’s eye and the pride in his papà’s. Not to forget all of his infatuated aunts and uncles who spoiled him rotten. He was a cute little dude, though, with a wig full of black hair and eyes just like Carmen’s—amber.
Scarlett held Diego’s head to her shoulder, stroking his hair. Our eyes met.
I shrugged. “I’m your puppet,” I mouthed.
She held up a finger. “Once,” she mouthed back.
I had no idea how it came to be, but her affinity for one of Rocco’s younger men, Livio, had become close to maternal. A twenty-three year old with the mindset of a fifteen year old. Sooner or later he’d have to grow up, especially given the dicey nature of the life he chose, to be a part of the notorious Faustifamiglia.
Recently, on a trip to the local market to buy groceries with Scarlett and I, he had met a local girl. She stood next to Scarlett, watching the proceedings with her fingers in her mouth.
Livio sparred with some of the other men from time to time, but never with any of my brothers or me. Not even Donato. It was time he faced me in the “ring.”
I grinned at him, and he swallowed hard. He glanced at the girl—what was her name? Santina—and waved. She waved shyly back. If Santina was the reason Scarlett wanted me to let him win, then she was mistaken. He would probably get more nookie, as my wife called it, if I were to pummel him.
Rarely did our sparring matches stay sparring matches. We used the term for lack of a better word. Barbaric battle was what Scarlett usually called it. Most of the time she wrinkled her nose at the smell permeating the air—the hot musk of men fighting it out—but for whatever reason, she and the entire house of females had decided to become spectators.
Hell, I might’ve agreed to let him win one in the name of love, but nothing was said about not messing with his head. I snapped my teeth at him and his eyes went round. He was tall and as thin as a whip, but he had started working out with the rest of us and was starting to build some muscle.
Tito came in, adjusting his spectacles and assessing the scene. He was the equivalent of a referee. He had the power to stop the fight if it became too serious. The look on his face told me he wasn’t having it today, though. “Nephew,” he said with a tone of warning, “if I have to stitch him up, I will stitch you up! Cuts or no,il dottoreis off today!”
