“He’s all right, Brando,” I whispered. He wanted assurance that Marciano was going to be okay. “He just wants to be close right now.”
“I don’t remember being—” He motioned with his chin at Marciano, who was alternately eating the popsicle and watching the TV. He had the owl around the neck, choking the poor thing.
“You were too little.” I grinned.
He shrugged. “I can’t imagine Maggie Beautiful—” He didn’t finish the words. I knew though. He couldn’t remember her ever being maternal toward him.
The times he had to be the adult trumped the times she had been maternal. Despite her downfalls, though, she loved Brando.
“She did,” I assured him.
He nodded but didn’t say anything else on the matter.
“Have you seen Cerise?” I asked.
His eyes snapped up to mine. “Outside. With Dimitri. Why?”
“No reason. She left the game and hasn’t come back.”
“No reason, ah? You have curiosity written all over your face.”
“Magpie,” Marciano muttered to himself, shoveling the crushed ice into his mouth. “Chirp, chirp, chirp.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I was just worried about her.”
I turned to leave, but he refused to let me, my wrist still in his grasp. He pulled my hand up to his mouth, his cool breath washing over my skin, soon to be replaced by the warmth from his lips and a rush of air from his nostrils.
“Grazie moglie mia.”
“My pleasure,” I whispered.
He let me go, but not without leaving me with a warm sense of his appreciation. He had thanked me for being a good mamma to his children; he always did.
A knock made us both turn toward the door.
Before I could even reach the handle, Brando snapped off an order to one of the guards. The guard met me at the door but opened it first, forcing me behind him.
Peeking around his Italian bulk, my mouth pinched.
Jane Stone. Her kids hovered on each side of her, the oldest two stretching their necks to see the area behind the house, where most of the noise came from.
My father came around the side of the house, Matteo and Mariano with him, a hand on each of their shoulders. When he saw the Stones, he stopped them with a firm hand.
Ignoring the guard’s Italian-accented demand of “who comes to the house of Fausti, announce yourself”—he was effing serious—I stepped around him, meeting Jane face to face.
Brando wasn’t far behind with Marciano in his arms. He had given the guard an order to stand down in Italian, which Jane narrowed her eyes at, not understanding his words. But I could tell the authority in his voice thrilled her. Him speaking in Italian did too. Her face flushed and her lips parted.
“What do you want?” I asked.
Brando put a hand to my shoulder and squeezed. I almost whirled on him, wondering if he thought I was being rude. But he only shook his head and said,inglese. If I hadn’t spoken in English, what language? It didn’t matter. I repeated it.
“Dose bad boys,Papà,” Marciano said, pointing at the kids. “Hit brother.”
Brando took Marciano’s hand down, admonishing him for pointing. While he did, Jane yanked her two oldest sons forward, as though she were giving them up for the slaughter.
“That’s why I came,” she whispered, not looking at me but at Brando. “To apologize. I’d like…I’d like for them to be friends.”
One of the boys scoffed and Jane twisted his ear. He turned as red as a fire truck, shrugging her off.
