“Never say that name to me again,” he hissed vehemently. “We don’t know the Giordanos. We never did.”
I didn’t understand it then, but I’d go on to learn the story later. The story of how Giuseppe Giordano betrayed the most powerful famiglia in Taormina. How, while I’d been peacefully sleeping and dreaming of what I might do with Curse tomorrow, Curse was unconscious in his bedroom as his home burned down around him. How Elio had to fight through the flames to save him. How nobody could save their mamma, the lovely Florencia I’d come to love as well.
Her death was like a gut punch after losing my own mamma.
She was gone now. And so was Curse. He and Elio had been whisked away in the night, to be taken to Canada by their maternal uncle Vincenzo Titone and his wife, Carlotta.
I always knew that my time with Curse wouldn’t last. We had less than a week left in Sicily before we returned to Buffalo. But I always thought I’d get the chance to say goodbye. I’d hoped, probably foolishly, that we might even become something like pen pals, if I could get my Italian to a workable level.
My six-year-old heart, which had been barely hanging on by a thread to begin with, was crushed. It felt like the most terrible thing that could happen to a person.
But the rest of my time in Taormina taught me otherwise.
The rest of my time in Taormina – which was spent with Carlo Messina, another one of Papà’s business acquaintances, shoring up our alliances and reputation after Giuseppe’s betrayal and subsequent flight – taught me that there are far worse things than heartbreak.
The rest of my time in Taormina taught me that sometimes middle-aged men like Carlo could be more interested in you, an innocent fucking child, than they were their own wife.
And that when darkness fell, and the rest of the house slept, that such a middle-aged man might come into your room.
And do things you had no name for.
I learned the names later.
When I was older. When I knew better.
When Carlo was long-dead, Curse was long-gone, and it was all far too late.
Chapter 3
Curse
The night after Aurora Bianchi’s engagement to Marco Messina was announced, I killed four men.
And I killed them very. Fucking. Slowly.
It didn’t help.
I knew then that I couldn’t let it happen. Couldn’t let someone else have her. I would run out of throats to slit just trying to soothe myself. I didn’t tell Elio about my plans. At the time, he was preparing for his own wedding to Deirdre O’Malley, now Deirdre Titone. That was a little over two years ago.
I still haven’t told him. Deirdre is pregnant, and our Uncle Vinny has been dead for more than a year. Elio has other shit on his mind.
That’s why I was in New York alone.
I lingered outside the stately wedding hall. My fingers twitched with the desire to not let the ceremony happen at all. But that wasn’t realistic. I’d end up with a belly full of bullets before I even reached her at the end of the aisle. Marco Messina was one of the biggest bosses in New York. His guest list would make most men’s hair stand up on end.
Not mine. But still. I wasn’t an idiot. I couldn’t go charging in there on my own. I couldn’t blow the place up, either, like had happened at Elio’s wedding. There was too great a chance Aurora might get hurt.
And Aurora getting hurt was absolutely not a goddamn option.
So there I was, outside, alone, New York’s cool March wind batting at my hair and whistling along the seams of my black leather jacket as I waited for the only girl I’ve ever dreamed about to hurry up and marry someone else.
So that I could take her from him.
I still hadn’t worked out exactly what I wanted to do. I’d probably have to kill Marco at some point tonight. I could merely incapacitate him somehow, and take her that way, but then he’d know my face, my voice. I supposed I could cut out his tongue, his eyes, and remove all his fingers. That would make it difficult for him to communicate anything at all after the fact. But that idea made me feel itchy with the incompleteness of it all. If I left him alive, that could send a real shitstorm north for us to deal with if someone figured it all out.
No. I’d have to kill him.
If I did this right, it would look like a murder and kidnapping without any sort of suspect. Or, if they suspected someone, it could be any one of his enemies here. No doubt there would be cameras all over the place. But my identifying tattoos were all covered by clothing, including dark leather gloves I’d taken from Elio’s infinite stash. I was already wearing a black mask as well, the medical kind that covers your nose and mouth. On a camera, I’d be just another Sicilian with black hair in New York.
