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Prologue

Sal

I huff as a piece of paper slides across my desk. “I’m on my way out. I need to get to Sonoma like fucking yesterday. Can this shit wait?”

Lou shakes his head slowly. Then he covers his heart. I got ice in my veins suddenly. Fuck.

“It’s time.” If he says it, it must be true; he’s the man I trust the most.

I unfold the paper. It’s a transcript of a text exchange we’ve been monitoring.

E: Time’s up for the chef.

D: E. O. D.

I hold it out to Lou, who exhales and then closes his eyes tight. And I know it’s been vetted, authenticated and if it’s crossing my desk, there’s not a choice left to be fucking made.

Forgive me, my love.

PART ONE

Prima Parte

Chapter

One

Poppy

Reality flows in and out. Like waiting for an image to move from pixelated to clear. Sometimes the moment is crystal and I’m able to focus. Other times, it feels like I’m moving in a memory not rooted to anything. I hear his voice and imagine the moments as if I’m reliving them. As if they’re real, and I can touch them. I can touch him. And then the dreamy pixels snap into their proper place, and he’s gone again. It’s like I keep reliving his death over and over.

A disconnected voice says, “Gray works.”

“Green,” I say over the din of voices that keep trying to decide things. They don’t get to say anything about what my husband wears for eternity. “Black suit and the emerald green tie I gave him on our second anniversary. And don’t try to tell me the gray suit matches it better. I said that to him like a thousand times. He won’t hear it. He insists that the green, black combo doesn’t look too St. Patrick’s Day or too Italian if there’s red anywhere near him. Don’t argue with me… or him. Black with the green tie.”

There’s a light touch on my arm. Everyone is a light touch right now. “Poppy, honey. We don’t have the body. He won’t be wearing a tie. It’s a gray headstone.” My mom says as Becca tugs at my hands and I let her come into focus.

Don’t Leave Me This Way. I can’t survive. I can’t stay alive. This ancient disco song my mom used to like keeps running through my head like it’s the soundtrack to the montage of him in my mind.

Becca takes my face in her hands and my eyes focus on her. Snap. The volume of the song in my head turns down as I hear her.

“Poppy, this has to happen quickly. Stay with me, Poppy. Please, focus on me Poppy. I need so many facts. This is urgent, according to his attorneys, to protect it all. Stay with me.”

I say nothing. Her official lawyer voice drops, and I hear my sweet cousin, who’s like a sister. “You didn’t tell me you were married to him. That he was your husband. I didn’t know he was legally your husband.” She wipes something from underneath her eye quickly.

“Were?” I say.

“Poppy, I need you to pay attention.” Her stern attorney tone returning.

“Was?” I reply.

“This is not my strong suit.” She looks at the doorway and I follow her gaze.

My mom is there again. I know she told me, but things are constantly changing right now. I know we just discussed his tie, but my mind keeps flipping to places I don’t understand. Headstones, wait. I’m trying to breathe and make sense of everything happening around me. A headstone is a little cart before the horse.

“He was my husband? He is.” I state, and no one understands what I’m saying. Like I’m the crazy one in the room. What they’re saying makes no sense. He’s indestructible. He’s Sal Pietro. He steals all the air in every room he’s in. He’s incandescent and lights every part of me. He survives, he’s smart and scarred and cunning and brilliant and vibrant and mine. He’s outwitted all the crime families, bullets, knives, knaves, and fools that have come for him. He’s immortal and larger than life and is my husband. Present tense.

My mom’s arms wrap around me, and I pull the goldenrod dish towel through my fingers again. I try to shake her off, but she holds fast as Becca says more things that can’t be true.