In the car home, silence gnaws at the edges of the tension between us. I don’t know what’s on Santino’s mind, but I’ve settled into a gritty despair. He never promised to free Gia after what I heard, but it affected him. I’m pretty confident the wedding’s going to get unblessed or whatever. Then I have to work on making sure every other girl in this town is safe.
Without a groom ready to steal from him, I don’t know how I’ll do it. I’m not a superhero or a saint. It’s all too big, too old, too ingrained to fix. I’m just a woman. A mouthy fishwife. A thorn in the side of His Highness.
“You didn’t eat,” Santino says as we turn down the road to his house. The headlights bounce off the fog, creating ghosts that whoosh away as we pass.
“There was a lot of wine to pour.”
He pulls up to the gate, and it opens for us. “Stay away from Damiano when I’m not there.”
“Why? Because of the rings?”
“He’s a man without a master.” He stops and puts the car into park.
“Italians shouldn’t write fortune cookies.” I open my door. The dome light goes on and I should leave before I say another word, but I have no strength to maintain filters.
I get out and step up the gravel walk to the house, hopeful that greed for a diamond has saved Gia, and fearful that even after the cut lip and the infighting, the spark of friendship burns brightly enough to allow Santino to believe Damiano’s eventual denials.
“What happened after my father died?” I ask when Santino catches up to me at the front door. “With you and Damiano?”
“A king doesn’t rule more than his kingdom.”
“For the love of God. Skip the fortune cookie bullshit.”
He smiles and unlocks the door. “We’re Neapolitan. We are camorra. We beat the fascists because we had strength without a center. Is it fortune cookie bullshit to say I’m not the only capo in the Cavallo family? Your father was a true king.” His sigh is heavy, loaded even, as he swings open the door and steps out of the way for me. “It’s truth. Damiano can serve any of us, or he can fight me for territory. He can seek power without denying my authority.”
We stand in a house of windows, lit from the outside. Neither one of us turns on a light.
“I thought you worked for the same master,” I say.
“You mean, of course, your father.”
“Yes, I mean my father.” I set my jaw. “My father the grocer. And the only really-for-real king, apparently.”
His silence is heavy. I can’t view my father as someone like Santino, someone who plays violence like an instrument.
“Sometimes I forget you lost him so young and didn’t get to know him like we did.”
Why am I standing here in the dark, listening to him tell me who my own father was? And why doesn’t he just take out a fucking knife and stab me while he’s at it?
He was my papa, a memory relegated to a ghost of a man on all fours, roaring like a bear and laughing with his tiny daughter. A thick gold cross necklace dangled from his neck. His hair was dark and slicked back, and he had so many bright teeth in his smile.
“I’m going to bed,” I say, heading up the steps. “I don’t want to fight about which one right now, please.”
“I am the man I am because of your father, Violetta.” Santino grips the banister, but doesn’t come up. He is no longer cool and collected, but fervent and emotional.
My newly-minted sadness shatters against the surface of his sincere passion. “Who are you then? Who are you that I should look at you and say, ‘Good job, Dad! Because no matter what you stole or who you killed, you made Santino DiLustro into the man he is today, and…’” My armor is customized to keep me from crying over my husband, not my father, and the sobs burst through at high speed. “‘And I’m so proud to be your little girl.’ Is that what I’m supposed to look at you and say? Because, honestly…?”
The rest of the sentence is built like a weapon of war and aimed straight for my husband’s heart, but my sobs are too thick to aim through and my breath is too thin to pull the trigger. My knees cannot hold the weight of my heart’s ammunition.
What if I hadn’t overheard the conversation about my ring? What if I’d puked instead of putting my ear to the bathroom door? Or if the men had been more careful? Or knew I understand Italian?
I wouldn’t have been able to tell Santino what Damiano has planned, and then what?
I collapse, sitting on the stairs, holding the railing as if it’s the only thing that can save me.
But it can’t.
Neither can the strong arms around me, tightening into a shell of bone and flesh. On the stairs, I cry into Santino’s shirt, saying meaningful words in meaningless sentences. Gia, Gia. Don’t. Wrong. Please. Can’t. Gia, no. I started crying over my father, but now I’m bawling because Gia was sold right in front of me and I don’t know if she’s saved, while Santino weaves meaningful sentences out of meaningless sounds. Shh. Si, si. Va bene. Va tutto bene.
He lays me back and I’m on a bed, racked in delusional sobs that keep me from remembering how I got up the steps or even seeing which room I’m in. All I know is that he’s here, wiping my face, kissing the salty streaks from my cheeks, whispering soothing lies I need to believe. My fists clutch his shirt and skin, and my crying turns to pleading.
I kiss his lips, the source of my comfort, and the lies are silenced, because everything isn’t going to be okay. It’s not fine and good, and I’m not going to hush. I’m going to grope at his clothes, push his hand under my skirt, and beg him to hurt me.
“Please,” I whisper into his mouth.
He is forceful but tender, pulling away the layers of fabric between us only as much as necessary, leaving his shirt and my dress over the shoulders, until his fingers can comfortably reach between my legs.
“Violetta,” he says, mouth open against my cheek in a groan.
“Please,” I repeat, wrapping my legs around him. He needs to do this before I cry again.
The head of his cock is smooth along my seam, sliding inside me without much effort. His thrusts are as gentle as his kisses, and when he’s finally deep inside, I shudder with relief and move against him.
I want to feel as if I’m breaking in body as well as soul, but he refuses to hurt me.
Instead, I punch his chest, slap his face, and claw at his back so hard I feel wetness under my fingers.
He doesn’t stop me until I grip his throat. Still rocking gently, he takes my hands away and pins them over my head.
That’s all I need. In a rush of pleasure, I stiffen and arch in an orgasm made of my tears and his tenderness, blinded with a poisonous mixture of elation and anguish. But when he falls on me, breathing heavily, it’s all gone.
My grief. My fear. My despair. Gone.
I’m left with blood under my fingernails and three Furies in their place.
Righteousness. Ambition. Justice.