“I make no accusations,” he said, “and for my own protection, I don’t argue with her. But we’re back.”
“And the shooting of Mister Patalano?” Daniel asked.
I swallowed a bucket of ice.
“Shooting?” Antonio said casually, as if talking about the weather. “So he’s not dead?”
“Not entirely.”
“I was there when he shot himself,” Antonio said, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “He always had this problem. He couldn’t hit the side of a garage.”
“We’ll see what forensics comes back with on that. In the meantime, come with me. I have something to show you.”
six.
SIX WEEKS EARLIER[→8]
antonio
he day I killed the last man who’d raped Nella, I forgot my own name.
I did it four days after Daniel came to me with his name in exchange for turning my back on Theresa. Four days after I kicked her out of the shop because I suspected she was partnering with him, even while I didn’t believe it. Four days of making sure Daniel’s man was really the culprit. Knowing I might be getting set up, I killed him anyway.
At the time, I’d been confused. Confused about my purpose in life, which was vengeance for my sister. Confused about how to proceed now that I’d killed the last of them, and confused about this woman who wasn’t supposed to mean anything to me.
I felt a curious emptiness when I stood over his body. Brower had given me his name, and despite the fact that the DA thought I was an animal who would kill anyone, I had to check his facts.
It all lined up.
Four days of forcing myself across the town, asking questions that would only be answered when accompanied by gunshots or a beating so deep inside Griffith Park, the threat of starvation on broken legs was real.
Four days of petitioning old Italians to let me finish my business.
Half a day of chasing him, because he knew I was coming. When I finally stood over the rapist fuck after the light had gone out of his eyes, a piece of myself went with him.
That was it. I was done. I had no more vengeance to wreak. I had no more debts to pay.
I dialed my mother’s number to tell her Nella was safe, that the men who’d raped her were gone forever. Down to the last one, they were wiped from the earth. But I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t make it real. I had to figure out what it meant for me first. I drove to the mountains and took a dead dirt road up, up always up, and walked past a yellow-and-black gate until I could see California in front of me.
What would I do now?
That empty space filled itself with an ache I couldn’t control. I even felt it happening and pushed it away. Denied it. But the anger-shaped space inside me changed into a vacuity designed for her sweet smell and her cinnamon hair, the sound of her laugh, her tone when she was haughty, and the silk of her skin in my hand. She took up residence, kicked off her shoes, and sprawled out inside my soul.
I couldn’t have her. It was crazy. But the place where the want for vengeance had resided was filled with the want for her, as if I had a proscribed amount of space for desire in my heart and it had to be occupied.
I felt the warmth from my chest to my fingertips as she infected my blood. Every part of me vibrated. I had agreed to stay away from her. I’d made a trade. Vengeance in exchange for erasing her from my life.
But in exacting the vengeance, she became impossible to erase, and when I got a call that Bruno was going to grab her because he was ambitious and stupid, I had to nip it in the bud. Not to protect myself, but because I needed to send a message. Theresa Drazen was not to be touched.
I couldn’t be with her. My world would break her, and hers would never accept me. I was fine with that. Just fine. Up to the point where she was hurt. Then the space in me where vengeance was, that was now filled with thoughts of her, widened a little, and the old rage seeped in.