“Do you know how many men he’s killed?” she asked. “Would you like to count? How many wives he left crying? How many children he left without fathers? This isn’t something we have to like, but maybe it’s justice.”
“You left your own son without a father. Where’s justice for you?”
“Antonin is better off.”
I didn’t know how to get through to her. I didn’t know what to say, because she was right. Antonio had been damned before he ever set eyes on me. He’d made years’ worth of choices that were beyond deplorable. He’d let his rage set his mind to murder again and again, trying to set the scales straight and only making the weight of his crimes greater and greater. There would be no forgiveness for him, not in this world or the next.
“You said he was sweet when you met,” I said.
“He was so nice,” she said wistfully. Had she been like this when they met? Or had he destroyed her too?
“He said you were gentle. He said you were innocent and beautiful. I think he thought you could save him,” I said.
“I kept trying.”
“And he kept getting worse.”
She nodded.
“He’s done everything wrong,” I said. “I know he has. He was in the life, and he killed… I don’t even know how many men inside his organization. Too many. One is too many. I’m not excusing it. But I think he can be saved. I think we can get that man back. The one you married. Maybe not totally. He’ll never forget these years. But that man who brought you strawberries and was gentle and kind? He’s still in there, and I think he’s ready to be free.”
“I’m so confused.”
“You’re right to be.”
“Do you think he can come back?”
“I do.” I didn’t warn her that he wasn’t coming back to her, and if he did, then she and I would have a deep, long-standing problem. “He was trying to get out of the life. There’s nothing he wants more than an end to it.”
“I wish he really was dead,” she said, staring at the edge of the morning skyline. It wasn’t even close to sunrise, and the city was as quiet as it ever was.
“Yeah, I get that.”
I did truly understand. She’d come to Los Angeles to pay respects to a husband she hadn’t seen in ten years and wound up at the center of a mob war over a bride he’d abandoned for another woman. If he’d been dead, she’d have closure. If he’d been dead, she could grieve and let go. He’d never change. He would be the subject of her prayers for years to come. I saw her so clearly, and I felt nothing but compassion.
“If you want to leave and go home to your son, I think you’ll be forgiven. At least by me. Whatever happens will happen without you.”
“Everything already happened without me,” she said as I turned off the freeway.
More would happen without her, because whatever I was stepping into, she would be a liability if she came along.
I remembered the map and turned down the dark routes and ways without much trouble until I hit a high fence with barbed wire on top. I parked the car to the side of the road and shut off the lights. The moon was diffused by the rainclouds, which had closed the sky to a slight drizzle.
I should have left Valentina at the hospital, or the freeway entrance, or anywhere but in the middle of nowhere.
“You should stay here,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied with a sharp nod. “I will.”
“I’ll be back with Antonio.”
“Yes, you will.”
“If one of us isn’t back by the time the sun is up, can you drive?”
“Of course I can drive. I’m not stupid.”
“I’ll leave the keys in the ignition.”
“Go. Please.” She pushed my shoulder with one hand and pointed out the door with the other. “Save him.”
“Thank you, Valentina. You’re all right.”
“You may call me Tina.” She shook her hand at the door again.
I took a deep breath and got out.
forty-seven.