I took her hand. I hadn’t touched her before, but I had a feeling her husband was dead. She broke down crying. I didn’t love her then, but I thought I could, maybe. If I got out of that compound in one piece. They’d already trussed me up and hung me from the ceiling. These families weren’t known for lowering the stakes from encounter to encounter. I was unarmed, unskilled, and I’d be unaccounted for for a long time if they decided to bury me here.
In retrospect, I was either really brave or really stupid. At the time, I’d felt as though I didn’t have any choice but to, at the very least, witness what was happening. Jesus, what a way to get myself killed.
But I kept going. I told Valentina to stay in the car, and she drew the tops of her fingers under her chin and flung them at me. I think she was telling me to go fuck myself. Must have been, because she got out with me.
I’d never seen the actual compound. It was more modest than I thought it would be, and it was a wreck. In the front yard, two women and four children, from twelve to a few months, huddled in the morning light.
“Are you all right?” I asked one of the women. I recognized her as Irene Carloni.
They didn’t answer.
“Stai bene?” Valentina asked.
Irene, who I knew spoke English, made the same motion Valentina had, a drawing of the fingers under the chin.
“Omertà,” Valentina said as I headed into the house. “They will never say.”
I smelled gunpowder, heard the batshit squeal of small animals, and ran out to the back. I saw a man’s body, his face in the mud. Simone Fiore and Lorenzo Desano stooped together. Hutches of animals. A bloody grate. My eyes fell on Antonio Spinelli, on his knees next to Theresa.
Blood, everywhere. I mean… everywhere and—
Valentina fell apart, but I couldn’t—
So I went to them. Antonio looked up and said— I didn’t know what Lorenzo and Simone were up to. Enzo Priole appeared. There was some conflict. Some questions that hadn’t been answered.
Jesus Christ, she’d been gutted. I just—
“Can you kill me?” Antonio’s question was absolutely sincere.
He was losing his mind, and I couldn’t blame him. I couldn’t even process a story around what I was seeing. He had blood pouring from his head, and his bruised and welted torso was bare to the winter air.
“I’m not killing you.”
I knelt by her. I thought I looked calm. I pushed back the creeping emotions, but I’d feel them later. I knew that. I was a heartless asshole, except when I wasn’t.
“How did this happen?” I asked. Even in death, she was beautiful. I touched her face. I didn’t care if I got blood on my hands.
Antonio just shook his head. He was in shock.
“Spin.” Lorenzo stood over us.
“Get the fuck away from me,” Antonio shouted. “You’re so fucking lucky you’re not dead.”
“The Sicilians. Their boss is dead. She—”
Antonio sprang up, took Lorenzo by the collar, and slammed him against a wall. “This is on you, Zo. On you. You got ambition and no brains.”
“If you’re gonna kill me, just do it!”
“I can’t!” Antonio let him go, and Lorenzo dropped.
“Her people are coming. Donna’s dead.” Lorenzo pointed at Theresa. “She did it, and she’s dead. What the—”
“Fuck you!” Antonio was beyond reason.
Lorenzo had a point. If Theresa had killed Donna, a crazy thought I had to just accept at face value, and Donna killed Theresa, the Carloni family had no leader.
“There’s a power vacuum,” I mumbled, leaning close to Theresa’s face.
“Say you done her,” Lorenzo said. “Say it, or they’ll crush us. Take charge.”
“No! No more. I’m done!”
Their fight fell into the background as I bent over Theresa. I’d seen so many dead people, and the one thing I could say about them was that they looked like statues of themselves. Glass blue eyes and hard lips. I put my thumbs on Theresa’s eyelids and closed them, and I felt something I shouldn’t have.
Warmth.
“You stupid motherfucker,” I said, standing. “There is no power vacuum.” I had only a second to see Antonio’s red eyes on me before I stared at my phone, trying to figure out who to call.
“What?” Antonio said.
“She’s alive.”
fifty-three.