Chapter 21: When She Unravels: Chapter 21

I leave Valentina and decide I’m not going to think about her for at least the next few days. There’s a plan forming inside my head, and I’ll have to stay focused to make sure it succeeds. Every single one of my brain circuits needs to be firing at one hundred percent, which means I can’t let that woman take an ounce of my attention.

Ras is looking out to the pool when I enter my office.

“Leave your phone here. Let’s go for a walk,” I tell him. Some conversations are better had outside and without any technology, so there’s no chance of anyone listening in.

He does as he’s told, and we leave the office, passing by the pool before following the stone path to the garden. It’s my favorite part of the massive property I bought a few years back to be a proper home for Martina and I. She fell in love with the light-filled living room as soon as she stepped through the front doors, and I rarely resist opportunities to make her happy.

“What did Valentina tell you?” Ras asks once we reach the olive trees. The gravel crunches softly beneath our feet.

“We have the confirmation we need. Sal was behind it.”

Ras’s steps slow for a moment. “You sure?”

“Conte told her it was a favor for someone. The reason for it? Martina has the wrong last name.”

“That’s not definitive—”

“Conte called her a little Casalese mouse. Where do you think he got that from?”

It’s Sal’s nickname for Martina. As soon as Valentina said it, I knew.

Ras swears. “He’s gone out of his mind. Abducting her to keep a leash on you? He must have known the risk he was taking if it ever came to light.”

“It was only a matter of time before he did something like this,” I say. I should have known that the man who murdered my father to take over the clan would never stop worrying that one day I’d rise up against him.

There’s a bench on the edge of the garden that overlooks the calm ocean beyond. We sit down.

“He’s taken everything from us once already,” I say. “I won’t let him do it again.”

I remember my mother standing in the kitchen as flames engulf her dress. My sister’s frantic bleats. The men yelling in shock. My father’s dead body still warm on the floor. It is that moment, so clear in my memory that it feels like it’s been set in resin, that’s driven most of the decisions I’ve ever made. Without it, I’d be a completely different man.

A better man.

A weaker man.

I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath. “Martina cries in her room every night since New York. Every time I hear it, I remember how badly I’ve failed her. She can’t go to college like she wanted anymore. She can’t even leave this island. We are both prisoners here.”

Ras’s hand falls on my shoulder. “You know you can count on me.”

“There’s only one way out of this, Ras.”

His heavy exhale tells me he understands.

Water crashes over the rocks below us. I turn to face him. “War.”

He steeples his palms, his elbows on his knees, and I can see he’s already running through our options. “We need to beef up our security here first to make sure Mari is safe.”

“Would it be better to hide her somewhere until the dust settles?”

He shakes his head. “Better to concentrate our defenses on one area where both of you are. Plus, moving her this early would tip Sal off that something’s up. He watches all the entry points. I’ll call Napoletano “Ask him to come as soon as he can.”

“How much do you want me to tell him?”

“Keep it vague. Him and Sal have their own ugly history, but I want to talk to him in person first before deciding if we should bring him in. What’s your read on the latest sentiments among the families?”

“Hard to say. I’ll have to go to Casal and talk to my father. Last time we talked, he alluded to some rumblings from Elio. If it’s true, we’ll want to meet with him.”

“What rumblings?” I ask, thinking back to the last time I saw Uncle Elio. It’s been many years.

“Something about marrying off one of his two daughters to Vito Pirozzi.”

“Both of the daughters are fucking prepubescent.”

“They’ll wait until she’s eighteen.”

The thought of giving one of those innocent girls to the likes of Vito makes me sick. He’s smarter than his idiot brother Nelo, but not by much. “That’s a match made in hell if I ever heard of one.”

“The Pirozzi patriarch wants his boys to settle down, and Sal loves to pick on the remaining De Rossis.”

“If we can get both of my father’s brothers to back me, along with your parents, it will give us a real chance.”

Ras pulls out a cigarette and lights it. “It’ll be a start. I’ll set up the meetings.”

“I should go to Casal with you.”

“You can’t. It’ll set off too many alarms.”

I rise from the bench. I want to say to hell with it all. The caution, the levelheadedness, the self-control. I developed all of these traits out of necessity. They were the only way I could ensure me and my sister would survive amidst a collapsing world. But beneath all of those civilized layers lives a barbarian who’s hungry for revenge. I feel him inside me now, stretching his arms out and reaching for the bat wrapped in barbed wire. He wants to raise it and slam it into Sal’s head until there’s nothing left but bloody pulp. “I’ll make him pay for everything he did, Ras. Everything.”

Ras comes to stand beside me and peers over the edge of the cliff. “What of your prisoner?”

Valentina’s frightened eyes flash inside my mind. Can whatever she’s running away from be worse than the trouble I’m about to stir? Until she tells me her whole story, I can’t know the answer to that question, but at least here, I can keep an eye on her. “I’m keeping her until I figure out how she can best help our cause.”

“She’s valuable,” Ras says.

“I want to know if her husband is dead.”

“I’ll ask Napoletano to help, but her husband wasn’t the one who agreed to take Martina. You know that.”

Of course I do. Lazaro’s just a soldier, but if he’s alive, he better be counting his last breaths. Even if he hadn’t terrorized Mari, it’s clear Valentina isn’t fond of him. That’s enough for me to wipe him off the face of the Earth.

“The order had to have come from their don, Valentina’s father,” I say. “But it’s Lazaro who put his hands on my sister. The don will make it up to us in other ways.” I rub my palm over my chin. “He was willing enough to grant Sal a favor. The question is why? Garzolo needs something, and when we figure out what, we’ll be able to have a real conversation with him. If Valentina knows anything about it, I’ll get it out of her.”

Ras crosses his arms over this chest. “You sure about that? Your foreplay at dinner didn’t inspire a lot of confidence in your methods of interrogation.”

I scowl. “That wasn’t foreplay. You were the one who told me I couldn’t leave her down there.”

“I said you should exploit the soft spot she may have for you by treating her well, not indulge your BDSM fantasies in front of other people.”

My face heats. “Fuck you.”

“You made Mari so uncomfortable she ran to hide in her room.”

I glare at him. “Fine, no more family dinners with Valentina. I’ll deal with her in private.”

We return to the house, and Ras leaves for the night. I look at the time. It’s nearing midnight, and the house is silent except for the soft buzz of the dishwasher and sounds of the ocean streaming through the open patio doors.

I close them, stop by the kitchen for some water, then head upstairs. American pop music is playing from behind Mari’s door, but she’s not talking to her friends on FaceTime like she used to before everything happened. She doesn’t do much these days besides scrolling on her phone and wandering around the house. Packages arrive from time to time—clothes, bags, fashion accessories—but I’ve never seen her excited about any of them. She never goes out.

I’m about to knock on her door when I stop myself, fist raised midair. The truth is, I don’t know how to help her move on. I’ve tried talking to her, but it never leads anywhere. There’s something inside of her that’s tearing her up, and she won’t tell me what it is. I wish she had someone else to talk to, but there’s no one she trusts enough to share the details of what happened. I’ve always been her closest confidant, but now that she won’t talk to me, I’m at a loss of how to bring her old self back.

Maybe once I’ve taken care of Sal, she’ll be able to attend college in person next year. That would cheer her up.

I move away from her door and continue to the third floor. My bedroom is down the hall from where I put Valentina. When I get closer to her room, I tell myself to keep walking, but then I hear a soft sound, and I halt.

I press my ear to the wood. Sniffling. She’s crying.

Now I have not one, but two miserable women under my roof. Pulling away, I pinch the bridge of my nose.

Maybe I should have gone easier on her downstairs. Her wrists looked nearly raw, and she doesn’t have anything to clean them up.

I stalk back down to the kitchen and grab the first aid kit. I’ll bandage her up and then put her out of my mind like I said I would.

When I walk in, she’s curled up like a shrimp on the bed, her long black hair splayed over a pillow. She scrambles to sit up when she hears me enter and pulls her knees to her chest. “Why are you here?”

Her nose is red and puffy. Her eyes are shiny and wet. An ache appears inside my chest.

“I want to take a look at you,” I say. I sit down on the edge of the bed and reach for her, but she scoots away from me. It makes me want to punch a fucking wall. Her being afraid of my touch is up there with the worst things that ever happened to me.

I show her the first aid kit. “Let me see your wrists. I’ll bandage them up and leave.”

She studies the box suspiciously, her brows pinching together. I wait. Finally, she gives a tiny nod and extends her arms.

The angry pink marks look awful on her delicate wrists. I take out an antiseptic wipe and gently dab at the spots where her skin is broken. There aren’t many, but she hisses at each one I touch. I bite down on the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood.

She lets me dress her shallow wounds in silence, leaving me to ruminate on my actions. Ras is right. I don’t have it in me to interrogate her this way again.

Why doesn’t she want to go back home?

There’s something there. A piece I’m missing. A secret she’s yet to tell.

I finish tying her bandages and meet her tired gaze.

“All done.”

She pulls her hands back, lies down, and turns away from me.

“Do they feel bette—”

“You said you would leave.”

The cold ferocity of her words cuts through me like a sharp blade. I’ve earned it, didn’t I?

I made my bed, and now I have to lie in it.