Page 40 of Iron Cross

“She’s happiest withme.” I knew that down to my soul. “No one could love her more than me.”

“I did not say that anyone could.”

“You think I'm selfish, then?”

“Of course you are!” He laughed, his hands pointing to the room around him. “It doesn't make you a bad man. I think many leaders must be at least a little selfish. But your love might not be the most complete, and pure form of the thing.”

I watched as he reached into his shirt, pulling out the metal cross I’d given back to him. He had a habit of rubbing his thumb against the name engraved on the back. He did it so much that I worried he’d wear it smooth, losing the name he adored.

“We love our women fiercely,” he said, with a solemn, pastoral nod. “But we love them differently.”

I crossed my arms, glowering at the man and wondering if I should bleed him again for his insolence. Then I dismissed the thought.

“You want Cosima Durante to get married and be happy?” I sneered.

His face soured, but then he shrugged.

“I would want whatever could put a smile on my lovely Cosa’s face.” He looked at me with those somber, gray eyes. “Dying is the best thing I could do for her.”

He let those words linger in the air, heavy and stale.

There was that feeling of darkness twisting around my hand, twitching my fingers toward the blade.

I killed my enemies with that blade. I already knew that Morelli would not die from it. I had not concocted a plan to save his life. Not yet. But I knew I would need to, and soon.

The fateful hour, like the Ides of March, was fast approaching, and I had to have my pieces in place before then.

“Have you ruined Eugenio Durante’s shipping?” His change of topic helped me breathe again.

“I have,” I said, with a nod. “Cosima has stepped up, it seems, and made the Italian restaurants and laundromats legitimate, though, I'm assuming they still clean money.” I had watched the Mafia Princess closely. How she pushed the businesses to be on the straight and narrow. In many ways, she and I were on the same path, trying to lead the people we inherited out of the darkness. “Schools, education programs, childcare, businesses…”

“Prosperity leads to peace.” Morelli did that sometimes, where he would say a phrase that I was certain he wasn’t uttering to me. As though he were making a comment to God, or to the woman who was not present. He smiled to himself, as pride beamed in his eyes. “Clever girl.”

“Our spies inside the Mafia say that people are hoping that Eugenio will die soon, so that she can ascend. The backing for her seems downright unanimous.”

Morelli nodded, a small smile on his cracked lips, a sprinkle of crimson from a cut where the flesh broke.

“That is not unlike what happened when the tides turned from your father to you. Though I do not believe she will be so lucky as to watch her progenitor fall down the stairs.” Did he suspect that my father was murdered? It was a suspicion I had harbored, and now it was all but confirmed.

The witch had had her way. How my eyes had opened in three years - the world looked so different now that time had shed light on so many dark places that existed in this house.

“She will try to gain supporters, and rally them around ousting her father.”

“She hates Eugenio that much?”

That surprised me, since Cosima had always been the perfect, obedient daughter. At least in public.

She played the role quite well. I was impressed.

Morelli shrugged. “There is no love lost there. Not like you and your father.”

“I haven’t loved my father in years.” Bitterness coated my words like poison.

“But you loved him once, didn’t you?” A single bushy, silver brow went up towards his hairline, which was growing more sparse and brittle with time. “That is not the case for Cosima. Eugenio has been a bastard since long before she was born.”

“What could he have possibly done to make her hate him so?”

I hated my father, but the idea of double-crossing him would not have occurred to me. Ineverconsidered deposing him.

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