Page 11 of Tide of Treason
Words thrown around at the funeral, but none of them could scrub clean what he really was.
Or what I really did.
I sat back on my heels and listened to the wind batter the tops of the bare trees, the January air sharp enough to chew through my layers of wool and silk. A car door slammedsomewhere behind me, and the engine of the town car coughed to life, my driver giving me the universal rich-bitch signal that time was up.
Rising, I brushed imaginary dust off my coat and left my nonno to rot with the rest of his sins. A ghost’s fingers brushed the nape of my neck as I walked away, though I found comfort in what was tangible: cigarettes tucked into slim silver cases, the reassuring weight of cold bracelets around my wrists, the slick glide of smoke into my lungs. Reality had teeth, and it was better to feed them scraps than let them tear into your throat.
Only fifteen minutes later I’d blown a lazy plume of smoke across the threshold of my sister’s room.
Paint covered every surface. The wall-length sketchbook lay open behind me, pages flipped to romanticised sketches of a woman’s curves. I’d been aware of Viviana moping around since Evelyn last came over, but nothing prepared me for the moody storm cloud she conjured all week. After a week of Petso runs, cheap wine, and that damn “Landslide” cover leaking through her cracked door, the engagement party had officially started five minutes ago. She’d been in the shower of her en-suite for thirty minutes.
My soft exhale sent a wisp of smoke curling upward.
At this rate, we’d be lucky if she made it down before her first anniversary.
Viviana didn’t want Lucius. She didn’t want men, full stop. The truth festered in my chest, a thorned vine twisting deeper every time she smiled too brightly at Mamma’s delusions. My baby sister was a pawn in some large-scaletrafficking agreement masquerading as a marriage. Pawn in the larger game aside, she was naïve. Had ideas in her head that didn’t quite equate to reality. Her imagination was what made her a great artist, also painting a pretty world where a woman in the Cosa Nostra could just do what they wanted.
It was an ugly way to survive.
Flicking away the spent cigarette, I watched the ember vanish into the gloom. A stray wisp of smoke hovered, disappearing much like any illusion of peace in these walls. The front door chimed with a steady flow of arrivals, the rumble of my cousins’ voices spilling across the grand foyer. I stepped to the top of the staircase.
We had the best of the best.
The largest.
The grandest.
Everything shined brightly for the public eye.
And none of it could save us from ourselves.
“Kay-Kay!”
The voice was a grenade of sunshine in the murk, piercing through the din before Sophia even came into view. She was Francesco’s accident—a backroom stripper at Cipriani, a broken condom, nine months of havoc. A happy mistake, if you could call it that. A blur of red curls and tiny limbs careened toward me and skidded to a halt at the base of the staircase.
“You look so pwetty!”
I leaned on the banister, arching one brow. “Youlook like Christmas threw up on you.”
She beamed. “Uncle Vito said that too.”
Vito, who didn’t speak unless death was involved, had apparently developed a sense of humor.
When I reached the bottom, Sophia tugged at my fingers and whispered, “Mamma says I have to pretend Zia Viviana’s happy tonight. I’m pwetending too.” She blinked. “Are you gonna pretend?”
I bent until her curls brushed my lips, inhaling soap and sugar plums. “That’s our family’s favorite game,cara nipote.”
She nodded solemnly. “Like hide and seek?”
“Exactly like that.”
Only in our version, the stakes were higher. Secrets got people killed.
The chandelier overhead chimed as the front door gave another shuddering sigh, spilling winter air and a parade of black-coated ghosts into the foyer. I straightened, tugging Sophia’s red velvet sash into a safer knot. “Run along,dolcezza. Go show your papà that garish bow before Nonna uses it as a tourniquet on Zio Elio’s patience.”
The little bell on her dress jingled cheerily as she scampered off.
I stayed right where I was. Sergius Braga’s gaze slid to the staircase where snowmelt still patterned my soles on the marble. He tracked the water stains with forensic interest, then returned to my face, eyes dark and glimmering with amusement. Midnight suit, pewter cuff links, the cartel seal carved in onyx at his tie pin. Silver frost at the temples were the only concession to age.
