Page 8 of Irish Brute
And I know the man standing behindthem, immaculate in an Armani suit and Testoni shoes, with a day-old haircut that must have cost him five hundred bucks.
Don Antonio.
My gut turns to water. I’m not sure if I’m shaking from terror or fury. But I’m certain if I don’t open my door, the muscle man will eventually tear it off its hinges.
I swallow hard. I raise my chin. And I swing the door wide.
For one insane second, I think about greeting him: “Uncle Tony!” I could throw my arms around him like we’re old friends, hug him like any other man I’ve known since I was in diapers.
Instead, I shoot an apologetic smile down the hall to Mrs. Samson, who’s glaring from her front door, clearly agitated by the noise. Caleb’s watching too, shushing his husband as they both gape at the live-action drama in the corridor. I step back,because keeping Don Antonio and his East Falls Crew in the hallway can only make things worse.
I’m hit by a wave of Acqua di Parma cologne. It’s the same scent my father wore. All of Don Antonio’s men copy him. The citrus-and-wood scent marks a territory, like Russo-family piss.
I watch my cousin’s killer catalog my home. He glances at Braiden’s shoes by the door. At the pair of plain white dishes on the kitchen counter. At the single wine glass and the empty bottle of Barolo.
He takes in my nest of blankets on the couch.
And then he studies me.
“Giovanna,” he says.
I swallow. “How did you find me?”
“I have always known where you live.”
Like everything else Don Antonio has ever said, this simple statement of fact sounds like a threat. In an instant, I realize I’ve spent the past eleven years lying to myself.
My name. My address. My career. I thought I was building on a foundation of stone after That Night, but a tidal wave just washed everything out to sea.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“I made a promise to my wife. And now I’m here to keep it.”
“A— a promise?” I hate that my voice shakes. There is literally nothing I want to know about Don Antonio’s relationship with my cousin.
“I told Elisabetta she would die if I ever found her with another man. And I told her I would take a second wife before her body was in the grave. I told her I would marry you if she ever betrayed me.”
We’re standing in Dover, Delaware. This is the twenty-first century. We’re miles and decades from the scrub-brush hills of Sicily, from the sun-baked towns where the Mafia launched its reign of terror.
But I believe every word Don Antonio says. I believe he threatened my cousin with my safety. And I believe he’ll take me now, marry me against my will, just to prove he can. Controlling me will keep everyone else in line, all the men and women who must obey Don Antonio without question.
Still, I have to try.
“I don’t know what happened between you and Eliza?—”
“Elisabetta.”
“W— with Elisabetta. I don’t know what fight you two had?—”
“Do not treat me like a stupid child. You heard me kill your cousin. You heard why.”
I have to concede the point. But still I argue: “We were talking, but she dropped her phone. I heard her fighting with someone, but I don’t know who that was. I don’t know what happened.”
“Giovanna,” he says again, and now my name is drenched with scorn. “You are supposed to be a very good lawyer. Very good lawyers tell lies for a living. You must be capable of lying better than this.”
“There was a noise,” I say, bargaining for my life. “I think a gun went off. But that could have been an accident. A mistake.”
“There was no mistake. I put my Beretta in thefigaof my lying, cheating wife. I let her finish her prayers, because I am a generous man. And then I pulled the trigger, exactly the way I warned her I would if I ever caught her fucking another man.”
