Part 2 – The Second Betrayal
12 years later
I held Carla’s hand, pressed my lips against her knuckles. Her skin was ashen, her breathing labored, pained… I raised my eyes, found her watching me with tired, sad eyes. “I’m sorry I could never give you children.”
I shook my head, touched her cheek and pressed a kiss to her dry lips. “Carla, nothing of this matters.”
“This is all a part of God’s plan, my love.”
I didn’t say anything. In all the years, Carla’s faith had never rubbed off on me, no matter how hard she’d tried. I wasn’t a believer, now less than ever. If there was a God and this was his plan, I’d never forgive him.
“Don’t… don’t be angry. Don’t let it consume you.”
I’d have given her the world. But this wasn’t something I could promise. Anger was already boiling in my chest, waiting to spill forth.
“Will you pray with me?”
I cupped her hands, nodding and lowered my head. Carla’s whispered prayers bounced off my rising despair. Carla was everything good in my life. She contrasted me. Without her… what would I become?
The morphine wasn’t strong enough to make Carla’s waking hours bearable—unless the doctors gave her so much that her state was almost comatose.
I held her hand as she whimpered, her face sunken in completely. Few of my enemies had suffered under my torture as much as Carla did in the last days of her life. It wasn’t fair. Nothing could make me believe otherwise.
“I know suicide is sin, but I want this to be over. I just want it to stop.” She swallowed. “I can’t… take anymore.”
I froze. I’d known it was only a matter of time before we’d have to say goodbye, but Carla’s words threw the stark reality of it into my face.
I kissed her hand. “It’s not really suicide if death comes through my hand, my love.”
“Dante—”
“I’ve done worse.” That was a lie. This would break the last human part in me, but if anyone was worth that sacrifice, it was Carla.
“Are you sure?” In the past she would have argued with me, recited Bible passages, appealed to the good in me. That she didn’t even try showed how bad it was.
I nodded.
“You can shoot me. That’s quick and easy for you.”
Nothing about this would be easy. And I’d never disgrace Carla by killing her like I would a goddamn traitor. “Don’t worry about it. Tomorrow everything will be over and you’ll be at a better place.”
I didn’t believe in Heaven or Hell. If there was, our goodbye would be eternal.
That evening was the last I spent with Carla.
When I stepped up to the bed, Carla smiled weakly. She knew what I was about to do and relief shone in her eyes. I hadn’t discussed the details with her. She’d always preferred to stay in the dark regarding the brutal sides of life. I reached into my pant pocket and pulled out the syringe with the insulin. I lay down on the bed beside Carla and stroked a few strands of her soft hair. Streaks of gray mingled in it, like the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, they were marks of her battle against this demonic sickness. A battle she’d lost. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’ll find new happiness.”
I didn’t say anything because every word would have either made Carla sad or been a lie.
With shaking hands, I prepared the syringe. Hands that were always steady no matter what happened. Not now. “I love you, Dante.”
I swallowed. “And I love you, will always only love you, Carla.”
She squeezed my hand with sad eyes then gave a small nod.
Looking into her eyes, I pushed the syringe into her arm. Before I injected her, I cradled her in my arms and kissed her once more. Seconds after the injection, Carla lost consciousness and as I held her in my arms, her breathing stopped.
I kept holding her even as she became cold, even as the silence in the room echoed loudly in my head. Night fell outside and then it became light again, and I still cradled her in my arms. Steps sounded in the house. Slowly, I slid my arm out from under her body and put her head down on the pillow. After I pulled out the syringe and thrust it into the bin, I kissed her eyelids and stood.
I couldn’t look away from her lifeless body, even though the sight of it crushed my heart.
“Master?” Zita called, and for a moment I considered sending her away so I could be alone with Carla’s body and my sorrow, but I couldn’t hide like this forever. I couldn’t do what I wanted—lay down beside my wife again and wait for death to claim me as well. Life needed to go on. I wasn’t sure how it could though.
Ines squeezed my hand under the table as she kept on her conversation with Mother. I didn’t react to her attempt at consoling me, instead I excused myself and headed for the gardens, needing to get away from all the people who pretended they cared about Carla’s death when all they wanted was to get into my good graces, knowing it was only a matter of time before I’d take over as the Boss officially from my father as well.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this angry but without an outlet to release my emotions. Carla’s death had been like a cluster bomb and since then my insides felt frayed, torn, irrevocably damaged. My sorrow hadn’t diminished, if possible it had grown in the days since I’d killed her and with it my fury, my need to share this agony the only way I could, by inflicting it on others.
Steps raised my protective walls but I didn’t have to mask my face into one of calm, it always was. My muscles seemed perfectly frozen even as my insides burnt with emotions that threatened to unravel me and with it possibly the Outfit.
Pietro stopped beside me, not saying a word and stared up at the night sky like I did. After a couple of minutes, he slanted me a look. “We’ll stay for a week. Your mother is happy to have the twins around and Ines thought it would do you good to have family close by.”
I gave a terse nod.
“Dante,” Pietro said quietly, angling his body toward me and I knew his words wouldn’t do what they were intended to do even before he spoke them. “If you need someone to talk, you know you can come to me. You don’t have to bear this loss by yourself.”
One hand curled to a fist at my side, I nodded again, and Pietro finally retreated.
The night sky seemed endless and foreboding tonight. I wanted to believe Carla was up there somewhere, looking down at me. Maybe it would have offered me a flicker of consolation if I believed in an existence after death. I didn’t, and consolation was unreachable. The images of Carla’s lifeless body, of her casket being lowered into the dank soil slithered through my mind like poisonous snakes.
Two days later, my parents invited the Scuderis over for dinner and despite my need to be alone, I attended the gathering. There was no one at home waiting for me and my duty to the Outfit bound me to be present. It wouldn’t do good to appear weak, not so shortly before my rise to become Capo.
Ines, Pietro, and the twins were there as well. The Scuderi sisters were too old to play with them but Fabiano was only a year older and so he joined Serafina and Samuel in a corner of the room after dinner to play. I barely listened to the conversation, even if it was about the Famiglia and how to assure peace with them.
“A marriage would bind us. Salvatore is eager to find a beautiful bride for his son Luca,” Father said.
“He’s interested in Aria,” Rocco said. “An immediate wedding preferably.”
My gaze turned to the girl who was chatting with her sisters on the sofa. She was fifteen, too young for marriage and too innocent for someone of Vitiello’s disposition.
“That man killed his cousin with his bare hands. I’m not sure if a union between him and one of our girls can be the foundation of peace,” Ines said.
Father’s brows tightened with disapproval, and Mother made a small shush noise toward Ines. “Your opinion isn’t appreciated at this table, Ines. You better concern yourself with how to please your husband and control your children, especially your daughter, she needs to learn her place.”
Serafina was brawling with the boys, holding her own despite her angelic appearance.
In the past, Ines would have ducked her head but as Pietro’s wife, she only had to obey him, not Father, and Pietro didn’t appear annoyed by her speaking up.
“I’ll teach my daughter her place, don’t worry.” Ines had mastered the art of subtle defiance and polite criticism, and so she smiled even though her eyes reflected the same aversion I felt toward our father.
Father’s mouth pinched and he looked at me as if he waited for me to rebuke Ines. He knew my sister valued my opinion more than his. I lifted my glass and took a sip of my wine, not in the slightest interested to get involved in this, not today, not when my mind kept replaying Carla’s last smile, her last breath, the moment her fingers went slack in mine.
“There’s of course something to consider before we decide to give Aria to Luca.” Father’s smile was reptile-like, and my muscles tightened in preparation for his next words. “Aria could give the Outfit beautiful blond children. You need a new wife and an heir.”
Despite my best intentions, the words hit me like a sledgehammer. After so many years, Father had finally found something to cut me once more. Keeping my face neutral was an agonizing struggle.
“Carla’s funeral was only two days ago!” Ines hissed, glancing toward me in blatant concern. “Don’t you have an ounce of respect for her memory and for Dante’s sorrow?”
“You’d do well to respect the man who decides over life and death in this territory,” Father said.
Pietro grabbed Ines’ hand and from the look in his eyes, I knew he was about to say something that would get him in trouble with my father, and while Father would hesitate before disposing of an Underboss, he would never dispose of me because he wanted his blood to live on and I was his only option. I stood and thrust my palm down on the table, letting my anger out and balling my sadness into a tight knot inside of me. “This conversation isn’t happening.”
Even the kids fell silent as they watched me open-mouthed.
I stepped back and stalked out of the room, seething, and continued toward the front door, needing fresh air. Father wouldn’t give up that easily.
My suspicion proved correct when Father and I were invited over to the Scuderi mansion a few days later to discuss the newest developments of a possible union with the Famiglia.
Father had talked to Salvatore Vitiello several times in the last few days while I’d stepped back to gather myself. My mental state wouldn’t do us any favors in business negotiations at the time being. Luca and Salvatore could smell weakness from miles away.
“I sent Salvatore photos of Aria and Gianna,” Father said. “He’d accept either of them but he prefers Aria.”
Rocco shook his head. “Gianna’s too boisterous. He’ll beat her to death and then we’ll be left with the problem of how to react appropriately. She needs someone who knows how to control his impulses and break her without killing her. Luca isn’t that kind of man.”
His eyes slanted to me. I ignored the subtle suggestion. I wouldn’t marry Aria or Gianna. Those girls were thirteen and fifteen, mere children, and I was a man who only harbored darkness after Carla’s death.
“We have to make tactical choices that benefit the Outfit, son.”
I nodded. “That’s true. Giving Aria to Luca seems the wiser choice. I think she’ll be less likely to provoke him than Gianna.” Considering how I’d killed Jacopo to protect Ines from a monster, it was ironic how I agreed to give another innocent girl to a monster for the sake of the Outfit. Sacrifices needed to be made, it was Father’s credo. I knew there was only one way to save Aria from Luca’s clutches and that was if I wanted her for myself. Father and Rocco would readily agree. It would spare her the cruelty under Luca’s hand and it would get Father off my back, allow me to bury myself in my grief without constant surveillance. I could insist on a marriage in three years, and even if Father demanded a closer date, I knew Aria would be glad if I didn’t act like a husband, if I didn’t try to lay claim on her. My insides tightened at the mere idea of being with someone other than Carla, of making a vow of that proportion when Carla was the only woman I wanted to be bound to.
As if he could smell my train of thought, Rocco got up and walked toward the door, opening it. “Aria! Come down here for a moment.” Rocco returned to the table and exchanged a look with Father. I knew what they were thinking, what so many people in the Outfit were thinking.
The Golden Couple. The name carried in whispers through our circles, had started to do so even before Carla’s body had turned cold, had begun the moment word about her cancer had gotten out. I’d ignored it but it had grown to a dimension that made it impossible to keep doing so. I was left with two choices if I didn’t want to appear weak, because grieving a dead woman was nothing but weakness in the eyes of so many of Father’s loyal men. Either I married Aria, or I gave her to Luca.
Within a couple of minutes, she walked into the living room, dressed in a pale blue dress, her blonde hair up in a messy ponytail. Her eyes widened as she spotted us, too young to school her features quick enough. She came over, hands clasped in front of her belly, trepidation reflecting on her face. For a moment, her eyes met mine before she ducked her head and turned to Rocco. “Yes, Father?”
My eyes trailed over her, trying to imagine how I could be a husband to that girl. I couldn’t possibly allow closeness in the physical, much less the emotional sense to her. The idea of sharing a bed with her, of pretending I could care about her, it stirred up my insides, until anger and sorrow were inseparable until my need to dish out the same pain that consumed me got overwhelming. Maybe Luca would break her with cruelty, but maybe he wouldn’t. I didn’t know.
What I knew without a doubt was that I would break her with my sorrow-tinged darkness, that I’d eventually vent my anger on her because she dared to take the spot at my side nobody deserved but the woman that I’d buried mere days ago.
“We want a drink. Head over to the cigar lounge and get glasses and the bottle of my favorite scotch for us.”
She nodded quickly before she turned and walked off. I wouldn’t marry Aria. I couldn’t.
“She’s beautiful and young,” Father said to me.
“She is.” My voice didn’t reflect my inner turmoil. “Which is why we need to give her to Luca Vitiello. It’ll send him the message that we’re determined to give him the best we can offer. If peace is our intention, we don’t have a choice.”
Disappointment flickered across Father’s wrinkled face but he inclined his head. Rocco didn’t seem too sad either, after all, his daughter would be given to a future Capo either way. “There’s still Gianna.”
“Father,” I said firmly. “I won’t marry Gianna either, or anyone else. We have other things to focus on.”
He knew me well enough to realize I wouldn’t budge on the subject now that I had made up my mind. I didn’t want to marry again soon, or ever. The memory of Carla was my companion and the success of the Outfit my mission in life, there was no room for anything else.
I’d sworn to put the Outfit above all else, especially a woman, but here I was refusing a bond because of my love for Carla. Not marrying posed a risk in our circles. It suggested I was struggling with my late wife’s death and that was admittance of weakness above all else. If the Outfit appeared weak, our enemies might try to attack. Not to mention that I needed an heir, a boy who could become Capo when I retired or got killed.
Yet I couldn’t marry, not yet. Maybe never.
It was betrayal of my oath, but the vows to Carla meant more to me. They always would.
