A Madness of Crows: Mafia University #3

1. Day 0 – Caterina

Murmured words sound around me. Muttering, rustling.

Someone shifts, a hard leg pressing against mine.

I stay still, keeping my breathing level as my body tightens in increasing awareness. My thoughts are… slow. Sluggish.

Luc.

Luc, bleeding. The shock in his eyes as he stumbled back. Crawling on his hands and knees as if he could stop them from taking me.

And Matteo, strolling away with my daughter in his arms.

My chest squeezes, constricts, but I force it away. I’ll be no good to either of them if I panic. The thoughts are faster now, stumbling over each other as they batter my skull. Too much has happened this evening, more than should happen in a fucking lifetime, and now I’m half-conscious in a car travelling to who fucking knows where.

Bile rises in my dry throat as an apologetic cough sounds.

“Sign here, if you would. And… here.”

Cold fingers suddenly grip my own, twisting them. The pen is warm in my hand, and I try to stretch out my fingers as they’re dragged across a page.

The cold tightens, squeezing. “You’re awake.”

Salvatore Asante’s voice is as cold as his touch, and I allow my eyes to slide open, although it feels like weights are holding them down. I’m strapped into the backseat of the car, the engine beneath us almost silent. Night has fully fallen outside, the overhead light above our heads the only illumination as I fix my gaze on the older man seated opposite us, a terrified expression on his lined face.

He doesn’t meet my eyes, glancing away as he takes the paperwork Salvatore holds out with a dismissal. “Thank you for your help, Father Brennan.”

My breath hitches as I drop my own eyes. Taking in the black cassock, the white collar around his neck. As familiar to me as breathing, the result of a childhood filled with Sunday services as the men of the Cosa Nostra prayed on their knees for redemption they did not deserve.

A priest.

The man nods as he folds up the paperwork, looking uncomfortable. “I… congratulations.”

And those fingers – his nails, icy and sharp, scratch against my skin. “Thank you.”

No.

No.

The car slows, the man shifting in his seat. He’s desperate to leave, to escape. With those papers in his hand – the papers falsely binding me to Salvatore Asante.

As his wife.

No matter that I wasn’t aware enough to consent. That sort of thing doesn’t matter to men like these. Only the promise of the reward. And a line scrawled across the page with a pen shoved into my hand will do the job just as much as a full signature.

That sluggishness still fills my veins - my fucking limbs - with treacle, as the car stops. Clumsily, I lunge for my belt, trying to undo it as the door opens and the priest disappears without another word. Taking my marriage paperwork with him.

Salvatore says nothing, barely even turning his head at my attempt. His nails only grip the soft underskin of my arm, pinning me in place as the doors close, too quickly for me to do anything but force air into my lungs as the car starts up again. Pinpricks of pain spring up where he holds me, flickers that don’t register as I fix my eyes straight ahead and try to think around the panic.

I have to fix this.

The nails release from my arm. Replaced by the pad of his fingers, trailing over the marks.

“It’s done. Turn around and look at me, wife.”

A horrified sound escapes my throat at the moniker. My struggling increases as I throw myself away from him to the other side of the car, my fingers scrabbling for the door handle as we leave that priest behind.

Hands, solid and unyielding, drag me back. Salvatore yanks me into him, and I explode.

My fist slams into his face, snapping it back and loosening his grip enough for me to fall to the floor between the opposite seats. My foot comes up, kicking him in the chest as he grabs for me again with anger growing on his face. A trickle of blood runs from his nose as we face each other, both of us breathing heavily.

“Enough,” he snaps, dragging his hand across his nose and glancing down at the scarlet streak on the back of his hand. “I’m going to enjoy teaching you how to behave.”

His hand smashes into my face, sending my head bouncing against the floor of the car. It’s enough to daze me with whatever they gave me still floating around my skull, and I taste iron in my mouth as Salvatore follows.

My hands come up again, and fuck, I wish I had my knives. The struggle is pitifully short as we wrestle, my feet kicking in desperation as he flips me over, his knee digging into the space between my shoulder blades, pressing down until I’m gasping to try and suck oxygen into my lungs.

“Better.” His voice is silky. “This is not a battle you’re going to win, Caterina. Breaking strong-willed women happens to be my specialty.”

I almost vomit into the carpet beneath my face as fingers stroke through my tangled hair.

“You’re not a crow anymore,” he murmurs. His face is next to my ear, his breath hot and gusting as I hiss, still trying to break free. My struggle renews as metal clinks - wrapping around my wrists, tight and unyielding.

“You are Caterina Asante now, and your new role requires a different set of skills. Skills I intend to teach you, starting now.”

He leaves me there. Leaves me trussed up on the floor, his feet pressed into my back so I can’t move, as he settles back into his seat.

I yank at the restraints, try to break them, loosen them, anything. But they’re solid as rock around my wrists.

“Keep going,” he murmurs. “I rather enjoy watching you struggle. Although you should save your strength. Our wedding party is waiting.”

The words slide along my spine like oil, and I can’t stop the shudder. “Will you enjoy it when I humiliate you in front of your men?”

My voice… it’s raw. Croaked words dragged from a dry throat.

I need a drink. A weapon. Something.

In the absence of either, I need to make do.

He sounds almost bored when he responds. “You will find it extremely difficult to humiliate me. I don’t give a flying fuck if I have to drag you there in chains, kicking and screaming. You’ll learn eventually, and it will be all the sweeter when you break.”

“Would you not prefer I walked in obediently?” I dangle that thought, hold it within his reach. “The beaten loser in the fight? I assure you, I have plenty of fight left in me. But I’m willing to leave it… until after. Let you have your little moment of glory, Asante. For an exchange, of course.”

The words taste sour on my tongue, but I force them free, offer them to him. The silence stretches on, his fingers tapping against his thigh. I twist my head to peer up at him. Pale blue eyes look back at me.

He looks at me as I’m… a thing. Not a person.

A trophy.

I hold his stare. “Well?”

“In exchange for what?”

Breathe.

“Send our meeting coordinates to Giovanni Fusco’s phone,” I breathe. “That’s it.”

The foot at my back disappears as he leans over. Salvatore inspects me, his eyes sweeping up and down. “And in exchange, you will… behave.”

I lick my lips. “For the party only.”

Because what happens after that… I will not be able to lay down and accept that. I can’t.

He pulls out his phone without saying anything else, and I hold my breath.

If he sends the location to Gio…

Find him, I pray silently. Find him, Gio.

My eyes close as the images crash in. We have lost too much tonight. All of us. So many.

My father is dead.

Frank V’Arezzo is dead.

Paul Morelli is dead.

And Bea – Pepe—

I can’t think about them. Not yet. So I take a breath, hearing the telltale snick of a photo being taken.

What?

My eyes open as I glance at Salvatore. He’s typing, a small smile on his face. “It’s a deal, then?”

He ignores me, waiting until he’s finished sending before he turns to me. And I stare at the phone screen he holds out.

Any hope I had… it fades.

The photo – of me – tied and disheveled, sits just above the short message. He sent a message to Gio. But not the one I bargained for.

Do as you’re told, Fusco. Or the next photo will be the result.

“Luciano Morelli will die tonight,” Salvatore murmurs the words as I keep staring at that screen, willing the message to change to something else. “The Morelli line is finished, the assets to be split between the Corvo and Asante coffers. The Cosa Nostra has a new leader. A new era to face. And Fusco and V’Arezzo will do exactly as they’re told.”

His thumb rubs across my cheek. “Or you’re the one who will pay the price.”

Frigid, icy anger and pain curls inside my stomach – guilt and horror and grief.

Luc will die on that highway. If he isn’t dead already.

Salvatore’s thumb brushes a little too close to my mouth, and his roar of pain fills the car as I sink my teeth into it, biting down in the hope that he loses the fucking digit as blood fills my mouth.

He rips it free with a bellow, and I spit the blood directly into his face, relishing in the fury there as drops hit his face like the bullets I wish they were.

“Take a look in the mirror,” I snarl. “There will be plenty more blood when I am finished with you, Asante.”

I’m going to kill him. At the earliest opportunity, I’m going to watch the light fade from his eyes as my own damn favor to the rest of the world.

For everyone he has taken from me, I will make him pay.

Salvatore Asante is a dead man walking.

His laugh grates on my nerves as he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping across his face and wrapping it around his thumb to stop the bleeding. “Breaking you will be my new favorite activity, wife.”

He relishes that word, spits it like the punishment it is. “And you seem to have forgotten something, Caterina.”

I have not forgotten. Hoped that he had, that she would be left untouched from this at least, until Dante can find her.

They will find her. I have to believe in that, at least.

Find her.

“I will have your obedience,” he emphasizes every word, every bit of poison that comes from his thin lips. “Or your daughter will pay the price. There is nothing else to discuss, unless you wish to know exactly how many bones there are to break. A surprising number, for such a small, fragile body.”

If I was standing, my knees would give out. As it is, my body sags against the floor, and Salvatore makes a satisfied noise. “I’m glad that we understand each other.”

How neatly the trap was set. And we walked right into it.

Luc. Broken and bleeding on the ground.

Dante and Gio, forced to obey or watch me be punished for their defiance.

And Dom… I press my lips together. Salvatore hasn’t mentioned Domenico in his gloating. Where is he? What plan does Matteo have for him?

I’m sorry, Dom. I’m so sorry.

As for myself… that understanding begins to sink in.

They behave for my sake.

I behave for hers.

Submit.

Our only hope is for them to find Alessia, to find my daughter and get her away from Matteo, to give us a fighting chance. To give me a fighting chance.

Because I can’t truly fight back until they do. My hands are shackled as tightly as the iron currently wrapped around them.

Until then… I swallow.

Caterina Asante.

And the knowledge that sits beneath that name, the knowledge of what is to come amidst the uncertainty… my hands, my legs, begin to shake.

For her, I will do it. I will keep my head high, and I will take whatever they throw at me. I will survive, and I will end them for what they have done to us.

Fuck the Asante name.

The now-familiar chant sounds in my head, as the car slows. Stops. I cling to the thought, cling to who I am as the door opens smoothly.

I’m a fucking crow. No matter what name they try to give me.

I am Caterina Corvo.

And I will not scream.