29. Luna
Vito’s home is grand.
Marble floors and walls stretch through every room, Every surface hung with expensive art, gold, crystal chandeliers on every ceiling, and designer furniture in every available space.
It’s nothing like Cardinal House, with its old stone, creaky floors, and history. This is clinical and cold and unhomely.
My skin itches where I sit on an expensive couch in a room the size of an echoey ballroom. Ceilings as high as a skyscraper and the long wall in front of me, just beyond this cluster of chairs, is made of all glass, showing off the manicured gardens and lawns.
It’s uncomfortable, looking at a man who looks so much like me, but also, not at all.
Vittorio ‘Vito’ Gambino has a strong jaw decorated with a neat black stubble, pursed lips and a strong nose. His eyes are bright, icy-sky blue dressed in decadent curls of thick black lashes. A head of thick, black hair, straight, just like mine, styled neatly to one side of his head.
He smells like rose and lemon and a little bit like what I imagine to be the sea, salty and clean.
Vito is calm as he sits before me, a glass and chrome coffee table between us topped with an array of teas and coffees, sweets and pastries.
It is only the three of us in the large room, Vito, Wolf and I, when we first arrived, the men standing around like sentry soldiers made me not want to enter, so Vito just… sent them away. He didn’t worry about security for himself, he didn’t do it to be disrespectful to Wolf, making him feel like he’s not a threat, but to make me comfortable.
Nobody argued. Nobody baulked.
But there were a lot of eyes on me that I wish there weren’t before the room cleared out.
My knee jumps and I wish it wouldn’t, my foot unable to stay flat on the floor. I’ve got on a black sundress, a pale blue cardigan over the top, and that huge white bow in the back of my hair, pulling back the wavy strands from my face.
But Wolf is here.
His thigh pressed up tight against mine, black jeans and a white t-shirt on his muscular body, his inky hair pulled back in a bun. His fingers are laced through mine, the back of my hand pressing against his knee, his holding me solid and firm.
The men talk because I can’t. I find myself incapable of words in front of the man, who’s not that much older than me, that says he’s my uncle.
Real uncle.
“How can you be my uncle when you’re so young?” It’s whispered, the question, haunting lyrics from a girl that feels like she’s trapped between worlds, balancing on the veil that separates life from death.
The men quiet, but I can’t look at either one of them, my gaze locked on a waterfall beyond the glass. A stone sculpted couple draped over one another, their legs and arms and torsos tangled together so much, it’s hard to see where one begins and the other ends.
That’s how I feel with Wolf now.
One and the same.
Vito clears his throat; it feels somewhat nervous, given that this is a man who had no qualms about shooting my Wolf in the middle of a celebration. He didn’t, obviously, but I’m certain, even without knowing him, he would have done it.
He’s in a similar line of work to the Blackwells, they all work in the shadows, creating and cleaning up messes that those in the light need not know about. It doesn’t worry me; it wasn’t a long or drawn-out conversation when Wolf explained to me what he and his family really did a couple of weeks ago. I’m sure most people would find it morally wrong, but I suppose I have a rather unique perspective of things that go bump in the night.
“Your mother,” Vito starts, a smooth, calming accent, he rolls his ‘R’s and hisses his ‘S’s, like his tongue curls the letters to be a seductive charm. “She was my elder sister, fourteen years older than me, and I am six years older than you.”
Unable to blink, to look, my eyes burn, dry and wide as I keep watching the water spit from a cluster of cherubs around the carved couple’s feet.
“Lucia,” he says, and my body just goes cold.
It doesn’t mean anything to me. Not that I can remember, but I lived with my un- with Nolan since I was just six years old.
“She did not want to be a part of the family business, not with a little girl. She worked hard to get away from our father, to prove herself, to bring you up in a safe environment away from the mob.”
He says this all with warmth, something proud in his tone, even though I know this can’t be a happy story, I can tell, just from that, that he loved his sister.
“The day you disappeared; I was twelve. Sitting in a tree, listening in on the conversations my father was having in his office. Trying to get information so I could prove myself. A boy of twelve, his father the Don of the Italian mafia, I had a lot to do to prove myself, but there were many conversations he left me out of, so I would crawl up into the tree outside his office and listen in.”
A blackbird lands on the edge of the fountain, fluffing its feathers in the spray and dipping down to get a drink.
“He got a call, dismissed his men and then breathed her name into the phone. Lucia didn’t ever call, trying to start a new life, but he put her on speaker, and she was crying, saying that someone was after her, that she needed to come home, that she was scared.” Vito sniffs, drawing my attention, and I blink for what feels like the first time.
“You were sleeping in the back of the car, Lucia was racing to get you both here, and then the line cut off. Our father screamed at his men, barking orders as they flooded back into the room and then they all drove off, my father included.”
Vito’s nostrils flare, his eyes dropping to the table between us, just for a moment, and then those calm blue eyes come back to mine, a sad smile on his mouth.
“The car had crashed atop a bridge and gone into the river, it was empty, the door was open on the side where your car seat was. It was assumed Lucia had gotten you out and then you were carried away together in the current. It took seventeen days to find my sister’s body, washed up miles and miles away, but we never found yours.”
Vito shrugs loosely, his eyes shining. There’s a lump in my own throat and my eyelids are hot, but I don’t say anything. I’m not sure what there is for me to say, so I just nod, I don’t know what else to do.
“We believed you to be dead,” he breathes out in a rush. “That’s why I reacted so… impulsively the other night. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Honestly, you look so much like your mother, I thought for a moment that you were her. A ghost perhaps coming to scold me for my transgressions.” He smiles at that, this soft curl to his mouth. “I- I was not thinking rationally, and for that I am sorry, Luna, I did not ever mean to frighten you, let alone hurt you.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper, meaning it. “I remember things now,” I say quietly, looking out upon the gardens again. “But you don’t know how I ended up with that man.” It’s not a question because of course he doesn’t, why would he look for a six year old girl that flew from a car into the River Thames?
“I do not,” he says, and I hear him shift against the sofa, his suit sweeping over the bright navy velvet. “But we’ll find out.”
I know they will. Vito and Wolf have been on the phone non stop for the last three days, but I don’t want them to find out.
I want to find out.
To know what happened.
How I ended up with Uncle Nolan.
“May I go out there?” I ask politely, tilting my head towards the gardens at Vito’s back, peering into the trees.
Wolf’s fingers squeeze mine lightly, comfortingly, because he knows I need the fresh air, or I feel like I can’t breathe.
“Certainly,” Vito doesn’t hesitate, pushing to stand and turning towards the long wall of glass. His fingers find, what looks to me like, an invisible handle and then the glass is folding and opening with a gentle push.
“Do you want me?” Wolf asks, taking my chin between his warm, calloused fingers, and turning me to face him. His yellow-caramel eyes bright on mine, he reads my answer without words, “You call me if you want me, okay?”
“Yes, Wolf,” I nod once, his lips pressing lightly to the corner of my mouth, before he releases my fingers from his, allowing me to stand.
“Don’t wander too far.”
“I won’t,” I smile, and it’s the first real lie I ever tell.