Chapter 29
DANTE
I knew seeing Carmela was going to be a challenge. It was all I expected and more. Still breathtakingly beautiful and yet with a haunted look in her eyes I had not seen before.
She was wearing my necklace.
After all this time.
It gives me hope, assuming I haven’t fucked things up by my marriage to Helena.
Yeah, that’s going to fuck things up…
She barely looked at me. Not that I could blame her.
I was similarly careful not to allow my gaze to linger on her.
Ettore sent me a message about her in the form of three thugs with a hammer.
While I’ve no desire to experience that again, that wasn’t the reason I played a good capo today.
No, I’m playing the long game because nothing else has a chance of success.
But I need to see her alone, and soon, if I don’t want her to hate me. Not that I can tell her much. But if I can explain that I haven’t forgotten her, that my marriage to Helena is a means to an end, it might help.
Only Carmela is still so young and these games we play are not for the tender hearted. I left her with him. I’m surprised she hasn’t already tossed the necklace in the trash.
Maybe she will today.
I need to stay focused. We’re closing in.
Leon’s right, better if Ettore thinks I’ve resigned myself to my position.
My agreement to marry Helena was the right one.
While Ettore will still be watching me, it won’t be as closely as before.
My continuing agreeableness will, over time, further relax his guard.
We hope.
Am I unaffected? Hell no. The whole time I was talking to him, watching him paw my woman, all I could think about was pummeling the shit out of him.
My hands grip the steering wheel so tight it’s a wonder I don’t rip it off as I drive across the city to see Cedro.
And that will be another minefield.
It was a hunch this morning. A ball I played into Ettore’s court. Testing the waters for how much he trusts me. Perhaps he was feeling magnanimous now he’s about to dump his sister on me.
At least he’s not under any delusions as to why I’m marrying her. Before Carmela interrupted us, I made it clear I saw this as a favorable political match, one where I would take good care of his sister and her child with a mind to stronger ties between us.
It was the truth… in a manner, and that probably helped me carry it off.
My rumination is curtailed when I pull up outside the brownstone that appears far too ordinary for a man once so extraordinary.
I guess even our enemies don’t see him as a threat or target anymore.
He's just an old man in a wheelchair. From what Christian tells me, other than Carmela, he gets very few visits from anybody in the family. Ettore himself hasn’t visited him in months. Cedro has just faded away.
I don’t know why I’m visiting him today or what I’m hoping to glean from it beyond a test of Ettore’s trust. I suppose I should tell Cedro about Helena, and I’m curious about his reaction.
Nina greets me with a smile in the doorway. “Mr. Barone. Such a pleasant surprise. Come in. Come in! He’s in the drawing room upstairs. Let me take your coat and show you up.”
“Thank you.” I shrug out of my coat and hand it over.
The house is nice inside. The hallway has a black and white tiled floor with off-white walls and black internal doors, presenting a tasteful, classically modern decor.
“You still take your coffee black?” she asks as she hangs my coat up.
“I do.” She escorts me up the stairs. “Is Jessica home?”
“No. She has classes today. She seems to be enjoying school.”
That’s a relief. Jesscia was always free with her opinions, and I have every reason to believe she would give me shit.
“Can you believe she is already planning for college.”
“No, I really can’t.” Carmela should have been going to college. That she didn’t is just another bitter blow.
“It will do Mr. Accardi good to see you,” Nina continues. “He doesn’t get many visitors anymore…”
She trails off almost like she’s said too much—she probably has—and opens a door to show me into the first-floor drawing room.
I thought seeing Carmela was a shock. Seeing Cedro is a bigger one. He’s aged. Dramatically. Lost weight. The last time I spoke to him alone he was still in the convalescent home. The last time I saw him in person was at the wedding.
“Dante, it’s been a while. You look different.”
I smile. “I could say the same thing about you.”
“True, true…” He indicates the seat opposite him, and I sit down, undoing the button of my suit jacket.
“How is the life of a capo treating you?” he asks.
“Good. It was a little bumpy at the start. But” —I shrug— “Better now. Much of which should be credited to Leon’s return.”
“I heard he was working for you,” he says. “How is he? How’s his mother, younger brother and sister?”
I don’t correct his assumption that Leon is working for me. “His mother’s good. Mine is staying with her. Nathan and Gia are doing well, too. Enjoying the climate and lifestyle.”
His smile is filled with genuine warmth. Maybe he should have joined them there… “Yes,” he says. His smile fades and his eyes turn distant. “I expect they are.”
The door opens and Nina enters with a tray bearing our drinks. “Is there anything else I can get for you, Mr. Accardi?”
“No, thank you, Nina,” he says, smiling. “That’ll be all.”
I sip my coffee and set it back in the saucer. He’s going to find out sooner or later, and I’m curious enough about his reaction to broach the topic. “I’m marrying Helena.”
His face loses the small amount of color it had, and his throat bobs as he swallows. “You love her?”
I huff out a humorless laugh. “Please don’t insult me. It may have been a while, Cedro. But do you think I’ve changed that much?”
His eyes search mine. I consider telling him my plans, yet something holds me back.
He grimaces. “She was always a disagreeable woman. My late wife despised her with a passion. Said she was uncouth.”
“Your late wife was known for her discerning opinion on many things, including people.”
“Then why are you marrying her?”
The spark of his former passion takes the edge off my simmering rage. When I think about how he handed Carmela over to Ettore, I could happily wrap my fingers around his throat and squeeze. According to Christian, she visits her father every week and clearly has some feelings for the old fool.
I don’t answer him, just hold his steady gaze and let him let that sink in.
“I made a terrible mistake.”
My nostrils flare. I’ve waited a year to hear him say this. Fully expected I would have to drag him to the door of enlightenment. That he tosses it out at our first meeting should relieve me. It doesn’t. It pisses me off. “And you choose now to admit this?”
He sighs. “You’re right. You told me at the time. I wasn’t ready to listen, too deep in my grief to accept he might be responsible for the death of my wife.”
There was a time when my heart might have kicked up a beat at this kind of conversation. But not anymore. Today it remains slow and steady as I stare at the man who, through weakness or grief, set in motion events that ripped this family apart. “Something has changed that you’ve seen the light?”
“Something?” He runs his fingers over his jaw and across his lips like he’s trying to wipe a bad taste away.
“For certain. Everything, and more. I see my daughter every week. I see the bruises. Only a weak man raises his hand to a woman. My daughter is trusting. She carries herself with dignity even at this young age.” His jaw is locked tight—I’m fucking reeling.
“I know she doesn’t give him reason to treat her with such cruelty and disrespect. ”
“Bruises?”
His face softens. “I wondered if Christian would tell you, given how little contact the two of you have.”
“Not much,” I hedge. So much for maintaining a calm facade. I’m going to strangle my fucking brother for keeping this from me.
“Your face tells me why he kept it from you.”
Well, fuck.
“You visited Ettore this morning and got his permission to see me, I presume. Maybe you even saw her there.”
A tic thumps in my jaw.
He nods. “I’ve had my suspicions from the start that she wasn’t happy.
That he might be hurting her. Sometimes the bruises are hard to cover.
And Ettore is not a man overly concerned about maintaining appearances enough to hit her only where no one can see.
If you’d known all of this the first time you saw her in a year, how do you think it would have played out? ”
“Not well,” I concede.
“Your brother is a man wise beyond his years. He may work for Ettore, but he’s loyal first and foremost to you.
He’s good with her… in his own unique way.
Gives her an outlet. Their altercations are…
heated at times. I’m not one for eavesdropping, but it’s hard to miss them.
” His smile is both sad and rueful. “My dear Monica would turn in her grave to hear me speak so glowingly of Christian. But she was wrong occasionally.”
He turns away, wheeling his chair to the bureau and opening a drawer.
My heart is beating a mile a minute.
Today, I’m reminded that Cedro, despite appearances and circumstances, has revived his skills in reading people that were so sadly missing at the time of his wife’s death.
Today, I’m also reminded that I, too, played my part in leaving Carmela to Ettore.
What exactly have you been doing, Christian?
He turns back with a folder in his hand. He places it on the coffee table, leaving his hand on top of it for several long moments before he pushes it toward me.
I look from the closed file to him and back again.
“Go ahead,” he says. “Read it.”
Photographs. A transcript of text messages. Phone call logs. More photos. It doesn’t take long to put the pieces together.