Chapter 21 – Luigi
Chapter Twenty-One
Luigi
M y emotions paralyze me so much that I fold in on myself and return to a more familiar dynamic.
I am cold and withholding. She gazes up at me with hope in her heart that I return her feelings.
I give her nothing. It’s easier this way – for both of us.
Ten weeks will give her time to grow my child, grow attached exclusively to that baby and forget all about me.
Ten weeks will cure me completely of Delphine.
She’ll be at the lake house for the time I’m gone, locked away where I know she’s safe.
Dad will be flying Renzo and Gino back home because we need more trustworthy hands.
They each have one semester left at school, so the early departure won’t affect their ability to finish school or run the family business – or anything else required to keep the Taviani family operational.
I shouldn’t obsess over her fate. This is a woman I signed a contract with. Not a lover. Not a wife. She is nobody to me but a surrogate. I have to keep that straight and keep my emotions in check.
Mikey and Peter wait for me at the meeting point, slightly impatient at my lateness.
“I got your Aunt Viviana on the phone,” Peter says. “Told her I was you and that we were coming over late. She said as long as we use the basement entrance and leave the guns in the car, we’re fine.”
“Perfect.”
“She says she hasn’t been in contact with Carmine in three years,” Peter adds.
“Great.”
She survived the great rift between the families by staying out of the drama as much as possible, even after Carmine Corsini murdered her sister.
Our aunt teaches painting at a college in Pittsburgh, though she might be retired now.
Dad pays her handsomely for last minute housing like this, but she doesn’t approve of the family business.
Women in her generation lost too much to the image the media attempted to force the mob to uphold after The Godfather and Goodfellas .
Too many people died trying to make something fundamentally unglamorous look more like the movies.
Parts of that showiness continue today, or we wouldn’t have erratic displays of power like what just happened in our city.
The three of us already know that heading to Pittsburgh might be a trap or an otherwise fatal mistake that costs our lives. If that happens, Angela will take care of Delphine and… I suppose I’ll have bigger problems.
“Let’s get out of here,” I tell them. “We’ll need our rest before meeting with the Corsini family.”
“I can do most of the talking,” Mikey offers. “But I don’t know how much good talking will do with that side of the family.”
I can only hope this doesn’t escalate. If my father gives the order, all three of us would follow it without a second thought.
Everyone in the family would kill for my father, Leandro Taviani. We might all be here for different reasons, but we have a bond that goes deeper than blood and family that leads to the fiercest loyalty towards my father and his vision for our city and bloodline.
Killing creates more problems than it solves. But it can be done. I’ve done it before… and to protect Delphine, I know I would kill easily again.
Pittsburgh, 2 weeks after leaving Delphine
The first meeting with Carmine Corsini’s leftover brats leaves much to be desired. Dario and Vito have to postpone the meeting for a few days to handle ‘family business’ in Boston. Carmine might have been a fearsome boss, but his sons leave a lot to be desired.
When their absence extends out another three days, we get suspicious and start questioning Aunt Viviana.
She stays out of the mafia business, keeps to herself and doesn’t involve herself with the family. As a woman, she has that privilege. As an older, unmarried woman, just about everybody prefers that she stay out of the way. I’m not saying I agree with it, but that’s just how it is with our family.
The girls keep in touch with her, though Carmine did an excellent job of estranging or murdering several of his children. Nina Corsini is closest to Viviana, even if Viviana isn’t her biological aunt. Viviana is an Amato, like my mother and Carmine’s more recently deceased wife.
Nina’s mother was from the Amalfi Coast Doukas family and she died mysteriously shortly after Carmine met my aunt Nora. The second wife he “lost”. Italian families are complicated… especially ours.
Aunt Viviana suspects us immediately when we whip up a delicious pasta dinner for her and I send Mikey out to splurge on the good wine.
She’s one of those women who is so bitterly and aggressively Italian, that warming her heart is almost too easy.
She loves good wine, good food, and the parts of her family that aren’t blood-stained.
She pours herself a glass of wine as Peter serves her the homemade rigatoni.
“What do you boys want? If it’s a loan, you should really be asking your father for that kind of money.”
“Not a loan. We need to know where Vito and Dario Corsini are,” Mikey asks in a serious, low tone. She laughs mockingly.
“Those idiots?”
They might be idiots, but they know what happened at 9th Circle, so I don’t want to discount their criminal prowess quite yet. I remain wary as Viviana responds.
“Yes, those idiots. Our father thinks they were involved in the Buffalo nightclub bombing.”
Viviana’s posture changes after I mention the bombing, although I don’t think it was a secret that the truce-breaking event was the real reason we were here.
Her expression isn’t exactly surprising, however.
She’s more… pensive. Mikey and I exchange glances.
She knows something . And it won’t take that much wine to draw it out of her.
“You can tell us, Aunt Viviana,” Peter says, taking her hand. “We aren’t here to cause more bloodshed. We want to end it.”
It’s not the entire truth. If my father asks us for bloodshed, all of us in the room would obey without hesitation. Viviana’s eyes glance nervously around the room.
“With all due respect, Maury is the one you have to worry about. I’ve said it for years. Carmine might have killed my sister, but I trust his right hand even less than I trust him.”
“Not even my father trusts Maury,” I respond encouragingly.
“He wants Carmine’s money, he wants revenge for the way Carmine forced him to go along with a truce he never wanted a part in. Worst of all, he’s angry about Mallory.”
Mallory Corsini disappeared years ago after her father attempted to marry her off to a man twice her age when she was eighteen.
She was Carmine’s first daughter with Nora after their marriage and her disappearance shook the Pittsburgh family.
My father was always surprised that we weren’t somehow blamed for her disappearance, even if Uncle Pino would have dragged her back to Carmine himself had she somehow made it to our neck of the woods.
“No one has heard from Mallory in years,” Mikey says. “For all we know, she could be dead.”
“She’s not dead. That’s where the boys are — bringing her back. I don’t know if they want to follow through with Maury’s wishes or somehow use her against him.”
Viviana’s face slackens momentarily. I swear I can see her emotions for that split second of vulnerability. Loss and grief have followed her throughout her entire life. She spent her entire life between Pittsburgh and Buffalo, trying to hold her pieces of the family together.
Anyone with sense knows that a threat to the truce puts us all at risk. The old men have nothing to lose and frankly, neither do we.
“What do you think of them?” Michael asks. “Do you trust them to follow in their father’s footsteps or do we stand a chance at convincing them that trouble with our family means war?”
Viviana’s face visibly displays her worry, but not much else. I wouldn’t put it past her to conceal more troubling emotions like the deeper fears that might come with a mafia war.
“I think they’re young men. Unpredictable. Violent. Persuaded by vices.”
Peter chuckles. “We’re older than they are. More experienced. If they’re successful at bringing back their sister, then I’ll worry about my cousins.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask him.
Even Mikey chuckles. “Because you don’t know Mallory Corsini.”
As long as their disappearance doesn’t result in another Buffalo nightclub bombing while we’re away, I’ll trust Viviana’s word and keep this information about the Corsini family rift for later. Carmine left a mess behind — but how much of it will be ours to clean up?
Pittsburgh, 5 weeks after leaving Delphine
Delphine doesn’t return my emails. I wish she would respond . I feel desperate to hear her voice, or at least read her words.
I told myself there would be no feelings between us, but knowing that Delphine is pregnant, trapped with my sister Angela, and I haven’t seen her or held her in weeks bothers me deeply. I try to rationalize my emotions, but nothing works to suppress them or wish them away.
Even if some foolish part of me develops an emotional connection to Delphine, I’ll have to break it after she has the baby.
Late after the meeting with Dario and Vito, I call my father to give him a thorough report and to answer all his detailed questions, sometimes asking about parts of the conversation or situation that I would have never deemed important.
What does it matter if Vito Corsini smokes?
How should I know if Dario’s voice “changed significantly” as I forced him to give me more information about the Gravina who bombed the nightclub.
We have enough answers to know who planted the bomb, but not why and we don’t know if there might be more bombs in the future. The whole situation is a damn mess.
I hoped my father would call us back home, but he’s not finished with us yet. Michael and Peter’s idiotic first cousins returned from Boston empty-handed, but it seems they arrived empty-brained as well. They can’t tell us anything about Maury Gravina, what he wants, or more about the bombing.
All we know is that three members of the Pittsburgh mob family followed Maury’s orders to plant a bomb at 9th Circle in Buffalo.
Like us, the younger men in the family were taught not to question the motives of their superiors.
Carmine’s death clearly affected both Dario and Vito, their numb absence of emotions particularly apparent during our meeting.
They didn’t just lose their father, and I reported at least one piece of news to my father that I knew he would want to hear.
The member of the Corsini mob family who planted the bomb died in Boston — shot by a redneck biker while staking out Mallory’s house.
Her brothers still haven't convinced Mallory to return to Pittsburgh, and when I inquire about the outlaw bikers involved in thwarting their efforts to bring their sister home, both Dario and Vito reassure me that the bikers have nothing to do with Mallory except circumstances — so they have no involvement in the bombing.
When I press Dario and Vito about Maury’s possible motives, I truly question their intelligence. The best they can tell me is that the “Doukas branch” of their family will have more answers for them, and their half-brothers are slated to return in three months.
I feel for the confusion that accompanies young men at this age. They crave some intense purpose greater than the daily, basic routines of life that seem unimportant. Only time will give a man some sense of purpose and stability in his life.
Dario and Vito are little help with speculating on Maury’s motives, but I sense they don’t trust him, an instinct my father agrees with.
“Carmine had a sense of honor. Maury doesn’t,” is all I can get from Don Taviani on the subject.
Their explanation for why they want their sister back seems plausible, but my father doesn’t trust anybody in Pittsburgh and neither do I.
Except Aunt Viviana. She might have chosen to live on this side of the truce line, but you would be foolish to think she forgives Carmine for what he did to her sister.
Her loyalty is to herself — which is a wise way for a woman to live.
Dad isn’t satisfied with what we learned from the meeting enough to call us back home.
So we’re stuck in Pittsburgh while I miss more of Delphine’s physical and emotional changes.
By the time I return, her hatred for me could be completely solidified, especially since I left Angela as her primary companion.
I should have picked someone less hardened by our lifestyle.
Our new mission in Pittsburgh involves more surveillance of the Corsini brothers, tracking down the Gravina who might have helped with the bombing, and finding out Maury’s intentions — or if this was a rogue element within their mafia family.
If we believe Dario and Vito Corsini, they didn’t personally agree with the bombing, they only wanted to kidnap “my girl” for some information blackmail.
Naturally, this claim protects their lives, but that doesn’t make it true. My father doesn’t want me to kill them, so I won’t, but I don’t trust these men and I trust this mob family’s stability even less.
I just want to return home. I want to watch Delphine’s body grow and change.
This would be over a lot faster if dad did something reckless — like ordering Maury Gravina dead without asking any questions.
He wants to protect his sister’s feelings, but many in our family have lost loved ones because of the Pittsburgh mob.
Why shouldn’t Maury Gravina die?
We’re all going to end up in the same place when the bell tolls.
He certainly never hesitated to end a life. Why should we?