19. Salvatore
19
Salvatore
Death must be convenient for the dead.
They leave behind a hell of a mess for everyone else to scrape together.
I spend the day planning revenge and waving off police inquiries, calling in endless favors to sweep this under the world’s ugliest rug.
A shoot-out on a private drive doesn’t just go unnoticed—but with the right supervisors called, we tidy it up as an engagement party mishap. Some fireworks set off by mistake. The kind of bullshit lie money lets you get away with, no matter who believes you or not.
It’s almost 2 A.M. by the time I sink down into my study chair. A color-coded map of New York city blurs in front of my vision. A red X is scrawled over the high rise where Gio Lovera lives. His safehouse in the sky. Across the map, territories are drawn out among the various crime families, gangs, corporations. Truce markers with our allies speckle the page.
Marcel stares out the window, looking for phantoms in the dark. Patrol flashlights light the edges of the property. It’s a sleepless night.
“We won’t be able to have a funeral. Not for a long time.”
“It’ll never be safe,” I say, cutting off that line of thinking before it can start. “We can arrange something. Give Gio some of his bodies back to bury. While he’s busy collecting his dead, we can pay respects to ours. Private service, no announcements. I don’t even want a death certificate signed until they’re in the ground. He might do the same, but keep an ear out for any funeral announcements on their side—”
Marcel sighs.
“You know I disagree with this. That meeting? I saw a lot of hot blood and angry men, and very fucking few good ideas between them.”
“Lovera can’t take shots at this house. Not for free.”
“Does this look like a free shot to you? He lost twice as many as we did. He sent his own blood on a suicide mission.”
“It’s not a fucking numbers game, Marcel. It was our blood, too. Vinny. Lance.”
“You think I of all people don’t know that?” Marcel demands. “But castles win sieges, Sal, and this is a siege. All we have to do is hold. This attack was delusion at its finest. You think Lovera’s support isn’t crumbling out from under him?”
“You think mine won’t if I let our men get killed and do nothing ? If I can’t make this family safe in their own goddamn house?”
Everything on the desk goes flying, crashing to the ground. Heaps of papers, planners, a laptop. The lamp snaps free from the cord and plunges the room into darkness. I stare down at my own action as if someone else did it.
The silence is strained.
“Go to bed, Marcel.”
For a moment, I think he might disobey. Instead, he only sighs.
“You, too, Sal.”
His hand squeezes my shoulder, only for a moment.
“We both know that bullet was meant for you.”
Marcel’s footsteps fade on the floorboards. I take up his place at the window and light my last cigarette. The empty carton joins the pile of trash on the floor. I’ve torn through more smokes today than I usually do in a month.
I leave the office for tomorrow—just another mess to deal with come dawn.
Upstairs, Tessa’s light is still on. I find her sitting up in bed. She’s hugging her arms around her knees, her eyes tired and empty. When she sees me, she asks if I’m alright.
‘I am,’ should be the two easiest words to say. A couple syllables, whether they’re true or not. But I don’t lie to Tessa, and so I just don’t say anything. She comes straight to me, pressing four quick kisses against my lips.
It’s like she’s slipped a knife through my armor. Plunged it right in a part of me I didn’t know how to protect.
I’ve fucked plenty of women. Made deals. Had my fair share of pretty little gold diggers that were good for the short-term but never built to last.
But I’ve never been loved by a woman before, not even by a mother.
What do you do with something that delicate? Like holding a bubble in your bare hands. I pull her up into my arms and carry her to my bedroom. The rules be damned.
Without her there, I think I’d be in the same state I found her in. Staring out into the dark, sleepless.
I have to have her with me; I have to hold her. A clutching, desperate grasp, telling the world that she’s mine , and the devil himself won’t pull her away from me. The fact that they even tried —
It makes my vision red, my thoughts bloody.
She takes my hand in the dark and scrubs her thumb over my battered knuckles. She brings my hand to her mouth, pressing the softest kisses to each one.
I hold her too tight, but she falls asleep anyway, curled up into me like I’m the shelter from the storm and not the storm itself. She feels so delicate like this, too small and soft.
I don’t find any peace until she does, carried to the edge of sleep by the rhythm of her breathing.
***
Tomorrow comes too fast.
The house is quiet. I pull myself up, disoriented by the light coming through the windows. Tessa is sleeping soundly beside me, but something’s off. The silence scratches at my instincts, as if it was the silence itself that woke me. It takes a second to find the missing piece—the chaos from the kitchen.
It always annoyed me that I could hear Vinny’s racket all the way up here.
Now, I can’t sleep through the morning without it.
I scrub my hands over my face.
I want to go down and burn out all this rage on the heavy bag in the gym—or maybe on one of the men dying in my wine cellar. Fast track their journey to hell. I tell myself I can do it later. I stay with Tessa as long as I can—once I leave, I doubt she’ll get any rest.
When the clock starts running out, I sit on the edge of the bed, the task ahead like a boulder resting on my shoulder. I brace myself to carry it.
Tessa is sitting up by the time I’m out of the shower. She watches me finish dressing.
“I have to go,” I tell her.
“Go where?” she asks.
“To pay respects to the family. Vinny’s mother and father.”
Her expression softens at first, and then hardens inexplicably.
“Wait for me to get ready,” she says, throwing off the covers. “I’m going with you.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“I didn’t ask if it was,” she says, and walks toward her bedroom as if the matter is already resolved. For now, I ignore it. I finish getting ready myself. If I don’t want Tessa to go with me, all I have to do is shut her door.
But why she’s so set on it, and why she’s telling me rather than asking—I haven’t had enough sleep for bullshit this early. Contessa is staring into her closet when I enter her room.
“Good,” she breathes, when she sees me. “Help me choose something that’s suitable.
Obviously one of the black pieces, but it can’t be too revealing, and your men didn’t give me much to work with in the modesty department.”
“Who said you’re going?”
“I did.”
My objection dies on my lips.
For the first time, I notice Tessa’s engagement ring glitters on her finger. She hasn’t worn it, not once since she rejected it on the top of her nightstand. She follows my stare. She doesn’t flinch; the color rises softly in her cheeks, but she refuses to look bashful about it.
She holds out her hand, letting me look at the way the generous diamond glints on her finger.
“I’m going with you,” she says again. “You have to go because you’re the head of this family. If I’m going to be seen as your wife, I should be there, too. It’s proper.”
“This isn’t a normal circumstance, Tessa. I don’t know how they’ll react.”
“I know. They’re grieving. If they’re uncomfortable with it, I’ll leave. But I want to try.”
I study her face. She’s resolved. Stronger than yesterday, somehow. I expected the attack would shatter her—instead, she’s like that diamond on her ring, forged from the pressure of it all.
I step up to the wardrobe and help her find something to wear.
It’s not until we’re walking along the drive that it occurs to me: The woman on my arm is the woman I have been trying to shape Tessa into all along. Except, I’m not sure the transformation had anything to do with me.
When I can’t stop staring at her, she notices.
“You look beautiful.”
“I know,” she says, meeting my look. “I look like I’m yours.”
She puts her hand around my arm.
There’s a saying in the family—if the don himself ever shows up at your front door, it’s either the best or the worst day of your life. I wish this one were the opposite.
Vinny’s mother has aged a decade overnight. Her hair is frazzled, and she’s dressed in a robe with mismatched slippers. One look at me, and her bloodshot eyes well up with fresh tears.
She stumbles over her apology for her appearance. I pull her into my arms before she can get the words out.
My connection to Vinny runs through her—we are related in some distant way. Cousins of some fashion. The relation isn’t immediate, but we are no less bound by the same blood.
When she collects herself, I introduce Contessa. Tessa offers her hand and her apologies—her eyes swimming with the same emotion. I swear women have some language of their own. With only a handful of words exchanged between them, Maria pulls Tessa into an embrace as well. There’s no questioning where Vinny got his disposition.
Contessa whispers those little words that I am not allowed to say:
I’m so sorry.
Maria nods gratefully.
Vinny’s father is surprisingly absent, but by the bottles littered around the table, I have a sense of why he isn’t here. I don’t press the absence, taking my seat next to Maria.
It’s my obligation as don to offer the family some recompense—the promise that the security a successful son would have brought them won’t die with Vinny. They’ll be taken care of. Most families don’t care about that, at least, not in the moment. They want justice.
Maria sniffles into her tissue.
“Can I see him?” she asks. “One last time?”
“No, ma’am,” I say, as gently but as firm as I can. Her face crumples.
“It was bad, wasn’t it?”
Before I have to decide how to answer a question like that, Contessa intervenes on my behalf.
“What a cute picture,” she says suddenly, picking up a framed childhood photo of Vinny off the end table. He doesn’t look much older than Nate in that picture, showing off doing a handstand between his two parents, who are posed for a normal family photo.
Maria laughs sadly. “Vinny was always jumping in front of a camera or sticking his tongue out, trying to get someone to laugh. When he was little, his uncle used to comment ‘Bigfoot Sighting’ on his pictures because they were all blurry.”
“I’d love to see,” Contessa urges gently.
Maria brings us a photo album from under the coffee table. I’m grateful for the intervention, sharing a glance with her behind the woman’s back. She slides her fingers through mine.
“I didn’t print out as many as I should have…everything is online now. But I still have his school photos. I was always complaining that I didn’t have any ‘good’ pictures of him. When picture day came around, I picked out the perfect outfit, combed his hair just right. I told him, ‘You better sit still, look at the camera, and smile, or so help me.’ “I was so proud he was finally going to have a normal picture.” She laughs wetly and hands the school photo over to Tessa. It’s Vinny as a child, doing exactly as his mother said—sitting still and smiling politely for the camera, with his hair styled up in big wet spikes. A mohawk gone horribly wrong.
“He snuck in his dad’s hair gel. I was so mad, I told him I wasn’t going to waste my money on the picture. Of course, I did anyway…”
“I wish I had gotten to know him better,” Tessa says.
“He never met a stranger. Or an enemy.” Maria tries to discreetly wipe at her face again.
“Speaking of enemies, Maria,” I interrupt, trying to be gentle, “It’s standard that I tell you—I have Vinny’s killer in my custody.”
“Alive?” she breathes, horrified.
“Alive. In the case of unmarried men, the closest blood relatives are given the execution right. That would be you and your husband. But—given the circumstances—with your permission, I would extend the right to Ava. They were as good as married. I’d like to acknowledge that for her.”
Maria nods.
“God, of course. Ava was already like a daughter to me. And Phillip, he doesn’t need that kind of choice on him. Just as long as someone does it.”
“We will,” I promise her, clutching her cold hand between mine. “We’ll get justice for him.”
She nods weakly.
“Thank you, Sal.”
The words grate against something in me. I can’t imagine having to thank the person who let my child die. Flipping through the photo albums, Contessa smoothly distracts the woman again. I realize this would be a much harder meeting without her here. Too impersonal. Business-like. I watch her shoulder the woman’s pain more gracefully than I can, navigate it like she has a compass that I can’t read.
Some of the family arrive, bringing dishes of warm food and their own sympathies. The customary visits for the grieving. As we give our goodbyes, we excuse ourselves from the house.
Contessa promises her the family’s support; I promise her the family’s vengeance.
Contessa and I walk back toward the house.
“What was that about an execution?” she asks.
“It’s an old, infrequent tradition. Your family may not have it. If we take someone into custody whose killed of one ours, the closest kin is permitted to get their justice. Their pound of flesh, you could say. It’s usually the wife. Ava and Vinny may as well count as married, in my eyes. That relationship was stronger than most marriages I’ve known. Lasted longer.”
She doesn’t answer.
“You don’t like the tradition, I take it,” I say.
She shakes her head.
“I never hope to find out if I do or not. Does Ava have to…”
“No,” I interrupt. “Sometimes it’s symbolic, if the person doesn’t want to do it themselves. They can appoint someone to do it for them. She can put the gun in whatever hand she chooses. But I can’t have another Vera. Maybe if Ava gets her justice, it’ll help.”
Tessa looks at me, but she doesn’t comment.
“Maybe,” she says softly.
I’m surprised she isn’t arguing me down. Her face is soft and sad again. She’s let the sunny mask slip now that we’re not in Maria’s sight. I stop before we reach the shadow of the house.
“Go back inside.”
“Where are you going?” she asks, alarmed and understandably confused.
“To do my next house call. Noctus.”
“Then shouldn’t I—”
“No,” I cut across, before she can even think about offering to go with me. “This one, I have to do alone.”
I kiss the top of her head. She doesn’t argue, even as her big eyes still search me, looking for the reason. She looks back to the house.
“You want me to go back to my room?”
The word alone hangs in the air between us, unspoken but still loud.
“I’m sure you know the way.”
She looks bewildered at the sudden change, letting her wander alone and unsupervised.
Something in me knows she will be here, waiting for me, when I get back. Trust . I don’t remember the last time I trusted anyone that wasn’t Marcel.
“It’s not dangerous?”
“I think you’ll be alright, going right there.”
She finally nods. She doesn’t let us part without a kiss. She walks up the stairs, watching me until we are out of each other’s sight.
I take Leo for the trip into the city. The drive feels shorter than usual, how it always does when you dread your destination. Noctus, like most of our foot soldiers, lives in our territory—an easy enough commute for the usual stomping grounds. Leo posts up outside the door as I knock. I don’t know if Noctus will answer. There’s a selfish part of me that hopes he doesn’t. There’s another part of me that expects him to be on the other side of that door with a gun.
The bolt slides back.
He throws the door open and drags his feet through a pile of junk mail piled up at the threshold.
He barely looks at me. The apartment is dim as I enter. A fan rattles loudly in the corner. It almost sounds like laughter.
“Didn’t think you’d have the balls to show up,” Noctus says. He keeps sniffing, but it’s not from tears, one nostril bloody. He paces near the kitchen. Neither of us sit.
“You know why I’m here. It’s awful, what happened to Lance—”
“Don’t give me the fucking song and dance, Sal. You put him on that fucking tower. You were fucking punishing him, because he got to what you wanted first—”
“Noctus—”
“And now my little brother is fucking dead —”
The coffee table goes flying, along with every beer bottle and pizza box and razor blade on top of it.
“—because of some fucking bitch! Let me tell you something, Sal, that better be the best pussy in the fucking world. Grade A fucking princess pussy! Hell, maybe I’ll get a taste of it myself—”
He goes down in a single punch, too wired to even try putting his hands up and defending himself.
The pain cracks through my knuckles, flaring up the injury. I clench my fist and bury it somewhere deep, turning all that rage toward the man at my feet.
I knew Noctus would see it this way. Lance was always distracted at the club, always pushing limits, running off to drink and dance, like he wasn’t there to work . Contessa was just the last straw in a fucking haystack. Convenient, how all that gets forgotten now. I didn’t put Lance on that tower to die. I put him there to behave.
Noctus snarls at my feet but pulls himself up. I’m ready for him to come up swinging, but he just teeters in front of me, his pupils shot.
“You open your mouth again, you better think twice about what comes out of it,” I warn him.
Noctus swipes his tongue against his lip.
“I’ve done my thinking. About how a lot of us ended up here. Me. Nick. Half the men I run with aren’t related to you. Hell, they’re not related to nobody. It must be so easy for you, pulling kids nobody wants out of the system. Giving them all the shit they don’t got. Money.
Opportunity. Family . You got the soldier secret formula working for you, Sal. You talk this big game about the family, about blood —hell, your family don’t even do half the hard work.”
“Family is who I say it is,” I cut across, “And you are family—”
“ Bullshit —”
“We don’t get to choose who’s born into the family, Noctus. I reward talent where I find it, and I found it in you. I gave you a choice. The rest of us, it doesn’t matter if we’re suited for this life or not.
We’re in it whether we like it or not, and we adapt to it or it destroys us. That’s it. You made a choice to be with us, and I try to reward you for that choice every day.”
He paces again, putting distance between us a second time. He doesn’t want to hear it, but I make him hear it, closing the distance and shoving him back against the wall.
“I take the same risks as every one of you. When we go after the ones who did this to Lance, I’ll be right there with you. Won’t I? Have I ever sent you anywhere that I wouldn’t go myself?”
Noctus glares at me, but even in his rage and his grief, he can’t say that I have.
“I could sit behind a desk, signing checks and posting bail, same as Lovera. I don’t. I would die for you, and I would die for Lance. So, you better get your head on straight, Noctus, because you and I are both gonna go out there and take that risk for him. Focus the fuck up and be angry at the ones who actually did this. I don’t want to take your revenge from you. I want you right there with me. Do you understand?”
His jaw grinds.
“Yeah,” he finally says.
I hold my silence, waiting. Yeah isn’t good enough.
He sighs out slowly, giving me a bitter, “Yes, sir.”
“The kid was my family, too, Noctus. Whether you believe me or not. And I will bring hell to the ones who took him from us. Sober up and take care of yourself. I need you need to be ready.”
I leave before the man can talk himself into worse trouble. He’s always had a mouth on him and reacts to authority figures like a cat to bathwater—but the shit he was saying about Tessa, he was all but daring me to kill him right there on the spot. My hand throbs.
Outside, Leo slides his gun back under his coat. I can’t even heave a sigh. I slide that chilly, unaffected mask into place and keep walking.
The tiniest silver lining on this bullshit is that no matter what, Gio is still having a worse day than I am.