Chapter 27 #2
The vein in his forehead starts pulsing, and my poor boyfriend is about to lose his shit in church. “At your funeral,” Joey forces the words through his clenched jaw. “We were under attack and at war. We thought you were dead.”
I can finally see her on the screen. She looks freaking amazing—perfect curls in her hair, a lovely scarf around her neck, and a fresh glow to her. Italy must do wonders for her skin.
“When did this happen?” Nonna asks.
“Two weeks ago.”
She pauses and turns her head off to the side. “Huh. I guess that explains why the men were at the house.”
“What men?”
“Ugh. Old men. I took care of them. Bad for my back, though. Thank goodness the boys you sent showed up. They took care of the bodies and have been tending my garden.”
“‘Boys I sent’? What?” Alana leans forward. “What are their names?”
“There’s one named Theodore. Teddy.”
“Teddy is in Italy right now? Fixing your garden?” Alana asks, a new level of shock and fear edges into her voice. A man’s face pops on the screen. I don’t recognize him. Joey doesn’t either.
But Alana leans over the pew to see the screen—and lets out a long sigh.
“Hey! How’s it going? We killed a big snake in the shed. And Nonna makes the best food.”
Alana takes off her sunglasses, blinks, and her lips turn into a straight-lined frown. “Teddy, you need to go. Now.”
“Why?”
“Because I know how Nonna plans on dying, and I don’t want her taking you with her.”
Teddy makes a face and the phone camera switches back to Nonna smirking.
“I can’t. I can’t with this,” Alana mutters, leaning back on her pew and resting her head on Waverly’s shoulder.
Nonna lights up. “Nico! If you’re at my funeral, there’s a girl I want you to meet—Jenny. She’s the sweetest. I want you two to hit it off.”
I lean in. “Hi, Nonna. We’ve met. We’re good.” I add with an eyebrow waggle, “He’s tending my garden.”
“Nooooice,” Donny says under his breath.
He’s sitting next to his dad, and he lights up and leans across his family to take the phone out of Joey’s hand.
Donny pulls a little plastic penis out of his coat pocket.
“Nonna, look what I made. I bought two 3D printers, and I think I’m going to sell them online. ”
My boyfriend flashes me an annoyed glare, like this is somehow all my fault, but Nonna gives her grandson a little smile. “Good for you, Donny. Can you give the phone back to Nico?”
Nonna sighs and addresses Joey again. “Why is Alana being irrational?”
“Irrational? Nonna, we thought you were dead. We were at war. We lost a lot of people,” Joey is unable to hold it together anymore.
Her face falls slightly.
“Alana flatlined for ten minutes,” Joey adds softly.
There it is. His deepest fears spoken aloud for everyone to hear.
Alana smacks him in the back of the head. It seems fair. I mean, she got better. Problem solved.
She hunches over and groans. I suspect it’s the first time anyone’s said it aloud in front of her. The room fills with awkwardness—more than any normal church service ever could.
Nonna says, “Oh. I see,” a hint of remorse in her voice. “I’ll be sure to send her some cannolis.”
“Cannoli? That’s what you get? You die for this family, and you get cannoli?” I ask.
Donny turns around. “Ooh, from which place?” Nonna replies, naming some Italian bakery none of us have heard of. Donny frowns. “Oh, those are good. Alana’s totally never gonna share.”
“What exactly happened?” Nonna asks.
“Well, let’s see... The plane blew up. We thought you were in it. We were attacked. Repeatedly. And Rita... she betrayed us.”
“That’s not surprising.” Nonna closes her eyes and makes the sign of the cross before saying, “I guess that was inevitable.”
Joey adds “Uncle Gio, Donny, Jenny, and I were kidnapped. Taken to Carver Street.”
Nonna swallows. “Carver Street. I see.” She pauses. “Can you hand the phone to the priest?”
Joey shrugs and gives the phone to the Cardinal. They exchange words in Italian. Maybe Latin. I can’t tell.
The Cardinal’s face drops. He rushes over to a bucket and starts splashing everyone in the front row with a shower of water, as he mumbles Latin and a bunch of prayers.
I have no idea what’s going on.
“Carver Street is haunted,” Nonna says like it’s obvious.
“We saw a ghost. Or a ghost knocked over a chair. Either way, awesome,” I say, but Nonna frowns.
Alana leans forward, wiping the holy water off her glasses. “Wait, why am I just learning about this now?”
Joey shrugs. “You were busy not dying, and it didn’t seem important.”
Alana pushes her fingers to her temples and starts rubbing them in a little circle, “what happened to Rita?”
Donny pipes in with the answer. “One of your hunter friends came in and shot her.”
“What?” Alana’s eyebrows shoot up her forehead.
“Yeah, you didn’t send him?”
“No. Let me get this straight, some random dude shows up and shoots a family member who betrayed all of you and shot Joey’s parents, and you’re all fine with that? No sense of moral outrage for a vendetta unfilled. Are you fucking kidding me?”
Lance hisses, “You. Are. In. Church.”
Donny shrugs. “Why would we be mad? The problem has been solved?”
But Joey seems crestfallen as his shoulders sink. “Wait, did everyone know Rita killed my parents?” I rub his thigh.
Waverly shifts in her seat, the Russian boys glance around at all the stained-glass windows. Thiago and the Mexican cartel check their watches and pick up the hymnal in front of them. Joey takes a deep breath and reaches for my hand.
I give him a little squeeze and he sighs. “I guess it doesn’t change anything, and the problem did get solved.”
Alana huffs and crosses her arm in a very big pout.
“Ugh. If a hunter killed her, it was a clean head shot. That Rita bitch didn’t even suffer.
” The pew rattles from where Alana kicks it.
“God, this is like every single sexual encounter I’ve had in the last decade—extremely unsatisfying. Fucking men.”
Hmm, I’m not sure if she means fucking men is unsatisfying or if she’s generally annoyed with all men. But that doesn’t matter. Nonna’s alive. I’m dripping in holy water. My boyfriend is a Mob boss with a dog. And bit by bit, his worst nightmares are fading away.
Alana mumbles, “I can’t. I can’t with this family,” and dips her head, resting it on Waverly’s shoulder again.
Waverly strokes her hair and says, “Yeah. This is our family. You’re stuck with us.”