Chapter Nineteen Guinevere
Chapter Nineteen
Guinevere
They kept me locked in a room in the basement for four days.
Four.
Truthfully, I did not expect to be kept longer than two.
That was how much faith I had in Raffa and his crew and their ability to get through any obstacle to reach me.
Raffa had literally saved me from being taken by thugs while I was an entire ocean away from him in Michigan.
Surely, he could do the same here in his own country, in his own territory.
Even as the morning of the fourth day crept over the horizon and spilled weak pink light onto the ceiling of my stark but comfortable bedroom, I did not worry.
I knew he would come.
And if it was taking a little longer, it was only because he would eviscerate them when he was done.
I had not seen Gaetano again, but Ginevra visited me.
The first day, I refused to speak with her, but she told me stories about her youth with my father.
In some ways, she spoke of a stranger, a man named Mariano instead of John, whom I had no memory of.
This man was taught to play with guns and knives the way normal children would their toys.
She spoke of Gaetano’s idea of after-school care, a mini boot camp for his sons to arm and defend themselves and learn about the family business.
As a woman, Ginevra herself was not sanctioned to participate, but she had grown sly and clever enough to practice in the shadows and tutor with my father at night before bed in their limited free time.
She knew more than enough, she said, to teach me how to take care of myself.
Even though I enjoyed the sentiment, I didn’t deign to answer her. When all this was over, and I knew in my bones it would be soon, Raffa and his crew would teach me all I needed to know and more. They could be excessive like that.
The second day, she tried to ask me questions about my life. What did I like to do back home in Michigan? What was my mother like? Did I speak Albanian as well as Italian?
Each time she was met with silence until she gave up and stalked out of the room, punctuating her frustration by slamming the door behind her.
On the third day, she arrived with a tablet, and the only questions she asked were about the Romano family.
How many people lived at Villa Romano? And how many of them were guards?
Where did Raffa spend most of his time, at the villa or the palazzo?
Was I aware of the names of any of the Romano holding companies? Maybe I saw them on his desk sometimes.
When I didn’t reply, Ginevra had sighed and said, “Truly, I am your best ally in this entire compound, Guinevere. I told you the story of my brother.” Her eyes skittered to a camera fixed in the corner by the door.
“I only want what is best for you. So please, hear me when I say that if you do not answer my questions or give me any inkling you might be converted to our side in this, things will go very poorly for you.”
I had merely stared at her as I had done for the past two days.
She could say whatever she wanted, but her actions thus far had proven she was under Gaetano’s control, and my grandfather definitely did not have my best interests at heart.
It wasn’t surprising then, on the third day, when the man named Eduardo opened the door instead of Ginevra, followed closely by Gaetano.
“I hear you are not finding Ginevra a pleasant conversationalist,” he said in that faux-jovial way of his as Eduardo started to move some of the furniture to the side of the room.
I watched him wearily, a metallic taste like blood on the back of my tongue.
A premonition maybe. I was sitting on the bed with the only book in the room, Italo Calvino’s collection of folktales.
It seemed fitting I had just been reading about Sfortuna, the unlucky heroine whose fortunes change after a series of unpleasant events when she catches the attention of a prince and earns his love.
My own happily ever after had been within my grasp, and I’d squandered it out of fear. Now, based on the way Eduardo was rolling up his sleeves and then rolling back the carpet, I wondered if that chance was gone for good.
“What is he doing?” I asked quietly.
“Eduardo? Oh, we don’t like to get any stains on the carpet,” my grandfather explained with a smile as he sat in a chair at the edge of the room. “It’s an eighteenth-century Persian carpet.”
“Of course,” I said dully, my gaze tracking Eduardo as he grabbed a wooden chair from the desk and dragged it into the middle of the room before, surprisingly, he left.
“Now, we are just us two,” Gaetano said, opening his palms as if to symbolize he wasn’t hiding anything. “Why don’t we have a candid discussion about your future, hmm?”
I didn’t reply because there was nothing to say. Gaetano had complained that the Venetian was theatrical, but it was clear my grandfather was playing his own game, and he did not really need my participation.
“It is clear that you hold affection for Raffaele Romano, but my daughter has told me it is likely a symptom of Stockholm syndrome and that with enough time you’ll come to see the light about him.”
I let my scornful doubt shine through my expression, but he ignored me.
“He killed my eldest sons,” he continued. “Did you know this? Giorgio and Giuseppe. A car bomb in Genoa took out my firstborn, and poisoned wine my second.”
“I thought you had put the idea of revenge to rest?” I asked as fear skittered down my spine and sank sharp teeth into my tailbone.
He cocked his head, tapping his cane against the floor. “Yes, and I thought I had. But now you are here, and I find it difficult to resist the temptation.”
“Why would you work for the Venetian?” I tried to reason. “You said he had to blackmail you into helping so far.”
“Yes, but I do not want this information to hand it over to that stronzo. I want it for myself. The Venetian can have Raffa’s kingdom if he can steal it. All I want is his life.”
“No.” The word exploded from me like a bullet.
I wished it was one.
If someone had put a gun into my hand that second, I would have raised it without hesitation to put lead between my grandfather’s eyes.
The thought should have chilled me.
That the idea of killing could be so immediate in my fantasies. That I could almost feel the weight of the gun and the cool of the metal in my hand, my index finger twitching like it was hungry for the pull of a trigger.
But I had already had my existential crisis about killing someone. The man on the top of the Impruneta bell tower.
Now, instead of the blare of panic trilling through my head, I heard only the cool, calm tones of Raffa.
Non sei un’assassina; sei una cacciatrice.
You are not a killer; you are a huntress.
And I felt it was true in that moment, staring at a stranger who shared my blood and feeling certain I would end him if he so much as laid a finger on Raffa or Martina or Renzo, Ludo, or Carm. On any of the Romanos who had taken me into their home.
Far from horrifying me, the idea sang through my blood like a macabre song.
“The Venetian doesn’t want him dead yet,” Gaetano continued as if I hadn’t spoken, and I had a feeling he did that often, especially with women.
“He doesn’t have what he needs from Raffaele, and until he does, he can’t secure the empire.
But it is too good an opportunity to pass up.
So I have made my own little plan. Unfortunately, it involves your cooperation.
“Tu sei mia nipote. Il mio sangue,” he said in Italian, gesturing widely with one hand. “You are my granddaughter. My blood. Of course, even though the circumstances were not desirable, I was thrilled to discover your existence. It was wrong of your father to keep you hidden from us.”
He paused for me to agree with him, and though I did take umbrage at Dad for keeping such a colossal secret, I couldn’t very well blame him for keeping me from his family.
They were batshit crazy.
“I want to embrace you as my blood and, one day, maybe even my heir,” he continued, dangling the last word like bait before a fish, hoping to hook me with its shiny promise. “What do you think about that?”
“I have no interest in being a mob boss,” I said flatly, though that wasn’t necessarily true anymore.
When Raffa came for me, I would never leave his side again.
Not for meetings with Albanians, not to confer with other capos.
Not when he could be in danger and not when he might be complicit in criminalities.
I would go where he went—be it prison or the ER or any circle of Dante’s hell. I would be his partner in all things.
The queen to his King Below.
He laughed. “That is a good thing. Men who want to be mob bosses only care about the money and the swagger. I have looked into you, Guinevere Stone, and you are a smart woman. First in your class at the University of Michigan for your MBA, a job at one of the best financial firms in the country. Doing what I do is much like running a giant corporation.”
“Where people are killed if they don’t follow company policy,” I quipped.
A shadow passed over his face. “I do not appreciate jokes when talking about business, Guinevere.”
“And I do not appreciate your threatening the man I love or my being kept hostage when I’ve asked to leave.”
“We have welcomed you warmly,” he started to say, but I cut him off with a harsh laugh.
“Warmly? My aunt drugged me on a train and dragged me here, and when I didn’t immediately comply with your wishes, you had me locked in this room. I haven’t met any other family members, and I haven’t been allowed access to my phone. Is that considered warm in the Camorra?”
“Yes,” he snapped. “A cold welcome would involve you strung up with the prosciutto in the barn, left to dry and rot until we deigned to slice you open. Would you rather the alternative?”