3. Valentina
Chapter 3
Valentina
I lounge on the buttery-smooth tan leather of the backseat as my cousin and chaperone-cum-bodyguard, Curse, drives me to the event at the Fabbris’ brand-new condo building. Mamma is driving with Papà, and since Curse isn’t exactly known for having the gift for the gab, the car is quiet.
Too quiet. It makes me feel all itchy.
“So, first Elio,” I say blithely, examining my manicure. Dark red, to match my lips. “Now me. I guess you’re up next on the wedding train, eh Curse?”
When Curse finally answers, it’s merely to grunt, “We’re almost there.”
I go on as if he hadn’t spoken at all.
“I don’t know why they’re in such a rush to announce this engagement, anyway. It’s not like the last Titone wedding was a roaring success.”
More like a complete fucking catastrophe. Elio’s wedding to the Irish-Canadian girl Deirdre O’Malley blew up in our faces. Literally. Like, with a bomb. After that lovely little fiasco in February, you’d think the Titones might take a break from all the wedding stuff.
Apparently not. Mamma’s already told me that tonight, when the press is all gathered to ooh and ah over the latest Fabbri Construction project’s unveiling, my engagement to Dario will be formally announced.
“Are Elio and Deirdre coming tonight?”
“No,” Curse says.
I could have guessed that myself. Despite the fact that Elio blew a couple of nice, big holes in the heads of the men responsible for destroying his wedding and putting his wife in danger back in February, he’s still keeping her pretty close to home these days. And if they were going to be in attendance tonight, no doubt I would have gotten a call from Elio demanding I hustle over there to get his beautiful wife all dolled up for the occasion.
Not that I’m complaining. I actually really like Deirdre, despite the slightly rocky way her relationship with our family began. Namely, with Elio kidnapping her for her father’s debt and then working some kind of Stockholm Syndrome magic on her to make her adore him the way she so obviously does now.
“What about the Morellis?” I ask, thinking of my other friends, Lucia and Giulia.
“They’re at a wedding in Montréal this weekend.”
“Oh. Right. I knew that, actually. Must have blocked it out. Too much wedding stuff in my brain.”
It’s like I can’t escape it.
“So,” I huff, “how about it?” I dig the sharply pointed toe of my black high heel into the back of the driver’s seat, as if Curse would be able to feel it. “You getting engaged next? Has Papà given you a list of candidates?”
I know Papà had a list like that for Elio. A carefully-chosen catalogue of good Sicilian girls Elio essentially took a big shit on when he married a sweet little Irish nobody like Deirdre against Papà’s wishes. Not that I think Deirdre’s a nobody. She’s basically my sister-in-law and one of my closest friends now. But in terms of the calibre of matches a family like ours is expected to make, somebody like Deirdre isn’t even on the radar.
“No,” Curse says. As I try to puzzle out which question my cousin might actually be answering with his clipped, one-word answer, the car comes to a stop. I blink, leaning towards the window. Curse has pulled into a U-shaped driveway in front of the new building, just off the main street. Toronto’s elite glitter in the early-evening August sunlight outside. Politicians and film directors and philanthropists and men who make blood run like water. Men like my papà and cousins.
I wish I could say that, with enough money and dressed in a clean enough suit, the men from my world are indistinguishable from the upstanding citizens surrounding them.
But they’re not.
Cosa Nostra. Camorra. Bratva. Irish Mob. Doesn’t matter if the hair colours or the customs or the countries of origin are different. Men like that all share one terrible truth. They’re all so steeped in power and violence and pain that it seeps right out of their pores like poison. Changes the shape of the air around them. It’s in the hard, empty stare of a gaze that’s watched men die. The particular placement of a tattoo. The scars from bullet holes and blades.
Wolves will never blend in with sheep no matter how tightly they wrap themselves in wool.
With this in mind, it’s easy to spot my papà among the fancy suits and sparkling dresses crowding around the building’s massive glass doors. He’s got his big hand on Mamma’s lower back, but he’s not talking to her. His attention is focused on his other side, where Rocco Fabbri, my soon-to-be-father-in-law, walks beside him on his left. I wrinkle my nose, looking for Dario, but I don’t see him out here.
“Let’s go,” Curse says as he gets out of the car. I grasp my door’s handle then pause, not quite ready to head out there yet. I take a steadying breath, then blow it out harshly between my red lips.
I eat men for breakfast.
I’m a Titone. Maybe I can be a wolf, too.
I yank the handle and shove open the door.
Curse is already there waiting for me, having come around the car. The sun gleams on his thick dark hair – hair the same colour as mine now that I’ve dyed it. Unlike his older brother Elio, whose face is all bold, brutal lines, Curse is more classically handsome. Dark eyes, high, sharp cheekbones and a hard jaw. In another life he could have been a model for underwear or cologne or the covers of mass market romance novels.
But he got this life. And instead of posing and pouting and putting that face to good use, he pulls out a gun and aims it at whichever men Papà or Elio tell him to.
“Thanks,” I say, nodding at his outstretched hand. “But I’m good.”
I get out of the car without his help, balancing carefully on my sky-high heels. Curse lets his hand fall, and before his fingers close over it, I glimpse the single black tattoo in the centre of his palm. Curse is covered in tattoos, from his neck to his knuckles to his toes. But he’s only got the one on his palm, tiny and simple, in the very centre of his left hand. A single capital letter A.
I’ve been trying to guess what the A means for the better part of twenty years. One summer when I was a young teen I got so invested in figuring it out that I pulled out a massive dictionary and started going through the A words, one by one, reciting them out only for him to shoot every single one down. I got as far as “apparition” before I gave up. I still wonder about it, even now, but I know he’ll never tell me on his own. He might not tell me even if I do guess it correctly one day.
Maybe it’s something completely boring. Maybe it’s just the first letter of his own name. Accursio.
Probably not, but that’s what I tell myself so I don’t go crazy from not knowing. Another one of the things Mamma is always telling me to work on. Stop being so nosy. Especially where the men are concerned.
Curse stays close beside me as we manoeuvre through the people milling about outside. In my periphery, I’m aware of the flashes of cameras from media come to cover the unveiling of the new condos. I barely even need to think about the beatific expression I plaster on my face. Keeping up that smiling, polished image in the public eye is second nature to women like Mamma and me. It’s our main function as females in a famiglia as powerful as ours – one of the ruling families of Toronto, Montreal, and everything in between. Well, that and getting hitched to whichever man pays the right price and popping out fat-cheeked little mafioso babies.
Spotless glass doors slide open automatically for Curse and me, and we step through to a massive, open lobby decked out in shades of opal and onyx. Mamma and Papà are already inside, still with Rocco amid the sea of lawyers and realtors and socialites. Papà’s men are positioned around the perimeter of the large, shining space, their eyes never resting in one place for long. Beyond this lobby is a huge indoor pool separated from this area by glass so clean and clear I wouldn’t have even known it was there if I hadn’t seen some idiotic man staring down at his date’s boobs walk right into it.
I don’t see Dario yet, but I do see tables laden with food. My stomach growls, and I smack my black and gold clutch purse against my abdomen, as if I can shut my stomach up simply by squeezing it. I would have had something to eat at home before coming here, but Mamma’s been up my ass about carbs and calories and fitting into my wedding dress when the time comes. Plus, I’m apparently supposed to be having dinner with Dario in his papà’s new building tonight. If he ever bothers to show up.
Not knowing when that dinner may be, I propel myself through the drinking, chatting crowds and head straight for the nearest food table. I don’t need to turn around to sense Curse following behind. I’ve almost always got at least one chaperone or bodyguard around me, usually Curse or one of my papà’s men.
“Care for a canapé?” I ask him, picking up a little cracker topped with cream cheese and smoked salmon and waving it in the air between us. He shakes his head, letting his gaze skim over the groups of people gathered in the lobby, and I pop the small snack into my mouth.
I linger at the food table a lot longer than is customary for me. Despite my distinct lack of excitement about meeting Dario tonight, parties like this usually have me in my element. The greeting of guests, the schmoozing, the making sure every detail of an event is perfect – I love it. And I’m good at it. Mamma and I have planned countless galas and fundraisers and modern-day balls. Normally, I’d be gliding through the room by now, flitting from group to group like a social, slightly-drunk-on-champagne butterfly.
“Do you ever wonder what kind of insect you would be?” I ask Curse, suddenly unable to shake the image of a tipsy butterfly fluttering this way and that…
Before getting crushed under somebody’s shoe.
“Spider,” he says without hesitation.
“I’m not sure if I should be impressed that you had an answer ready to go that fast,” I say, casting him an odd look, “or unimpressed by the fact you don’t know a spider isn’t an insect.”
“Arachnid, then,” he says with a slight shrug.
“Bravo. The man knows his six-legged creatures from his eight-legged ones. Hey,” I say, swivelling to face him fully and leaning my hip against the table. “Is that what the A on your hand stands for? Arachnid?”
“No.”
“Well, shit. Thought I finally might’ve had you there.”
“Don’t let Uncle Vinny hear you swearing,” Curse advises, his voice a flat, low rumble. There’s no hint of admonition in his tone. He doesn’t give a damn if I act like a proper mafia principessa . He doesn’t have the same penchant for bossing me around like papà and, to a lesser extent, Elio do. I know that in his aloof and cryptic way, he’s simply trying to look out for me. Or at least trying to help me avoid the massive migraine that is my pissed-off papà
“Thank you ever so kindly,” I drawl. “But I don’t need you to look out for me where Papà is concerned. I’ll have a husband to do that for me soon.”
We share a look. Curse knows exactly why that statement is such a ridiculous one. Dario Fabbri couldn’t stand up to a man like Vincenzo Titone even if someone reinforced his spine with fucking steel. He’s greasy and weaselly and has this horrible fake laugh and, God, if I think about it anymore I’m going to puke up all those lovely hors d’oeuvres I just ate.
Headache or not, maybe it’s finally time for a drink.
I spy a pretty server about my age with a tray of sparkling wine balanced on her hand. Catching her eye, I smile and wave her over. She weaves through the other guests. When she reaches me and lowers the tray, her elbow bumps a stand of pastries, jostling the structure and sending a bright red strawberry tart toppling to the ground. Her cheeks go nearly as red as the strawberry that’s now smeared across the marble floor.
“Oh, Ms. Titone, I am so sorry!” she stammers. “I’ll clean this up right away, Ma’am.”
Ma’am? Ouch. I’m not even twenty yet. And I’m not married yet, either. Maybe it’s the dark makeup and new hair. Makes me look older.
Despite the fact that her calling me Ma’am just now shrivelled a little bit of my soul, I give her a kind smile.
“Don’t worry about it. And don’t apologize. It’s not like you spilled it on me.”
I kind of wish she had. She could have even spilled her whole tray of drinks on me. Then maybe I’d get to go home and forget this whole date with Dario.
But my words don’t seem to make her feel any better. She’s frantically casting her gaze around for a place to put down her tray of drinks so that she can… I don’t know. Lick the pastry off the floor? It’s not like she’s got a mop in her other hand or a roll of paper towels stuffed down her bra.
“Curse, have you got a handkerchief or something?”
Curse blinks at me.
“Fresh out of handkerchiefs.”
I sigh and roll my eyes.
“Your pocket square. Just give me something to help wipe this up.” There’s nothing in my stupidly tiny clutch but my phone and my maneater lipstick. And I don’t see any napkins at this end of the table.
“Fresh out of pocket squares, too.”
My eye falls to his chest and I realize he’s right. He’s wearing a crisp black suit with a black dress shirt beneath it, but there’s no tie or anything else to accessorize the look.
“You two,” I groan, speaking about him and Elio. “Either you’re not wearing a pocket square at all, or you’re using something as ridiculous as somebody’s used panties as one instead.”
Curse gives me a blank look.
“You didn’t notice that?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at him. “Back at that gala in January? At the art gallery? Elio had that ridiculous white lacy fabric tucked in his pocket that didn’t go with his suit? Because it wasn’t a pocket square at all but rather Deirdre’s dirty – you know what? Never mind.”
I turn back to the frazzled server, who now looks like she’s about to burst into tears. She called me by name. She must know who I am. The poor thing looks like she thinks I’m about to shank her for having the audacity to make a clumsy little mistake in front of me.
“Seriously, it’s OK,” I tell her, smiling once more. Without thinking twice, I kick the tart behind the leg of the table where it’s now mostly out of view. I can feel moisture from the ruined dessert seep into the toe of my shoe, but I don’t worry about it. It’s not like I don’t have a closet full of expensive heels like these waiting for me at home.
Once the tart is somewhat disposed of, I scud my foot over the sticky spot, dispersing the remaining red smear as best I can.
But like blood on the floor of my father’s old office, it doesn’t quite come clean.
It seems to be enough to help the server calm down a bit, though. As she thanks me profusely and apologizes again, I take note of her nametag.
“Don’t worry about it, Percy. Cute name, by the way!”
She beams at me, and the expression transforms her from pretty to absolutely, jaw-droppingly, turn-your-head-in-the-street-to-stare stunning.
“Thank you! It’s short for Persephone. They couldn’t fit all the letters on the nametag.”
“Love that,” I say with a nod. “Very Greek chic. Well, Persephone, I won’t tell anyone about this whole tart business if you don’t. I’ll just take one of those glasses there, and-”
“Valentina.”
So close.
I sigh, letting my hand drop at the sound of my papà’s voice. I widen my eyes at Persephone, giving her my best you-might-as-well-run-now look, while cheerily announcing, “That’s alright, thanks. I don’t want a drink after all.”
Liar.
Whether or not Persephone believes my completely untrue declaration, she gets the hint and hustles away. I watch her shiny ponytail until I can’t see her anymore through the crowd and then turn to face my father.
Only it isn’t my father I come face-to-face with.
It’s Dario Fabbri.