Chapter 36
VIOLET
The Lexus appears in Kylie's rearview mirror before we've made it three blocks.
It’s hardly in high-speed-chase mode; it slides slowly into the lane behind us, in no rush, like the driver knows he’s completely in control of the situation.
"He's behind us," Kylie says.
"I know."
"Do you want me to lose him?"
"There’s no point.”
She lets out a sigh, as if she’d been actually eager for the chase. She flicks on the turn signal and pulls to the curb. The Lexus stops behind us and Gianni gets out.
He's wiped the blood off his hands, but the shirtsleeves are still rolled, and there's a dark smear on his left forearm that he missed.
His face is composed, controlled, the mask back in place.
But I can see the fault lines underneath, the tightness at the corners of his mouth, the way his eyes find mine through the windshield and hold.
He opens Kylie's door and leans down.
"Go back to work," he says. It’s not an angry tone. It’s the tone of a man addressing an employee about a scheduling matter.
Kylie looks at me. The question in her eyes is clear: Do you want me to stay? Say the word and I don't leave.
"I'm fine," I say. "Go."
Gianni offers me his hand and my eyes lock onto it. The blood is gone, but I saw what I saw, and all I can think about as I look at his hand is what he’s been doing with them. Gianni, sensing my hesitation and likely understanding what it’s from, pulls his hand away and steps aside.
“Come,” he says.
Kylie holds my gaze for one more second.
“I’m fine,” I repeat.
For a moment, she looks like she wants to argue, that she doesn’t want to leave me with him. Then she nods, puts the car in drive, and pulls away. I watch her taillights shrink and disappear around the corner, and then it's just Gianni and me on a dead-end street in Hunts Point.
He opens the passenger door of the Lexus and I get in. He shuts the door and pats it once, and I watch him make his way around the car and slide into the driver’s seat.
We drive in silence south toward Brooklyn.
His hands are at ten and two, clean except for the raw, reddened knuckles I can see every time we pass under a streetlight.
I stare at them. I can't stop staring at them.
Those are the hands that touched my stomach in a hospital room.
The hands that held my son's finger on a sidewalk in Sunnyside.
And they’re the hands that, only a few minutes ago, broke a man’s bones, brought him to the edge of death.
I press my palm against my belly and say nothing.
Twenty minutes later, he parks on a side street overlooking the Red Hook waterfront. Not the container terminal, but somewhere nearby, a service road behind a row of shuttered warehouses with a clear sight line to a private dock jutting into the harbor.
"Look," he says.
Through the windshield, under the amber wash of the dock lights, I see a group of men. Six of them, standing in a loose circle, talking. I can't hear them from here, but I can read the body language. Expansive gestures, nodding, the posture of men making agreements.
"Marino," Gianni says, pointing to the largest figure.
I recognize the silhouette from the gala.
"Ferrante from Newark to his left. The man in the gray suit is a representative from the Chetcutti family in Boston.
The other three are captains from smaller operations—Jersey, Connecticut, Philadelphia. "
"What are they doing?"
“They’re conspiring.” His tone is emotionless. “The grand jury was supposed to be the end of this. My hope was that it would show them I can’t be touched, whether by them or by the Feds.”
My eyes stay locked on the men. “But that’s not what’s happening, is it?”
“No. It made Marino bold. Instead of viewing the grand jury as the end, he’s choosing to see it as the beginning. He smells blood and knows the investigation isn’t going anywhere. Lance isn’t going anywhere.”
Just the mention of his name is enough to send a fresh wave of nausea through me. I swallow and listen.
“Theresa’s working with Marino, telling him everything she knows about my operation. And they’re meeting in the open, not even afraid of being seen. That’s how confident they are.”
I watch the men on the dock. What would they do if they were to find out I’m carrying the baby of the man they’re trying to overthrow? How would they use me? How would they use Patrick?
"The man in the factory," I say. "What did you do to him? Why?”
"He's one of Marino's soldiers. The information he gave us is what brought us here. The Thursday meetings, the locations, that's how I know where they are right now."
"You broke his finger."
"Spackman broke his finger.”
“You did worse before I showed up. I could see the blood on your hands.”
He gives that a second. “Men in my line of work can be stubborn. Pain is persuasive.”
“Is he dead?”
“Does that matter?”
“Of course it matters! I need to know if you calmly killed someone, then washed your hands and got in your car and drove after me.”
Another pause. It’s a familiar internal conflict I’ve witnessed before; the matter of just how much to tell me about his world.
“As of right now, he’s alive. If he cooperates, he’ll stay that way. Marino, however, won’t be pleased to know he talked. So if he’s smart, he’ll tell Spackman everything he wants to know, then take whatever money he has and leave the city for good.”
I feel a little better.
“But I have participated in many other such interviews over the years. Not all of them have had happy endings.”
The implication is as clear as it gets. That’s Gianni’s world, and I need to square myself with it.
Or run.
I turn toward him and notice that in the dim light of the car interior he looks tired. The silver at his temples catches the lights. It’s as if I can see the weight of what he carries as surely as if it were a physical thing pressing down on him.
“What you saw tonight, that’s what happens when matters aren’t resolved in the courts. I won’t pretend it’s anything other than what you witnessed. And I won’t tell you it only happens to people who deserve it. It happens because my world requires it, because I decide it does.”
"And you're fine with that."
"I'm not fine with anything tonight." His voice drops. “I’m not fine with the fact that you saw it. And I’m not fine with the way you looked at me through those doors. How you looked at me the way you look at him.”
"I didn't—"
"You did. And I saw it. And it's going to stay with me for a long time.
" He stares out at the dock. "But I need you to understand something.
The man who does this—" he lifts his hand, showing me the raw knuckles "—and the man who stood beside your hospital bed, they're the same person.
You don't get one without the other. That's not a choice I can offer you. That's who I am."
The harbor water laps against the pylons. I shift in my seat and watch the waves.
"Take me home," I say.
He does.
The loft is quiet. Patrick's door is closed, the nightlight glowing in the gap beneath it. Nina's door is closed too. I can still feel my heart racing.
I stand on one side of the kitchen island and he stands on the other.
He's changed his shirt and washed his hands again, but I can somehow still see the blood and the calm underneath it.
"Are you okay?" he asks.
"I don't know."
"Are you afraid of me?"
The question sits in the air. It’s not the usual kind of question Gianni asks—the kind where he’s demanding answers. It’s softer, more honest. It’s the question of a man who needs the answer and is terrified of what it might be.
I open my mouth, then close it. How I feel, the truth of it, is too complicated for me in that moment.
"I'm not afraid of you," I say. And I mean it—mostly.
I’m truly not afraid that he’ll hurt me or raise his voice or his hand to me or any of the other things Lance did.
There’s a difference and I can feel it in my bones.
But I am afraid of what he's capable of. I’m afraid of the violence that’s part and parcel of his world—the violence I’d always known was there but could pretend wasn’t because I hadn’t seen it.
Now I have. And there’s no ignoring it.
"I need time," I say.
He nods once and doesn't argue, doesn't push, doesn't cross the island to touch me the way I know he wants to.
"I'll be in my study," he says.
I stand in the kitchen alone with my hand on my stomach and the city glowing through the windows. The silence is enormous, and I feel like I might get lost in it.