Wolfe
Francesca was a living corpse for days.
She didn’t sleep well, up in the middle of the night often, and spent most of her time on the couch with the TV off.
She didn’t go out to the market or leave the house at all.
I knew she wasn’t intentionally being distant toward me, but sometimes I felt as if I wasn’t there at all.
I’d expected her to crawl into my lap and cling to me like a life vest, but she chose to sit and lie in the same spot for hours, staring at a wall.
She didn’t have much of an appetite, so most of the dinners the maid prepared went to waste.
Whenever she showered, she stood under the water for nearly an hour.
One time, I walked in there to check on her, and she was seated on the floor of the shower, her arms around her knees, the warm water just pouring down on her.
I let her be.
I knew how to be a provider and a protector, but I didn’t know how to fix this for her.
That week together in Palermo seemed like a distant memory now.
We were the happiest we’d ever been, and now Francesca seemed more dead than alive.
The relationship with her father had been strained and complicated toward the end, and I knew that made all this worse.
I sat on the couch with Francesca’s head in my lap. She was tucked under a blanket with her eyes half open. I ran my fingers through her soft hair and gently played with the strands. My phone vibrated with a text in my pocket, and I fished it out while trying not to disturb her.
It was a message from Don Russo. Warren’s men are looking for you.
I wasn’t surprised he’d traced me back here.
Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with us.
I didn’t type a response. I wasn’t sure exactly what to say. I hated the fact that I actually felt grateful—and I also hated the fact that I was too stubborn to say it.
Don’t leave your residence. We’ll let you know when they’re gone.
I still couldn’t bring myself to say anything, even though I should.
I never wanted to need anyone, but right now, I was unaffiliated, unemployed.
Everyone loyal to Don Mancini was being put to work and would be shot in the head if they resisted.
Leo had helped Francesca, so he wasn’t loyal to Warren, but I would never trust that son of a bitch ever again. So I forced myself to reply. Thank you.
Francesca was in the same condition for the next few days.
Barely saying a couple words. Not interested in food.
I didn’t have to tell her to stay indoors because she didn’t try to go outside.
She was oblivious to the men who hunted us in the streets, who interrogated everyone in an attempt to find us.
It was a testament to Cosa Nostra’s loyalty to me that they didn’t snitch. That not a single person folded under an aggressive line of questioning. They protected me like I was still one of their own, when many of them had been to my home in the past.
Don Russo texted me. They’ve moved on to Taormina.
The lens was finally off me.
Let’s meet.
You know where to find me.
I found her on the couch, wearing my sweatpants and a t-shirt, a book beside her that she’d probably tried to read but couldn’t focus. She didn’t react to me right away, her responses slow.
I took a seat close to her.
She sat upright and crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes on the floor. “I’m sorry I’ve been this way for so long.”
It’d only been a week.
“I—I just can’t snap out of it.”
“Baby.”
She didn’t move her gaze to me.
I couldn’t be firm with her right now, so I remained gentle. “Baby, look at me.”
She inhaled a deep breath before she turned to meet my gaze.
“It’s okay not to be okay. And it’s okay if you’re never okay again.”
Her eyes softened and saddened at the same time.
“I expect nothing from you—and you owe me nothing.”
“I haven’t cooked or put on makeup or tried to make love to you—”
“You owe me nothing.”
Her eyes flicked away.
“You’ll never be the same after what happened—and that’s okay.”
“So…I’ll always feel this bad?” she whispered.
“You’ll feel better. Life will go on. But your perspective on the world and the people in it will forever be altered. You’ll be jaded by experience and suspicious of existing loyalties. You’ll be worse off in a lot of ways…and better off in some.”
“Sounds depressing.”
“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “It is. But it’ll also make you appreciate the good things even more than you ever did.”
She turned to look at me once more.
“You’re still in shock. But once that passes, there will be rage.
Potent, maniacal, kill-everyone-who-gets-in-your-way kind of insanity.
And that will be a permanent part of you, even when you’ve earned your revenge.
You’ll be pissed off for no reason at all, just sitting in your living room with a cup of coffee at nine in the morning.
And there’s no kill list long enough to ever satiate this all-consuming blood lust that becomes a permanent fixture of your personality.
” I didn’t want her to be like me, but I feared it was an inevitable outcome from this intimate betrayal.
“We were so different when we met,” she said as she shook her head slightly. “But now…we’re so much alike. I see so much of you in me and me in you.”
“We’ve always been alike,” I said. She lacked confidence, but her courage had never been in doubt. She’d conquered her enemies and escaped her captors. She was the toughest woman I’d ever met—and she still didn’t realize it. “Just more so now.”
Her eyes softened a bit as she continued to look at me.
It was the most we’d spoken in a week. The most connection we’d had. We slept together every night, and whenever she started to scream and cry in her nightmares, I shook her awake and brought her back to the safety of my arms. “I’m leaving for a couple of hours.”
“Oh,” she said with disappointment.
“I’m meeting with Don Russo. But you’re safe here. They aren’t looking for us anymore.”
“They were looking for us?”
“Yeah, but no one snitched. So if you want to go out while I’m gone or need something, you’ll be fine.”
She gave a nod. “I’m glad I didn’t know that.”
“Honestly, it was in their best interest not to find us.” Because I was armed to the teeth in this house, and I believed Cosa Nostra would have backed me up if push had come to shove.
I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to desecrate a portion of Warren’s army.
Just fewer men to kill later. But I didn’t want to destroy my house in the process. “I’ll stay if you want me to.”
“No,” she said as she shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Because you know I’ll stay.”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” she said with more confidence. “I know this is something you need to do.”
I arrived at headquarters, and after I pulled past the gate and entered the premises, I was immediately treated as one of their own. No one frisked me for weapons. I was greeted with silent nods like I belonged there.
A very different vibe from before.
I wasn’t even escorted to Don Russo’s office, just given free rein to walk there on my own.
Felt like old times, like I’d stepped into the past before everything changed.
Only a few months ago, I was a member of Cosa Nostra, but those last few months had changed my life so irrevocably it felt as if a lifetime had passed.
The door to his office was open, and he spoke to someone on the phone while looking out the window.
“Tell him just to get it done. I don’t have time for this.
” He didn’t sound angry, but his words carried a finality in the tone.
He dropped the phone from his ear and turned toward me, not reacting to my presence, like he’d somehow heard me even when he was distracted.
“The usual?” He immediately moved to the bar and grabbed two glasses.
“Sure.”
He made two old-fashioneds before he turned around and extended the glass to me.
I immediately took a drink. “Someone is learning their manners.”
Don Russo picked up on the playfulness in my tone and gave a slight smile before he sat on the couch.
I sat across from him and took another drink.
He was in a collared shirt with the top buttons popped, like he’d worn a blazer earlier but it was too hot for that. It was nearly August, so it was scorching hot and tourism was at its peak. Sometimes it felt like the congestion made the streets warmer. “I’d assumed you’d already killed Warren.”
“The information passed to me was faulty.” And I was an idiot for believing otherwise.
He gave a slow nod. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Don Mancini assumed I was the rat—while it was his son the entire time.”
Don Russo didn’t react to that revelation, as if his informants had already shared the details of what had happened at the vineyard. “At least he knew the truth right before he died.”
“I told him he would live long enough to regret his assumption.” The premonition was so haunting, I wished I hadn’t said it.
Don Mancini shouldn’t have disrespected me, but he didn’t deserve to die for it.
The door would have always been open for him because he was Francesca’s father.
But that door was sealed shut for her brother.
“And he seemed like he lived with that regret for a second before it was over.”
“How’s Francesca?”
“Broken.”
“At least you were able to save her.”
“She saved herself,” I said proudly. “Killed her captors and was about to drive off when I pulled up.”
He took a drink from his glass. “She suits you.”
“She does,” I said. “I’m going to marry her.”
He didn’t react to that declaration. Didn’t taunt me like he might have in the past if I had said something like that. “When?”
“I don’t know. Whenever I think she’ll say yes.
” I’d wanted to ask her during our week together in Palermo, but with such a contentious situation with her father, it hadn’t felt like the right time.
I’d intended to wait until things settled down, but now, I wasn’t sure when things would get better.
Now, she was heartbroken. “But thanks to her brother, that probably won’t be for a long time. ”
He set the glass down and leaned forward. “What’s your plan, Wolfe?”
“Kill Warren and Leo and take back the vineyard.”
He gave a nod as if that was exactly what he’d expected.
“You know why I’m here.”
He stared at me for a while before he gave a nod.
“I have a lot of favors I can call in…but nothing that compares to Cosa Nostra.”
“Warren’s power has grown. He has a lot of allies now. We believe his intention is to resist Icarus with his alliances.”
“Then why hasn’t he propositioned you?”
“Because we would never do business with someone who crossed you, Wolfe.”
I did my best to keep a straight face, but there was tightness in my chest I tried to ignore.
“You’re still one of us as far as we’re concerned.”
I didn’t want that to mean a damn thing to me, but it did. To have loyalty when I needed it the most.
“Warren is a formidable opponent,” he said after the silence stretched for a while. “Taking him down won’t be easy. Anyone who has not joined his alliance has been overthrown and their business absorbed.”
“Are we sure he wants to resist Icarus?” I asked. “Because it almost sounds like he wants to join him.”
“Warren doesn’t seem like the kind of man that works for someone else. He’s a conqueror. He’s like Alexander the Great.”
“Okay, let’s not get carried away.”
“Whatever his ambitions, a takedown won’t be easy,” Don Russo said.
“We’re guaranteed to lose good men in the process.
The more objective approach is for you to walk away and live on your own terms. When we had dinner together, it seemed like you and Francesca had decided a quiet life in Palermo was what you wanted. What changed?”
“Her brother turned into a traitor, and her father was shot in the head,” I snapped. “That’s what changed. And I’m not letting them get away with this. Warren tried to take my woman, not once, but twice. He doesn’t get to live—period.”
Don Russo stared at me.
“And the fact that he scoured Palermo looking for me tells me he thinks the job is incomplete. I don’t hide from my enemies. I don’t run from my assailants. I meet them head on—always. This only ends when one of us is dead. And it’s not going to be me.”
Don Russo continued his stare as he picked up his glass.
“If everything you’ve said is sincere, you’ll stand with me.” I’d given my entire life to Cosa Nostra. It wasn’t until they’d lost me that they realized how essential I had been. If they were truly sorry about their stupidity, they would rise to the occasion.
Instead of responding with a resounding yes right away, he swirled his glass before he set it on the coaster. “You know Icarus has his sights set on us. He came for us once before, and it’s a miracle we were able to resist.”
All this information seemed unnecessary and irrelevant. I continued to stare.
“It’s a big ask, Wolfe.”
“I think it’s a fair request.”
“A war on two fronts…sounds suicidal.”
“Sounds badass.”
He didn’t show a hint of a smile. “We’ll stand with you, Wolfe. But we expect you to stand with us against Icarus.”
I hadn’t expected this to be a trade, but I also wasn’t entirely surprised by it either.
“Because if Icarus wins, we’re all fucked.”
Living a quiet life with Francesca had been a ridiculous fantasy. I felt like an idiot for believing we could ever have that, even for a couple of days. Our pasts would always come to haunt us. “You owe me, Don.”
“I know,” he said. “And if Icarus weren’t a problem, I would gladly do this for you with no strings attached. But unfortunately, we just don’t have that privilege right now. If we want Sicily to continue to belong to us, we’ll have to fight for it.”
I left my drink on the table and didn’t say anything for a while.
I knew I would take his offer because I had no other options, but I dragged it out anyway.
If I told Francesca we should start over somewhere else in the world, she would come with me.
But I had to finish this, not just for Francesca, but for myself. “Alright, I’m in.”