Chapter 23 Stellan
STELLAN
The church is dark again. I walk through the graveyard with Kira on my arm. Lights flicker in the windows up ahead, strange and ghostly, not the usual electric glow of bulbs.
Candles in the sanctuary.
Kira looks incredible. She’s in a black dress, one her sister picked out. It drapes from her curves like silk. Her hair’s pulled back and braided. Diamonds glitter in her ears. She looks every inch the Don’s wife and so much more.
It’d be nice if she didn’t hate me.
I can’t focus on that. I force my mind to stay on the task at hand. I’ve never seen an ascension ceremony before, but Matteo explained the process. Words, blood, and oaths.
“Do I have to do anything tonight?” Kira asks nervously.
“Just watch. That’s all.”
“I don’t have any lines?”
“You’re only the audience.”
She makes a relieved sigh. “And after this is done, you’re the man? Everyone reports to you?”
“Something like that.”
“You must be happy.”
“I’m just ready for this to be over with so the real work can start.”
She touches my arm. “Don’t you ever enjoy anything?”
I think of her body against mine. Her legs wrapped around my hips. Her moans in my mouth as she comes hard, pussy tightening around my cock. “Some things.”
We enter in through the back door. Matteo’s there waiting for me. He nods to Kira, looking more serious than he did at the wedding, and leads us down the hall. Everything’s hushed and serious. The weight of secrets and killings hangs on my shoulders. More deaths are coming, and soon.
The sanctuary is filled with candles. Dozens of them line the rows.
High-ranking members of the Famiglia sit interspersed throughout the pews.
Kira sits in the front, away from the Capos, while I’m taken to the very front of the altar where the full council is waiting.
A golden bowl rests where they usually divide the host. There’s something deeply sacrilegious about using this space like our own personal playground.
But that’s the Corsetti. We’re built on power and control. Even the church gives us what we want.
“Who comes before us?” Saverino intones.
“Stellan Corsetti, son of the passed Don, here to take my rightful place at the head of our family.”
Someone rings a bell. Sounds like shit. Honestly, this whole charade is too much, but it’s important. Even if it feels like we’re playacting in some cheap movie, I understand what all these words symbolize.
This is about more than going through the motions.
“Do you swear fealty to the bones of our ancestors? Do you swear fidelity on the ghost of our forebears? Will you rise and shed blood for the lives of your men?”
“I do and I will.” I get to my feet. Saverino gives me a sharp knife.
I slice open my left thumb and squeeze several drops of blood into the water waiting there.
He hands me a piece of paper with all the names of our Famiglia written on it.
I bleed onto the paper and light it on fire.
I let it burn until it hurts my fingers and I drop the ashes into the water.
“You swear you keep the secrets of this Famiglia. You swear on the old country and the new. You swear on the bond that gives us meaning. May your liver rot and your lungs grow to stone if you betray the Corsetti.”
“I swear it.”
“Drink.”
He hands me a gold cup. I dip it into the ashy, bloody water, and drink. It tastes like shit and leaves a gritty feeling in the back of my throat.
I pass the cup on. Every man on the dais drinks my blood and ashes. Even Turi, who never wanted me in the first place. When it’s done, Saverino returns the cup to the altar and spreads his arms. “Turn and face your brothers.”
I turn my back on the council and look out across the church. Familiar faces look back, some happy, some bored. All loyal to me now.
I was born into this life. My father was the Don, and I was raised in it. Everything I know, everything I am comes from these people. All I’ve ever wanted was to make them stronger and better.
And now I have the authority to make it happen.
“Congratulations, Don Corsetti,” Saverino says, stepping up to stand by my side. “We wish you good health, long life, unlimited wealth, and everlasting power.”
The room erupts in applause. I look at them, my brothers, my life, but my gaze inevitably falls on Kira.
She’s the only one who isn’t clapping. She’s barely even smiling, sitting there like a beautiful death goddess, wrapped in black and glowing with an inner light.
She’s more incredible than I ever dreamed she could be.
Men come and shake my hand. I accept their congratulations as the stuffy formality of the ceremony gives way to a more celebratory air. Drinks are passed around. The younger men brought flasks and cigars. We shouldn’t smoke in here, but to hell with it. How often does a man become a Don?
“Here’s wishing you a dozen babies with that new wife of yours!” Matteo says happily a half hour into the revels. He slaps my back, grinning big. Kira’s lingering nearby, caught in conversation with Saverino and Frankie. “She’s a good-looking one, you know. I get why you insisted on her.”
“I’ll assume you mean that as a compliment and you aren’t being inappropriate about your Don’s wife.”
Matteo grimaces. “Of course not, Don Corsetti.”
“Can’t be inappropriate about a cow like that.” The comment is short. It’s muttered, not really meant for me to hear, but I know the voice. I turn and look at Turi, his face sneering as he leans away from Graziano, who at least has the good sense to look ashamed.
“What did you just say, Turi?”
The old man raises his chin. “You might be my Don, but that doesn’t mean you’re above criticism. You and that Santoro wife of yours.”
Silence falls over the room. I turn to face the old Capo. He’s been a part of the council for as long as I can remember. I think my father raised him to the position back before I was even born. Turi’s practically the Famiglia’s mascot at this point.
“I’m going to say this one time so that everyone can hear it. Criticism of my wife is off-limits.” I’m very aware of her standing nearby. She’s with Saverino and Frankie, which is good. If something bad happens, they’ll likely get her out of here. But she needs to see this first.
“Nothing is off-limits for the council.” Turi doesn’t back down.
He faces me, practically quivering with anger.
“After what her traitor father did, how can you stand on that altar, say those words, and think you’re the rightful Don?
She’s a bitch and a Santoro whore. She doesn’t belong anywhere near this holy place, much less anywhere near our deepest-held secrets, and God forbid she gives birth to a bunch of tainted children, may the Lord kill them in her womb. ”
I step forward, grab him by the throat, grip a candle holder in my left fist, and slam it down into his face.
The room is dead silent, except for Turi’s mangled screams. He tries to fight back.
I hit him again and again, the candle toppling to the floor and hissing out, wax splattering all over, the brass holder bending out of shape.
Blood splatters the floor and drenches the men standing nearby.
I hit him again, and again, and again, beating Turi’s face until it’s a mangled, unrecognizable mass of tissue and bone.
He gurgles something pathetic. Maybe begging for his life.
But it’s too late for that. I throw his body on the floor and keep beating him, drenching myself in his blood, until his skull is pulverized to gravy.
Brain oozes between my fingers as I stand, breathing hard.
I turn to face the room.
“Criticism of my wife is off-limits,” I snarl at the assembled men. I toss the ruined candlestick holder on the floor. “Do you all understand?”
“Yes, Don Corsetti,” Saverino says quickly, filling the stunned silence.
“Good.” I take off my jacket and use it to wipe the blood from my face. I toss it down on top of Turi’s corpse. “Deal with this mess. In the morning, we have work to do.”
I stride through the crowd, pausing only to offer Kira my hand.
She accepts it. I expect to see fear in her eyes, but she only stares at me with a confused frown.
I take her away from here. Back through the halls, back into the graveyard. It’s cold, and the blood’s drying on my skin. I tug my wife closer.
“Why did you stick up for me?” she asks quietly.
“I won’t tolerate disrespect like that.”
“But killing him is going to cause you problems.”
“Maybe in the short term, but if I let him live after speaking like that, there’s no way those men would’ve respected me.” I pause to look at her, pulling her close around the gravestones.
“That’s all it takes? You brutally murder someone like that, and now they all look up to you?”
“No, now they know how far I’ll go, and they probably wonder what else I’m capable of.”
“You still shouldn’t have done it.”
“Maybe not, but I’d do it again.” She doesn’t understand, and I can’t expect her to. She didn’t grow up in this life where respect is everything. Turi crossed a line, and there was only one way to answer: either kill him or look weak.
“I don’t get you.” Her face screws up. She should be running terrified of me right now. She just watched me turn a human being into jelly. “You talk like you only want me because I’m convenient. But you act like you care.”
“Care about what?”
“Me. This. I don’t know.” She’s frustrated. Her hands press against my chest. “What do you want from me, Stellan? Why did you marry me of all people? I’m a problem. Even I can see that. Why me?”
I stare at her, heart beating fast, and maybe it’s the blood or the rush of beating a man to death, but for once in my life, I decide to drop my guard, or at least to let her see all the cracks.