The Capo's Nymph (Vows Sworn in Blood #4)

1. Matilde

Matilde

The Cerniglia Farm, Sicily

Father’s labored breathing shakes the bed while Mother screams into the telephone in the next room. The surgeon won’t make it in time. Too many bullets, too many vital places. Blood seeps through the sleeve of my blouse when his grip tightens around my wrist. “Before I die…”

“Save your strength.”

He shakes his head. “I’ll be dead in five minutes. I must… This will be hard for you to hear, my daughter.”

Even if I dread what the dying confession of a Cosa Nostra soldier might entail, I won’t deny him. He unburdens himself, shattering my reality in a handful of sentences.

The bleating of the spring lambs outside is all that disturbs the quiet, and the blood on my sleeve is drying when Mother finally joins me. “Is he gone?” she asks, sounding distant. She’s always been distant. I understand now.

I nod, and she steps close enough to pat my shoulder once. I touch the wool of her skirt but not her. She never wanted to touch me. She never wanted my touches. Because I was never hers.

“He told you?” I nod again. “For too long, I tolerated seeing her eyes when I looked at you and held my tongue, but he’s dead now and you’re nearly grown. I want you out of my house.”

I’m too numb to protest. “Where will I go?”

“The convent would be best. You’re a willful girl, and there’s a wildness inside you, Matilde. It will lead you to sin, just like your mother if you’re not careful.”

I lick the salt from my lips, asking, “Did you know her?”

“No,” she scoffs. “You shouldn’t want to either, though I never understood why he didn’t leave you in America where you belonged with her… and your twin sister.”

***

Chicago, Illinois

Three months later

Holding out my phone, I listen to the language app’s translation, unable to believe what I’m hearing. “Morta?”

“Yeah, dead,” the older prostitute with purple hair named Violet repeats.

Sweat seeps through her makeup that looks like it was applied with a putty knife, but she’s been more helpful than any other stranger I’ve encountered.

She points to the stacked stone building with a bony finger.

“The Gentleman’s Post is the Trio’s best brothel in Chicago.

Elena was high-priced tail. Like you would be. ”

My brows draw together in confusion over the translation. These apps aren’t perfect, I suppose.

“You got no one with you?” she asks next. I shake my head slowly. “A little lost lamb, poor thing.”

Her bitter tone makes my hair stand on end, and instinct is whispering a warning in my ear, but I gesture with my hands, begging a stranger to silence all the doubts inside of my heart.

“Elena became the madam there once she got a little older, though she still entertained when it suited her. The Trio protects their workers best they can. Better than any pimp of mine ever tried.”

I’ve heard of the Trio. Three branches of the Italian mafia banded together many years ago to form the most powerful criminal organization in the United States.

For my father to be involved with my mother and to care enough to take one of their daughters with him, I figured she must have some ties to them.

“But two years ago, there was some sort of trouble one night, and Elena died. That’s all I know,” Violet finishes.

Her translated words wash over me, and my disappointment is profound.

In the weeks following my father’s death, I was determined to find my birth mother and twin sister, but this city isn’t welcoming to a farm girl with little English and less money.

Maybe I would’ve been better off at a convent.

Instead, I’d gone to Paloma to ask my father’s Capo if I might be allowed to finish my education abroad to improve my fluency.

Don Cicero gave me what he said was due the daughter of a loyal soldier and wished me luck.

He might have known more about the time my father spent over here, but I was too intimidated to ask such a man.

I had a few thousand dollars, their names and an old address when I left Sicily.

Now, I have two hundred dollars, a dead mother and no clue where to find my sister.

Violet holds out her hand, and I don’t need an app to understand. She wants the money I promised her.

“She had a daughter, a girl my age,” I say in Italian. I don’t even know if we’re identical twins, and I haven’t admitted Elena was my mother yet.

She rolls her eyes when she hears the app’s translation. “Don’t we all? Mine’s always hungry.” She holds out her hand again, and I pass her half my money.

What am I to do now? How do I find my sister? How did my mother die?

I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts that I only lift my head again when a black van screeches to a halt next to us. “I’m sorry, child,” Violet mumbles. “They pay too well.” Clutching the money I gave her, she runs.

I realize what she means as three men jump out of the van and rush toward me. A woman pokes her head out of the place where my mother once worked. “Aiuto! Polizia!” I shout, hoping she might understand my terror if not the words.

But before she can do anything, a hood has been thrown over my head, and I’m roughly tossed into the van. Something sharp jabs my thigh as the door slides shut behind me… like the gates of hell closing.