37. Matilde
Matilde
The rest of the holidays passed in a whirl of rumors, tension and torture in the Chicago Trio, and it’s a bitterly cold day in January when Ersilia brings me a second cup of espresso to fight my fatigue one morning. “Thank you.”
“Take a nap if you wish. I’ll watch them. Did they keep you up last night?” she asks, nodding at the babies on their playmat.
“I’m okay.” It is my husband who keeps me up more often than not lately, though I’m just as bad as him. Not that I’ll admit that to our housekeeper. “Will you join me?”
“Should I check on your sister and Primo first?” she inquires, raising her eyebrows.
“I am sure they are fine.”
Because of increased security measures, Nico insists Maddalena be homeschooled now. As she was behind, Primo volunteered to act as her math tutor. He’s quite gifted with numbers.
“Unwed girls of rank in the Trio are chaperoned when they’re around men not of their blood. To protect their honor,” Ersilia says once she’s settled with her own cup.
“The rules were the same for me, but Primo would not dare disrespect Maddalena as his Capo’s sister-in-law.”
“True, but teenagers will be teenagers.”
“I am a teenager,” I point out.
Ersilia suppresses a smirk and rolls Amadeo’s ball back to him. He gives an adorable belly laugh when it bounces off his foot. “He’s very jolly when he’s free to move around.”
Yes, he is. They’re nearly seven months old, and while Lucia is often content to sit in my lap and look at picture books with me, Amadeo throws a fit if he’s held for long. “They grow too fast.”
Ersilia smiles. “My Patrizio was the same.” We chat about her nephew and the babies; our relationship far better than it was upon my marriage. I’m grateful for her, and she is grateful to be here. “I worry for my boy with the war,” she admits as we finish our cups.
I nod, knowing it can’t be easy for a Trio mother. Someday, the happy baby crawling to retrieve his ball again will stand tall beside his father and face the dangers all Made Men do. I want to stop all the clocks from ticking at the mere thought. “I wish the trouble would end.”
Antonio and Giacomo Barzetti are dead along with the remaining co-conspirators of their failed coup. Nico promised to take the traitors down, and he has. He has positions to fill and eager men hoping to advance. In terms of mob politics, it’s a field of landmines to traverse.
Meanwhile, he’s still hunting down the final few members of the trafficking ring. It has led to increased violence between the Trio and the Bratva. Not to mention the bloody skirmishes occurring in other cities between his territory and Alessio’s.
Cosima and Vera Barzetti are still ‘guests’ at the Morelli mansion, an added burden for Zeta to manage but one I’m glad not to have to deal with. The men deserved their fate, but their wives are essentially captives and will be for who knows how long.
“Nico’s home!” Maddalena calls from the foyer a few minutes later.
Maddalena’s opinion of my husband has done a one-eighty since our wedding day.
After Nico’s rage over Mrs. Esposito’s failures, he surprised us both with a trip to our mother’s grave Christmas Day.
Not a cheery sort of outing, but one that touched us deeply when we saw the heaps of beautiful flowers he’d had delivered.
He got a proper granite headstone installed with a small bench made from the same material for whenever we wish to visit her resting place.
“As Matilde is my wife, you are my sister, Maddalena, and you are both mine to protect,” Nico promised. It was part of our original agreement when he decided we would marry, but I hope it might amount to more than protection in time.
Ever since then, Maddalena’s forgotten Giacomo ever existed and happily accepted Nico’s rules and security measures without complaint. Mostly.
Heading to the foyer to greet my husband, and wondering why he’s home so early, I find Primo and Maddalena standing side by side with their pinkie fingers linked.
When they spot me, Primo quickly steps away, murmuring it’s time for him to patrol the perimeter.
My sister rolls her eyes at me when I give her a pointed look.
“Don’t you dare say a thing,” she giggles, making me giggle, too.
“Just be careful. It is not you who will pay the price if Nico is not pleased by this.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll be careful… in the backseat of his limo.”
“Maddalena!”
“Where else could we go?” she asks with a sly grin. “There are guards and cameras all over the house, and it’s not my husband controlling them.”
“Oh Dio, perhaps Ersilia was not wrong about us teenagers.”
We break into raucous snorts and giggles, but our amusement vanishes when Nico enters, his expression reminiscent of a thundercloud.
“Maddalena, would you mind helping Ersilia with the children for the rest of the day? I require my wife’s help with something.”
***
A half hour later, Nico stops the Mercedes outside an inconspicuous-looking warehouse in the South Side. The sign declares it’s a chemical facility and warns trespassers to stay away. The guards who followed us in another vehicle get out first, surveying the area as Nico opens my door.
“We tracked the van used in the abductions and finally found this address through its owner’s other business concerns.
The danger is gone. The men that were here are dead or in chains.
” I knew he’d find it, and he’d do horrible things to the men involved when he did.
I shouldn’t have wanted that, but I did.
“Did you find the doctor?”
“We did. I haven't dealt with him yet." I can read between the lines. He's going to let me have a say. "Are you sure you’re okay with this, tesoro?”
I hope I am. “It may help them to see another girl. Maybe I can convince them they are safe now.”
He nods and leads me inside, keeping his hand lightly pressed against the small of my back, lending me strength through his touch.
I was out of it most of the time I was in this building, but I still have some memories, and the foul air awakens them all.
With a shuddery breath, I touch one of the metal doors lining a narrow corridor.
There’s a small rectangular slat where food and water were passed through.
I waited inside one of these filthy little rooms with just a bare mattress on the floor, languishing in a nightmare and hovering in my drug-induced daydreams.
I remember the voices of other girls. Girls who aren’t here anymore while other girls took their place. “Are they dead?”
“Dead or in chains,” Nico repeats, thinking I meant the men. Maybe the answer would be the same. “This way.”
In a large office, six girls wrapped in clean blankets my husband’s men must have brought are waiting.
“Most of the girls we found are already being returned to their families or hometowns. These six aren’t U.S.
citizens though so it’s trickier making arrangements.
Some don’t wish to return to where they came from, and I don’t particularly like dealing with the authorities. ”
“If they knew, they would investigate, and that would endanger the Trio,” I finish for him.
He nods, appreciation in his eyes. “They can stay at my family’s farm under my Uncle Leone’s protection until we can figure out more permanent arrangements. I thought you might convince them we mean no harm.”
It will take much more than that for them to truly feel safe again, but I agree on one condition. “I want to meet your uncle first.”
“Of course.”
“And I want to see the doctor.”
He frowns before nodding and guiding me out of the room. “This way.”
***
The room is nothing special, a place to store hazardous materials when this was still a warehouse. But in the middle, past the spartan shelves, a bare lightbulb hangs above a padded procedure table. The examination room.
The steel cuffs that once bound me to that table now hold a gagged man, the man they called the doctor. “He actually was a medical doctor at one time, a gynecologist, but he lost his license,” Nico says, staring at the terrified man without a drop of pity.
“I’m sure he deserved that,” I murmur, coldly watching him thrash helplessly against his chains. "I was held down, too. I was at your mercy in this room. Now, you're at mine." His eyes grow huge, and a dark spot appears on his pants, his bladder giving way to fear.
Nico wraps an arm around my waist, speaking in Italian.
“He’s yours to do what you will with.” I try to express what that means to me with my eyes.
Men like Nico enjoy killing, and an alpha like him would want to cause this man maximum pain just for looking at his wife the wrong way.
He’s possessive to the extreme. “Oh, I want to rip him apart. I’d make it last for days.
But it’s you he hurt, sweetheart. Tell me what you desire, and it will be so. ”
I remember my shooting lesson when Dante and Nico asked me if I had what it took for the personal kill.
Reaching for the switchblade, I decide on my answer.
“I am my father’s daughter, but I am not him.
You avenged my mother’s death. You’re the best with a blade.
You are my husband. I want you to do it, I want it to hurt, but there are girls who need my help today, and I won't waste my time on this man. I only have one request… I want you to use this.” I pass the switchblade to him.
“End his life for me and let us move on with our lives.”
His slate gray eyes search my soul, making sure I'm certain, before he takes the weapon and grasps my hand, kissing the inside of my wrist. "As you wish, wife. As you are my light, I will be your knife."