Chapter 17
Seventeen
Cisco
Romans bury their dead and build tourist attractions directly over the bones. Paint the plaster terracotta, hang ivy from the wrought iron, and refuse to speak about the executions that funded the architecture.
My family mastered this exact survival tactic.
They fled the Naples syndicate to open an osteria near the Piazza del Popolo.
The glass is immaculate. They scrub these cobblestones every morning.
They plate fresh pasta, pour wine for tourists, and refuse to acknowledge the sangue amaro pulsing in their history. They demand a clean reality.
It’s summer, so the neighboring establishments are filled to the brim, their guests spilling into the courtyard with all their revelry. Jazz music floats in and out of earshot. Lights twinkle in my periphery. None of it comes from here.
I’m with Mercy, staring at the closed, painted green door of my family’s establishment, struggling to find a reason to enter.
The usual menu on the chalkboard is rubbed clear except for the words, Today: Scarpetta, scarpetta—clean your plate or shame your mother. Under that, smaller: Closed today for family.
I nearly laugh. Real family. The kind you can’t just exorcise.
Beside me, Mercy clutches her veil-wrapped sword, disheveled red hair sticking to her pale cheeks. Her robe is covered in catacomb dust and chalk, tired, and hungry because of me.
She just confessed to me her most agonizing trauma, but holds her head high. She should be demanding my discomfort, making me grovel on bended knee, begging her forgiveness for my foolish accusation.
Yet she waits.
It is an act of mercy I don’t deserve, but I think she is patient because she knows I have feared this reunion. I hoped to return home with my penance served, my guilt over my sister’s drowning absolved.
In two decades, I have seen my father a handful of times. Never my mother. Not since the day she grabbed my jaw and told me I was the devil.
Mercy knows exactly what breathes beneath my ribs. She has seen the black ribbons unspool from my flesh and devour. And she still honors me with her secrets. With her trust.
I brush my knuckles over the bruised skin on the hand holding her bundle. She glances at me and offers a shaky smile. Warmth spreads through my body, and the frantic ache behind my sternum ceases to exist.
I lean down and whisper, “When we get a moment—”
“Later,” she quips, and nods at the door.
Abruptly, it opens to Enzo’s grinning face. “Cousin!”
His enthusiasm is infectious, and it’s hard not to smile.
He met me only once when he was a young boy.
Having recently made the deal with the Vatican for Paolo’s arrest, I stopped in here for a few days before heading to the seminary and helped set up the new living arrangements.
Technically, I never accepted being the Don of the family, but my name was added as director to the Angelotti estate the instant the curse manifested in my blood.
When Paolo gets out, he’ll be furious that I removed him as a beneficiary of the estate. He’ll also hate that half the family followed my parents out of Naples to start a new life. Enzo and his sister are among them.
“Buonasera,” I say to Enzo.
We step inside after him, and nerves flutter in my stomach. I turn and close the door, locking it after Mercy steps in. She’s about to meet my family. What will she think?
I sneak a glance at her and find her face is a map of unbridled wonder. Her eyes are wide, her plump lips are parted, and she clutches her bag and bundle like she’s worried she’ll fly away.
“Let me,” I murmur, and relieve her of her bag so that I’m carrying two.
“Thanks.” She smiles.
My gaze snaps back to Enzo’s head. Heart pounding, breath quickening, I let myself do something I’ve not done in a very long time. Hope.
We follow him deeper into the restaurant, and the air thickens with the scent of simmering tomatoes, fried garlic, and spilled Chianti.
Chairs are upturned on tables. Nothing but chalk crumbs and a stack of battered menus.
The noise of my bloodline filters in from other rooms out the back.
That sounds like a lot more Angelottis moved to Rome than I realized.
Enzo veers right and continues past a smaller, second dining room. A glimpse through the open doors reveals a boardroom-style table with luxurious leather seating and a lounge area by the front window.
My lips flatten at the sheer opulence of the room. I have no doubt it’s used for special VIPs and corrupt politicians. After escaping Paolo, they were supposed to leave this life behind.
We approach a small, open kitchen where most of the mouthwatering smell comes from. Two women lift their heads from their boiling pot of pasta and freeze.
I hold my breath. Wait for it . . .
The older blond in Gucci makes a hasty sign of the cross, lowering her gaze with respect.
The brunette is quick to follow. I don’t recognize them, but nod to the third, a gray-haired aunt sitting on a stool and peeling carrots.
She casually smiles, then does a double-take and gapes, dropping her tool to make the sign of the cross.
Enzo is already disappearing down another narrow hallway, so he doesn’t hear Mercy mutter, “Is that because you’re a priest?”
“Nope.”
“Hm.”
I hear her take a breath for a question, but I walk ahead and answer before she has a chance to ask. “Yes, it’s because I am Il Giudice.”
Her jaw clicks shut.
We head up a staircase and dodge two children running down, oblivious to our ascent.
Too young to recognize the danger, they skirt.
To be that innocent and naive again. We emerge on the first floor landing into a small lounge bar.
Wine barrels line the far wall where another staircase heads upstairs to the accommodation.
Vines seem to have grown in from the terrace outside.
More extended family members are bustling around.
My aunt’s familiar large, round bottom is in the air behind the bar as she rifles through the fridge for cocktail ingredients.
Aunt Rosa is my father’s sister. Her stout and mustached husband, Uncle Vince, is nearby, leaning on the bar, pouring wine into a glass.
He sees me and drops his jaw. Wine overflows in his glass.
Uncle Nico walks in from the terrace door and freezes.
They stare at the catacomb dirt coating my clothes, on Mercy’s robes, and the irritation radiating from my posture.
It’s one thing to see women I hardly know in the kitchen make the Sign of the Cross. It’s another to see the fear in people who changed my diapers as a baby.
Who knows, maybe it was always there. Maybe I was just numb to it.
Vince and Nico make their Signs of the Cross, and then bow their heads for a moment before lifting and looking at me with wide eyes.
“This is hilarious,” Mercy whispers into my ear.
“Not a word,” I shoot back.
Enzo stops by the bar where his mother is bent over. Still grinning wildly, he clears his throat and waggles his brows at me.
“Mamma,” he shouts.
“Not now, Enzo.” The big bottom sways, and Aunt Rosa starts humming, happy in her hunt.
“Mamma!” Enzo’s smile drops, and he bangs on the mahogany bar’s countertop. “Look who I found outside.”
Aunt Rosa abruptly straightens, her round face flushed and annoyed.
Not everything about her quite suits the Angelottis.
She is too honest for bella figura. The buttons gape from her enormous cleavage.
Her designer skirt is twisted. Frizzy, messy brown hair sticks up in strange angles, and her lipstick is on her front tooth. But she’s always grinning.
Except now, when she sees me. The glass slips from her fingers and shatters on the floorboards.
“Dio mio!” she screams, making the sign of the cross. “Francesco!”
Chaos erupts.
The family swarms me. Hands grab my biceps, my shoulders, my face.
They weep. They shout my name. I don’t know how to react.
I didn’t expect this. One moment, they’re like deer in the headlights.
Next, they’re all over me with affection.
Someone pinches my cheek, someone kisses the other side, another pulls at my torn clerics, and asks a million questions.
I try to escape by dropping our bags behind the counter, but they follow me.
“You’re too skinny, Cesco,” Aunt Rosa says.
“No, he’s not. Feel this!” Nico grabs my biceps.
I shake my head.
Maybe this is why they’re not so afraid anymore. They just took a few moments to register that I am a priest now. They think the white square at my throat means they’re safe.
Mercy watches it all, her smile curling into something softer. It’s that look that eases my tension. I want to touch her just to prove I’m not dreaming.
“Let the priest breathe.” Enzo claps his hands loudly, and then he tugs me through the rabble, and I grab Mercy with my free hand.
Enzo pushes through the sliding glass doors and takes us into the open air.
The rooftop terrace is walled with boxwood hedges and glossy pots of basil.
Sails strung above protect the courtyard from nosy neighbors and summer rain.
Tables are scattered around, each under a string of lights twinkling brightly as twilight ends.
Every seat is full. Men, women, even babies.
There must be at least seventy here. Maybe more.
Mercy and I remain at the door while Enzo cuts through the gathering like a shark. My parents, Marco and Elena, are two tables away with the old guard, sitting by a wall covered in vines.
The last time I saw my father, he was only ten years older than I am now. My parents had children young. White hair has taken over the brown on his head. His tattoos are hidden behind his cream Versace suit. He leans toward my mother and whispers something short and clipped.
She is the picture of perfection, her sandy blond hair slicked back into a chignon. Her cheeks are hollow, and her eyes have shadows. They both look thinner.
But the tables are laden with food.
“Guess Famine hasn’t reached the Angelottis,” Mercy murmurs in English.
She is hungry.
Of course she is. How could I forget?
I’m about to turn back and plate up some pasta when a hush falls over the gathering. Signs of the Cross are made. Some are sharp and crisp. Others are weak. A baby cries and is shushed.
“A bit dramatic,” Mercy mutters.
I glance down at her and grin, replying, “Don’t ever change.”
Her eyes meet mine and sparkle. “Not for a million fucks.”
I snort, almost missing the way Elena’s hand flutters to her pearls. I forgot that she speaks English.
Marco’s chair scrapes across the terracotta tiles as he stands. His dark eyes dip to my collar, and his shoulders relax. He crosses to me, grips the back of my neck, and pulls my forehead to his.
“My son.” His voice trembles.
“Papà.” I grip his nape in return, but look past his shoulder. Elena remains seated, her head tilted at me, her brows pulled together. Not anger. Confusion.
“Is she . . .” I start.
“Not so good,” Marco finishes, easing back from me. “But we will talk later.”
His gaze drifts to Mercy. “Who is the nun?”
“She is under my protection,” I warn, loud enough for my voice to carry. “And if any man in this room forgets it, he will answer to me.”
Mercy scoffs softly under her breath, but my father nods slowly.
“Understood,” he says. A beat of silence follows, and then his eyes crinkle. “Good to see you haven’t changed.”
“Suor Mercy, meet my father, Marco Angelotti.”
A flash of approval in her eyes tells me I made the right choice not to call her Misericordia. She gives my father a crisp smile and greets him in Italian.
“Mr. Angelotti, it’s great to put a face to the name.”
“Please, call me Marco.”
“I’ve heard so much about you,” Mercy says.
Marco laughs. “All bad, I hope.”
“Of course.” She winks. “Sorry, I would shake your hand but . . .”
He startles at our filthy state. “Goodness. Where are our manners? Go, clean up. Our house is your house. Francesco, your room is as you left it. Suora, there is a guest room down the hall—number eight. Go. We will talk afterward.”