Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Cisco
Night stretches over the terrace, and the humid summer heat persists.
The gentle rain offers a small reprieve, bleeding over the edges of the sails, splashing us with mist. The glossy boxwood hedges bordering our rooftop are low enough to glimpse Piazza del Popolo’s sprawling basin of wet cobblestones, glowing streetlamps, and the drunken laughter echoes from below.
Up here, the mood is not so different. And that is the problem.
I sit back in the hard-backed chair, my muscles locked, and a glass of Barolo in my hand. Every time I mention the curse to the family, drunken stories deviate into boasts about past crimes.
Marco taps his ring against the rim of his wine glass. Probably brooding because my mother Elena has taken to bed. He said tonight was bad for her. Too many memories. These stories would make it worse. Even mentioning our Great-Grandfather’s name, Rocco, earlier would have conjured pain.
Across from Marco, Uncle Vince snores into his chest until Aunt Rosa elbows his ribs.
She clicks her tongue, shaking her head, and her wild hair bounces.
Uncle Nico drags a matchstick between his molars.
He did that when I ran with him in Naples.
Nothing much has changed except for his wrinkles and gray hair.
And beside me sits Mercy, a vision of blue silk and copper hair.
I’ve realized it changes color according to the time of day and the weather.
The wind has sprayed mist onto her dewy skin, reminding me of the sheen of perspiration she gets after she comes.
Her freckled shoulders look delicious enough to eat.
She leans her cheek on her fist, totally at ease, laughing at Nico’s slurred story about a botched hit involving a meat grinder.
She understands every Italian word as if she were a native.
A man looking at her would think she’s perfectly composed, on top of her game, but I see the signs of discomfort she leaves for me.
Her lips twist when she adjusts her position, and that beauty mark in the corner winks at me.
I am obsessed with it. I even swapped seats with my uncle so I could sit on Mercy’s side where the beauty spot is.
I reach into my pocket and run my fingers over the tomato timer’s smooth plastic, vibrating with every tick. Approximately eleven minutes remain until the next novena is due. The mechanical tick is louder than the thunder rolling in the distance, but no one seems to notice except me.
It interrupts my reminiscing of Mercy kneeling below me in the dining room, my cock, grinding through her slicked hands and down her throat. The squeeze. Dio, it felt so good. Too good. I was drunk on it and almost forgot to let her breathe.
I pull my hand from my pocket and scrub it down my face, dragging the stubble. Focus, Cisco. I straighten my spine and force myself to think about my reason for being here: The curse.
Enzo stands abruptly and gestures wildly with a half-eaten cannoli. “And I said, Pietro, if the Vespa wanted to be a boat, it would have been born a gondola. Now get it out of the fountain before the tourists start throwing coins at it!”
He drops his cannoli onto his plate and begins frantically swatting at the air, ducking his head, and mimicking the high-pitched, confused squeals of American tourists trying to toss “wish pennies” into the tailpipe of a submerged Vespa.
I don’t think that’s an accurate representation, but roars of laughter erupt around the table nonetheless. I have endured this story twice already tonight. They are too drunk to remember.
I glance at my father, and then at my grandparents.
They seem content to listen to nonsense, as if Paolo isn’t breathing down their necks.
Do they not understand the gravity? Sure, I can keep them alive, but I might not be able to stop myself from killing them, too.
Even now, every evil they’ve ever done crawls toward me from across the table, whispering for me to take it. Taste it. End their suffering.
If not for my daydreaming about Mercy, I shudder to think what I’d be doing right now.
“Enough!” I slam my palm on the table, shaking glasses and crockery. “Enough with the stories. Who will tell me where our curse came from? I have asked three times tonight.”
Laughter fizzles out. Every gaze snaps toward me, but I lock eyes with my Nonno and Nonna at the far end of the table. Surely they know something?
Uncle Vince shifts, suddenly awake, wiping his mouth.
“San Michele bestowed a holy blessing upon your Great-Grandfather Rocco,” he declares, puffing out his chest. “The Archangel touched his sword, granting us the Angelotti fire.”
Mercy coughs into her glass, “Bullshit.”
Vince gapes at me, as if I should corral the American stranger I brought into their home. I am more concerned with his sudden shift in loyalties. This feud between my father and his brother is well established.
“I have to agree with her,” I say, arching my brow in challenge. “That sounds a lot like bullshit Paolo peddles.”
“But it’s true.” Vince looks at Marco. “Isn’t it?”
A low grumble ripples from my father, and he leans forward. “Fratricide on Easter Sunday is no holy gift, Vincenzo. Rocco slaughtered his own brother. It is a filthy, chaotic sickness. A stain we must wash clean with bella figura and pious works. You worship a disease.”
“You cower from our true strength,” Vince spits back, gesturing at me. “He is the only reason we will not be dead tomorrow.” He turns his slurred vitriol on me. “And you let it rot in the church.”
My brows wing up. The devil unfurls its claws, scraping the underside of my heart. I stare, unblinking, at Vince and try not to break the Barolo glass in my fist. I don’t want to bleed tonight, not when I have plans that require my hands to be clean later on in the bedroom. The crystal groans.
Aunt Rosa’s hand darts out, clutching my forearm.
“He doesn’t mean it, Francesco,” she says, making a hasty Sign of the Cross. “Please don’t take my Vincenzo from me.”
I stare blankly at her. “He has offended my father in his own house.”
“He is a big-head.” Her eyes dart between her husband and me. “A little-cretin-man who lets the grape speak where the brain should be.”
“Rosa!” Vince bemoans his wife.
“You apologize, Vincenzo.” She waggles her finger at him. “Beg for forgiveness right now.”
Chaos ignites. Vince shouts about warrior angels.
Marco demands order and logic, but I see the glimmer of confusion and betrayal in his eyes.
Everyone seated at this table has always held their view about the curse.
Why the change now? Why, when only hours ago I sent home two who dared to question the same thing?
They bicker over power and penance, but none of them gives me the truth. It all sounds like buzzing. Noise.
Silence them. Cut your losses and be done with them. Maybe the noise will stop.
I rub my temples with my fingers, groaning. The whispering is back.
Nonna slams her walking cane against the terracotta tiles. The sharp crack silences the warring men. She pulls her shawl tight around her frail shoulders and then casts her milky eyes on me.
“You ask for origins, Francesco, but you ignore the math,” she rasps. “The bitter blood demands a toll. Look at the history. The true curse never manifests alone. Always two. Two children born to the line.”
My lungs stop working. “What do you mean?”
“It requires absolute balance,” Nonna continues, pointing a crooked finger at my chest. “A devil born to do the violent work. An angel born to pay the spiritual debt. A living sacrifice to keep the beast from devouring the family entirely.”
“Stupid woman.” Nonno scowls at his wife. “That is an old wives’ tale. There is only one. What is the point of two?”
The sound of their bickering fades as I retreat into my thoughts. What if she’s right?
The wave crashes. Maria’s small hand is a white bone in mine. Black water fills her terrified eyes. My fingers grab nothing but the smooth line of the rosary around her neck.
I drove my sister into the water. My jealousy killed the angel. I shattered the bargain.
Mercy’s hand slips under the table, her warm fingers resting flat against my rigid thigh. She gives me a gentle pat, then changes the subject.
“Have you always called it the Bitter Blood?” she asks everyone at the table.
“It is a phrase Elena prefers.” Marco swirls the dregs of his wine. “A colloquialism.”
Nonno waves a dismissive, liver-spotted hand. “Yes, yes. I also remember a cousin . . . what was her name? Bah, it doesn’t matter.”
“Caterina,” Nonna replies.
“She was Norwegian. Or was it Swedish? Or wait, maybe—”
“She was from Sicily, you old fool.”
Nonno huffs, offended. “What did she call it again? The sickness?”
“The mark,” Nonna replies.
“No, that wasn’t it.”
The mark.
In my mind, I see the glass-framed photograph in my bedroom upstairs. Sunburned skin. Sandcastles. Maria laughing. A dark, insect-like mark stamped onto her upper thigh.
My fingers trace the hard edge of my Roman collar, and I ask, “Have any women in our bloodline ever carried the curse?”
Marco goes deathly still. Silverware clinks against porcelain, then halts entirely. Nervous, darting glances bounce between the remaining aunts and uncles.
Their faces.
They’re hiding something from me.
Blood rushes into my ears, a violent, roaring buzzing. The heavy, suffocating heat of a childhood summer sun beats down on my neck. Flies, thousands of them, crawling over the memory of my sister, lost somewhere in the sea.
“Cisco.” Warm fingers wrap around my bicep.
My head snaps to the side, and I lock eyes with Mercy. The swarm in my mind slowly subsides and disappears into the icy blue depths of her worried eyes.
“Are you okay?” she whispers in English.
“I don’t know.” My brain misfires, struggling to fit the puzzle pieces together. A mark. A fly on a little girl’s leg. The Lord of the Flies. Beelzebub. A demon with a soul, complaining in a catacomb. An angel and a devil.
Jasmine was not the only sense of “other” at the abbey.
Hannah was there too . . . so were the flies.
No. I shake the thought away before it forms. It is too ridiculous to comprehend . . . my sister, alive? Me—the angel and not the devil? Preposterous. I have the curse, and it is not a holy thing. There is no mistaking this.
Yet, as I think this, a small voice in the back of my mind asks, What is holy these days? What is evil?
It all mixes up into one giant, confusing maelstrom.
At least Marco and Vince are now settled. Vince yawns loudly, scratching his thick mustache, but Nonno leans forward, fiercely debating the semantics of ancient family history with Nonna.
“I tell you, it was called the mark,” she insists, her walking cane thumping the tiles. “When the family moved north, they refused to speak the name because every stone in the street knew. They called any man-of-misfortune a man with the mark.”
“No, no, no.” Nonno throws his hands up in a gesture of absolute defeat. “You are confusing the stories, woman. You are talking about the Sign of Cain.”
Nonna slowly turns her head. She levels a blank, devastating look at her husband. It’s the kind of look that reminds a man that he’s survived this long only by her grace. “Yes, I know, my heart. That is exactly what it is.”
Cain.
The first murderer.
A man whose brother he killed was an angel in comparison—Abel.
A violent shudder rips through me. Mercy locks eyes with me. She mutters an excuse to the table and pulls out her phone. Her fingers fly across the screen as she holds it beneath the table. A message to her team. Good.
This all must be linked.
I hate to admit it, but Asmodeus said I needed to know about my genealogy. He was right. This family curse goes back farther than we’d ever imagined. Perhaps . . . the Angelotties are descendants of Cain.