“Yes, Mamma.” Viola tried to relax her jaw and glanced up at her mother, who was already picking at the potatoes Viola had sliced for the greens.
“Too thick,” her mother was muttering as she examined Viola’s work.
It didn’t matter that the potatoes were perfectly cubed, uniform and even—Viola knew how to use a blade, after all—it was always the same. Too thick or too thin, too salty or not enough. Every day her mother came to inspect Viola’s work, and nothing was ever good enough for her Paolino.
But for Viola?
She was too brazen, too prideful. You want too much.
Viola shook off the ghosts of the past. “Will you be eating with Paolo today, Mamma?” She asked, a feeble attempt to get her mother out of the kitchen before Viola said or did something she couldn’t take back.
“Sì,” her mother told her, and lifted a dish to examine its cleanness. “Bring me some of the bread, too.”
Viola made up two dishes of the lentils and paired them with slices of bread. That, at least, her mother could find no fault with, because Viola had learned to make bread from a master. She’d watched Tilly day in and day out in the Strega’s kitchen, as her friend transformed a pile of ingredients into the warm loaves that kept Dolph’s people filled and happy. Viola had memorized the movement of Tilly’s hands as she’d measured and stirred and kneaded—the way her nimble fingers had worked over the lump of flour and yeast until it turned smooth and supple as flesh. She’d been happy there, content to simply watch the girl she’d fallen in love with, the friend who had no idea what she meant to Viola.
Tilly had been brave. She’d died because she’d rushed in to help without thought of herself or of the danger she might have been in. Even after her magic had been stripped from her, Tilly had fought until the end. And so would Viola.
Viola wiped the dampness from her cheeks and picked up the two plates. She pasted on the smile that her brother liked to see her wear. As she pushed through the doorway, into the main room, she felt the eyes of Paul’s boys on her, but she ignored their heated looks. She wasn’t interested, and she knew that none would touch her so long as Paul acted as though she were his property. Her mother and her brother were sitting at a table in a corner, and she served them their lunch with a bowed head and a hardened heart, knowing that sometimes bravery must be soft and secret, just as Tilly’s was.
She left the two of them to eat, and needing some air, she carried a bowl of scraps out to the rubbish pile in the back. The string of curses she muttered as she walked would have made even the most hardened Bowery Boy blush if any of them could’ve made out the Italian she used. Though she didn’t use her mother tongue to save anyone’s delicate sensibilities. She didn’t care if a lady would know the words she was using—she’d stopped being a lady the first day her brother forced her to kill a man.
She’d just placed her scrap bowl on a bench outside the building when she realized she wasn’t alone. Pretending to wipe her hands on her raggedy apron, she pulled the small knife from her skirts and continued to move toward the outhouses. When she sensed movement out of the corner of her eye, she didn’t hesitate. With a single fluid motion, she whipped around and sent the knife flying at her target.
It hit true, as it always did, pinning the intruder by the edge of her sleeve to the wooden fence.
Her sleeve?
The girl’s eyes had gone wide with fear—or was it simply surprise? But then fear gave way to pleasure, and her entire countenance lit. “Oh, bravo!”
It took a moment for the truth of what Viola was seeing to register. It was the girl from Delmonico’s, but instead of the flouncy pink confection she’d been wearing before, she had on a dark skirt and what appeared to be a man’s waistcoat. A cravat was tied neatly at the neck of her crisp white shirt, and she was wearing a gentleman’s cap on her head. She looked ridiculous, like a child playing dress-up with her papà’s clothes.
She looks perfect.
“What are you doing here?” Viola hissed, ignoring the warmth that had washed over her as she tossed a glance back toward the kitchen door. After all Viola had done to keep her alive, the girl had just walked straight into the den of the lion.
“Right now I’m trying to get myself free,” the girl said as she tried to wiggle the knife out of the wood.
Viola stalked toward her, and with a jerk that made the girl flinch, she withdrew the knife and held it at the girl’s throat. “You should not be here.”
She heard the click of the pistol’s hammer before she realized they were not alone. “And you shouldn’t be threatening her again, Miss Vaccarelli.”
He knows who I am. Viola glared at him to show that she didn’t care, and she did not drop the knife.
“Yes, well, if you’ll be so kind as to come along?” He motioned with the gun, which looked about as comfortable in his hand as a live fish would have.
Americani and their guns. They all thought they were cowboys. Too bad cows had more brains than half of them. “I’m not going with you,” Viola said.
The girl frowned at her accomplice. “Theo, stop being an idiot and put that thing down.” Then her midnight-blue eyes met Viola’s and her cheeks went pink. “We’ve no intention of hurting you, whatever Theo might want you to believe. We simply want to talk.”
Viola glanced back at the man—the same one from the restaurant. “I don’t have nothing to say to you.”
The girl sighed. “As you can see, we know who you are—Viola Vaccarelli, sister of Paul Vaccarelli, the owner of this fine establishment and also the leader of the gang of ruffians known as the Five Pointers, who have been terrorizing the Bowery ever since the elections last summer. Of course, with his alleged connections to Tammany—”
“Shhh,” Viola hissed, looking back over her shoulder again.
“She could go on for days like this,” the man said jauntily. “I’ve found the best way to shut her up is to let her have her say.”
“He’s probably right about that,” the girl said with a smile that wrinkled her nose.
It was the sort of simpering smile Viola should have wanted to smack off the girl’s face, but for some reason it shot a bolt of heat straight to Viola’s middle.
“Viola?” Torrio called from the kitchen. “You still out there?”
Viola froze. She had thought she’d made it clear she wanted nothing to do with Torrio, but since his courtship was being encouraged by Paul and since Torrio saw in Viola a way to solidify his influence in the Five Pointers, he kept coming back. Day after day. Like a rash.
She pushed the girl around the side of the building. “You have to go. Now.”
“Well, we’re certainly not leaving after we’ve come all this way to talk with you,” the girl said primly.
“Hey, V,” Torrio called again. “You need some help or something?” His voice had an edge to it. Like he thought he had some claim over her.
“I’m fine,” she called back, trying to make her voice nice. She sent the two a silent warning to keep quiet.
“What’re you doing out there?” His voice was closer now.
Panic crept up Viola’s spine. If Torrio saw the two here—alive and well—he would know that she hadn’t killed them. Worse, he’d know that when she stopped him from shooting their bodies, she’d stood in the way of direct orders. She had to get rid of him. “I’ll be there in a minute,” she called. “I have to take a piss, all right? You can’t help with that.”