Best wishes.
“Thank you, Marco,” I said as Jaco stepped forward to shake hands with Dante then kiss my cheeks again. “Thanks, Jaco.”
“Happened quick,” Jaco noted.
Dante shot him a look, but I didn’t take umbrage. “It did.”
“When you know, you know,” Marco said in a dramatically wise voice.
I laughed, filled with contentment despite the unknown, because it felt good to be back with men who felt like family.
Twenty-Three
Elena
We entered the Smith Jameson Building through a locked door in a subway station three blocks away from Dante’s apartment. Apparently, there was a series of tunnels beneath the city made by abandoned metro stops and defunct railways and somehow, Dante knew the system inside and out. We didn’t want to be seen by the cops or anyone who might be watching the building before Dante got a chance to talk to his crew.
The apartment was the same way we’d left it, clean and tidy because Bambi wouldn’t allow it to get dusty or stale even while we were away.
Yara, Chen, Addie, Tore, and Frankie all waited in the living room. We greeted each other like long lost family, kissing and hugging, before we took seats around the coffee table. Dante and I sat on the long couch beside Addie, who was still recovering from broken ribs, his bumpy nose even more crooked after the beating he’d taken from the Irish mob when they abducted me.
“You surprised me,” Yara said as she greeted me. “You should be proud, it takes a lot to do that.”
“I’ll take credit if you tell me how I did it,” I quipped.
“I didn’t think you had it in you to love a man like him.” She seemed sombre, almost melancholy as she reached out to clasp my shoulder. “I’m glad I was wrong.”
“Me too,” I said because her words felt like a blessing I didn’t know I wanted.
We talked for hours.
There was so much to address, how to attack the di Carlo situation, how to flush out the mole, what to do about the RICO case, and how I should proceed with things as Dante’s new wife. He argued that I should stay in the shadows and leave things to his men.
But I was a fighter and there was no way I’d sit out while others fought to protect him and our family.
He capitulated fairly quickly after that.
It was dark by the time we finished, only the familiar lights of the cityscape brightening the view outside the floor to ceiling windows. At one point, we’d ordered Chinese food and Addie insisted on Christmas music because it was December 23rd and Dante would be in prison for the actual holiday.
We danced to Nat King Cole’s Buon Natalie, Dante spinning me until I was so dizzy I couldn’t stand without his arms around me. We drank so many bottles of Chianti that my tongue was stained red.
We celebrated.
It seemed the only appropriate way to say goodbye to the man we all loved.
Just before midnight, Dante tugged me onto the patio for some cold air. I fanned my sweaty forehead as we stood at the stone balustrade and looked out over the city lights.
“I always feel like a king up here looking at this city,” he told me as he wrapped his arms around my hips and leaned his front into my back. “From the first second I stepped off the plane, I wanted it to be my city.”
“It is,” I told him. “It will be again.”
“Even if it isn’t, loving you was worth losing it all.”
“Don’t say things like that,” I beseeched as I snuggled closer to him, his warmth a direct contrast to the bitter cold New York winter. “It makes it impossible to let you go.”
His nose traced the shell of my ear. “It’s only for a little while. Trust me, lottatrice, turning myself in is the right move.”
I didn’t say anything because emotion had clogged my throat. I wanted to clutch him to me, dig my nails into his skin and wrap my limbs around him like vines until he was unable to move let alone leave me.
“I told you once that you reminded me of my mother,” he said softly, almost distractedly as he looked over my shoulder in the artificial stars of the city nightscape. “The truth is, you are so much stronger than her. She was crushed by the weight of Noel’s dark world and you just seem to rise and rise like some star in my dark sky. I can turn myself in knowing that you are strong enough, that you have enough coraggio, to withstand the loneliness and worry. Not only that, but to rise above it and find a way for us to be together again, free of this RICO case and Dennis O’Malley. You told me I was your hero, but I hope you know, Lena, you are my hero too.”
I choked on the sob in my throat, trembling with the force of keeping my tears at bay.
He shifted behind me for a moment, something clinking as he moved, and then a moment later he was dangling Chiara’s silver cross in front of us. It was impossible to look at the man pinned prostrate on the silver and not realize how much Dante was martyring himself to give me a better life. One with family and friends and career, one in New York, where I didn’t have to be a fugitive for the rest of my life.
“I want you to hold on to this for me,” he murmured as he slipped the large chain over my head without unclasping it. The heavy weight of the pendant settled just beneath my breasts. It was warm from his skin. “It will make me feel better to know that my mother and her ancestors are watching over you while I’m gone.”
I spun in his arms, blindly seeking his mouth with my own. There were no words to describe the ache of love and sweet sorrow in my heart so I feed the emotions to him on my tongue. He held me tenderly, lapping the words from my mouth as if he understood.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” I admitted against his damp mouth. “I miss you already.”
“I know, cuore mia. But it won’t be long.”
“You’re so certain.”
“I would never doubt you. My whip smart lawyer can do anything,” he stated as if it was fact.
No one had ever had such unshakeable belief in me before. It made me feel like I could do anything.
And I would.
I’d work every minute of every hour of every day to get him back to me.
“Ti amo, Capo,” I whispered against his lips. “Ti amo, martio mio.”
I love you, my husband.
He smiled against me, his hand reaching up to palm my throat. “Sono con te, lottatice mia, anche quando non lo sono.”
I am with you, my fighter, even when I am not.
Despite my abandonment issues and the fear that pooled like iron on the back of my tongue, I trusted him.
I trusted myself.
And when we said our final goodbye at the door ten minutes later, I didn’t cry even though tears burned in my heart. I just gave my capo one last kiss, a stamp of ownership I hoped he would feel for the days and weeks to come, and then I let him go.
Because I knew no matter what, he would come back to me.
The headline in The New York Times the next morning read ‘The Mafia Lord returns’ followed by a grainy black and white photo of Dante being handcuffed by police officers at the 23rd Precinct.
I stared at it for a long time as I sat at the kitchen island drinking my coffee. My thumb moved over the photo until it was inked with newsprint.