“Where’s Bobby?” I asked, breathless.
“He ended up being valuable in the end.”
“What?”
“He took those bullets for me. We’ll call it payback for not telling me that I was going to get my throat cut and then standing by and watching.”
“Fair enough.” I held tight to the seatbelt. “Was that them? The Scarpones?”
“Yeah, but not Arturo or Achille. Young guys. Back up for Bobby.” He checked his mirror. “Hold on.”
To what? I almost screamed but didn’t. He weaved in and out of traffic, not even caring if there was only a breath of air between our car and the one in front or behind us.
“Did they see you?”
“They saw you.”
“But I thought you wanted to—shit! Capo!” He swerved, barely missing a biker. “I thought you wanted to make a grand entrance. Like, ‘Boo, motherfuckers, I’m back!’ Then you’d serve them what they deserve.”
“You’re not far off the mark, but this isn’t about me anymore. Your face has been seen too many times. Too many coincidences have happened for them not to mean something. The only thing they’re not sure of is how Cash Kelly is involved in this. They’re trying to connect you to me or figure out if you’re one of his.”
“Italy,” I said.
“Yeah. My grandfather’s funeral. If I’d be anywhere, I’d be there. That one stands out to them.”
“You were.” I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling motion sickness. “You knew…were you trying to get yourself killed?”
“I was ready to end it. They died. I died—again. We were all going to die.” He quickly took a right and my shoulder hit the side of the car. “They didn’t see me just now, though. Bobby blocked my face, and the guys in those cars are young. They wouldn’t know me. Not by body alone. They were after you.”
“All those men for me? Why couldn’t Bobby deal with me alone?”
“What would scare you more, Mariposa? One man or a few?”
“One or a few—my scare meter would be up to here.” I lifted my hand above my head.
“Bobby came in through the back, so he didn’t know whether you were alone. That’s another reason he called. Once he saw you, he called for backup. That was the end of his scope of knowledge before I stepped out in the open. If they find out who you really are, Marietta, things are going to get more dangerous. Right now, there’s only a connection. Nothing else. But it’s enough.”
He swerved at the last second, stopping at the entrance of a garage, but it took less than an inhale of breath. As soon as he pulled in, the arm lifted and then barely missed the tail end of the car when it came down as we sped up the incline. At the very top floor—seven or eight?—he parked in the uncovered area, right in direct sunlight.
He told me to stay put until he came and got me. When he opened my door, I tried to wipe away a tear that slid down my cheek, but he noticed.
“Mariposa.” He yanked me from the car, using his empty hand to slip a baseball hat over his head. My leather backpack was on his back. I had left it in the car when we’d gone into the pizzeria. He handed me a pair of sunglasses before he set a pair on. “I’m going to end this. It’s time.”
“The baby’s picture.” I barely got out. We had left it behind on the counter.
We rushed to get down the incline to the elevators. When we reached them, he handed me something from his pocket.
My tears collected inside of the glasses, almost fogging them up, but the treasure in my hand was as clear as the day. “You took it.”
“I paid the bill, too.”
“You did?”
“You love it there, and they have a better memory than the Scarpones when customers skip out. So I took the picture, left them two hundred bucks, and then followed you to the bathroom. Unforeseen circumstances. Make it a rule to consider all scenarios ahead of time, Mariposa.”
“Was Bobby following us?”
“No. He likes to eat there, but I’m sure he called them when he saw you. He was screwing one of the waitresses. She’s very quiet. He caught a glimpse of you right before you went into the bathroom. I stood hidden until right before you stepped out.”
There seemed to be nothing else to say. We made the rest of the trip in silence. Once outside, in front, he opened another car and held the door for me. Before I got in, a massive explosion went off on the highest floor of the parking garage we had just left.
“They’ll know we…I mean, that’s your car, Capo.”
“Nah.” He took out a computer from the backseat and fiddled with a few things. “The paperwork states that it belongs to a guy who was killed about…” He looked at his old watch. “An hour ago. The Scarpones had a hit out on him.”
“How soon?” I asked, my voice quiet. I stared at the picture of the baby in my hands. “How soon will you end this?”
“They’re going to be hunting for you.” He put the car in drive and pulled off. We were on a scenic ride through town, as though the last hour hadn’t happened.
“Because they know you’ll come for me.”
“Or hoping so—if I’m still alive.” He checked his rearview. “If they’re hunting you, they’re going after me. They already took my voice. I’ll meet them in hell before they take my heart.”
27
Capo
My wife slipped the rosary over my neck before I left.
A ritual.
A rite of passage.
A symbol of her love and sacrifice to carry with me into battle.
After the killer had made a deep enough cut that my air left my throat instead of my nose or mouth, I took out the rosary and clutched it in my hands before I went down.
Each breath was a struggle.
Each beat of my heart was fought for.
I had thought that the place where Mariposa had found her heaven—her rosary—would touch me. Because I knew where I was headed. Hell. Before my last breath, I wanted to touch the place where she found peace. To touch what the other side did before taking their final breath.
Faith.
There were only a few moments from my first life that stuck with me over the years. One of them was Mariposa’s mother, Maria, before I pulled the trigger.
Maria was the first person I killed who had offered me forgiveness for what I was about to do. She told me she knew that I had no choice. She told me that what I was doing was showing her mercy. She knew the savages I was related to. What they would do to her once they found her.
In that moment, though, I’d tried to think of ways to save them both. A girl should have her mother.
In the end, we both knew it was useless. If I were going to save her daughter, the little girl she called Marietta, all ties to her original life had to be cut.
“I know where I’m going, Vittorio. I might have made mistakes in my life—I married a man who was not a man of God—but still, I am a woman of faith. I do not fear death, because I am onto a new life. Take care of my baby.”
The only fear Maria showed was for her daughter. Wherever Maria felt she was going, it was to a better place. She had followed her husband through the darkest of nights, the coldest of days, and the dirtiest places her feet could’ve touched. When I found them, they were close to starving. They couldn’t leave the filthy place they were living in. They couldn’t even ask a neighbor to bring them food in fear of being found out.