Without a word to him, I hung up and dug out my phone from my pocket and turned it on.
New text.
Your wife: I’m going with Stefano to get ice cream. We can watch an old movie and drink root beer floats tonight. You’re coming home to me, Capo.
“Fucking bullshit,” I said. “She was going the wrong way. Going toward Dolce. She was coming to check on me.” Then I told Rocco to stop the car. As I pulled up a different program on my computer that I’d designed, I gave them the gist of the situation. My voice came out calm, controlled, maybe even cold, but on the inside, Mount Vesuvius had gone off.
Giovanni was right. Her watch showed no signal, and neither did Stefano’s work phone. I even traced his personal device, and it couldn’t be located either. Neither could Mariposa’s phone.
“Come on, my little butterfly,” I whispered. I switched gears, checking my last resort—it was the way I’d always tracked her. Even to Harry Boy’s house.
Her wedding ring.
She never took it off. There was a device located in the metal behind the diamond. Her band, too, if she ever decided to wear one without the other. If whoever did this wasn’t doing it to rob her, he wouldn’t have thought of taking her ring. Her watch. Yeah. Her car. Yeah. But her ring? It was inconspicuous as a device.
As soon as the heart started beating on the screen, I closed my eyes and squeezed the rosary around my neck. Stefano. Stefano had been killed. But then a cold hand touched my neck and my voice was low and tight when I spoke. “Rocco. Bring me to the Hudson.” I told him the area. “As fast as you fucking can. And on the way, call Brando.”
Brando Fausti had once been in the Coast Guard. He had been a rescue diver in Alaska. He was the best of the best. The motherfucker was like a shark in the water. He had all of the right equipment and could see in almost blind conditions.
The second man needed, the doctor, was already in the backseat, sitting forward, listening. He mumbled things, medical things.
Whoever took my wife was taking her to the Hudson River. I could see the heart on the screen, making its way closer and closer to the water. Whoever took my wife, the dead man, was going to drown her.
30
Mariposa
Sicily. I kept think about my time in the water there. Going under just to pop right back up. My head breaking the surface before sound made it fully to my ears.
My head. It was doing the same thing.
Hands groped for me. I fought them the best I could. I clawed and bit and screamed. I wasn’t sure if the screaming was loud enough. I was under and everything was distorted.
Would anyone hear me?
If not for my baby, I would’ve given in, given up. The devil had caught me, and my husband was probably dead.
I was done for. I was sick and tired of the fight, of the chase.
My will to live had burnt out.
I had been so tired when I found Capo. And after he took me in, gave me shelter and food and protection, not to mention what I’d been missing for so long—love and security—I slept. I took refuge. But my will to live was still tired, still aching for sleep, for rest in a safe house, a comfortable bed, and to be held in strong arms.
It wasn’t only me that I fought for, though. He deserved a chance to live a life he hadn’t even tasted yet. Not to merely survive but to live. A life I’d been willing to sell my body to have.
Turned out, I’d given it instead.
Capo. My baby. Saverio. I hadn’t even told Capo how much I loved the name and the meaning behind it. New home. Saverio was the home we’d always share. He was our blood vow in physical form.
I clawed even harder. I hoped my teeth felt even sharper. And my scream—even if it came out hoarse, maybe someone would still hear me.
My back slammed against something hard, the breath escaping my mouth in a whoosh. I lost even more focus, even more control over my limbs. My entire body was on fire.
Mumbling. There was so much mumbling.
Shut up! I wanted to shout. My voice was muted, but his wasn’t. It was right in my ear, screaming inside of my broken skull. It seemed to bounce from one side to the other, making my head ache even more.
I felt sick. Nauseated.
The burning was so hot.
My feet. I couldn’t move my feet. My hands. I couldn’t move those, either.
I had nothing, absolutely nothing to fight him with.
The fire came closer, licking every inch of my skin, and then there was a free fall into nothing, a hard slap of frigid water against scorching flesh, and then it took me under. Sucking me down, down, down, faster than I could take a breath.
The pressure was immense. All-consuming. It put out the fire but sent me in another spiral.
Frozen arms held me tight, and thousands of hands stabbed me with hundreds of sharp, cold daggers. Then the water ran into my mouth, invaded my nose, and consumed my lungs. A different kind of burn, but still a burn, one that seized instead of charred.
There was no use fighting it. I was bound. Being dragged to hell through a watery grave. Fast. It was worse than when Capo pushed the speedometer in one of his cars, almost like we were flying instead of cruising.
I wondered if touching hell would bring me to a pathway to heaven?
It had to be easier than this, more peaceful. Maybe that’s why death is so hard. We had to pay for our sins before we were given complete peace.
I thought of the rosary, the safety I found in stroking the pearls between my fingers, and then I let go, giving over to something greater than me.
31
Capo
Before the car came to a complete stop, I jumped out, running toward the pier that stretched to a platform with construction equipment.
The water was dark, and I couldn’t see past the surface. A small light lit the platform, but a bigger light was centered on a specific area of the river. A man stood next to a ladder that had been clipped to the pier and touched the tip of the Hudson.
Romeo waited on his brother. Brando had already taken the plunge. Diving equipment was laid out on the pier next to Romeo, along with emergency apparatus.
Romeo’s head snapped up when he heard me. He held out his hand, and when we connected, he drew me in. “Amadeo.” He stood back, his dark eyes solid on mine. “My fratello went in after tua moglie. We heard the splash as we rushed up. Brando was able to see where Mariposa went under. That is a good thing. A few seconds later and he would have had to search the entire area.”
Rocco and Tito caught up to us. Tito stared down at the water for a minute before he went over to dig through the stuff Brando and Romeo had brought.
Rocco stared beyond Romeo at a man sitting on the pier. His hands and legs were tied up. His mouth was full of blood, white specks on his legs. His teeth. The area around him was littered with cement blocks, lines of rope, knives, scissors, packets of cement, molds, and tape.
He was going to make specific molds to fit my wife’s feet, set her in them, and then make sure no one was able to pull her up. Time. He ran out of fucking time.
Bruno. That motherfucker had slammed into my wife with a truck, abducted her, did who knows what to her on the way, and then threw her in the Hudson with cement blocks tied to her legs. And he had killed a good man. Stefano.