“Did he give you the state bar license number yet?” she asked me without mentioning her husband’s health. “For the American lawyer?”

  I wouldn’t know what she’s talking about for a few days, but I didn’t want to admit ignorance when she seemed to know more.

  “No.”

  She nodded and turned toward Damiano. “Your father is here.”

  “Cool. I was just up there, so I don’t think I can go again.”

  She tsked. “He’s in first floor recovery. Just getting out of the ER. You should check on him.”

  Damiano ran one way. Camilla calmly walked the other.

  I finished my cigarette, thinking Emilio had put in the order to put Cosimo in the ER to tell the man who was in charge.

  It had never occurred to me that Camilla was taking care of business while Cosimo playacted the role of boss. Not until I sit at the bar of an empty club with Damiano, watching Pellegrino bubble around fresh ice, thinking about the power of wives, did the possibility occur to me clearly enough to dismiss as nonsense.

  The days to my possession of the crown are ticking away, and none of this old stuff will help me.

  “What do you want?” Damiano asks, tapping his fingertips together like Venus’s clamshell gnawing on the goddess.

  “The Tabonas? When they tried to grab my wife on Flora Boulevard? You came to Mille Luci to tell me, as a friend.”

  “I warned you in good faith.”

  “I didn’t give you the appreciation you deserved.”

  “Damn right.” He puts down his empty glass. “And now you called me here because you want something. So spit the toad.”

  The roar of an industrial floor-buffer starts behind us.

  “Call it off with Gia,” I say.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I’m asking you to.”

  “I just overlooked the whole broken flower thing,” he exclaims.

  “You were going to anyway.”

  “Fuck you.” He taps his glass and Robert pours him another finger of amaretto.

  “Listen.” I turn to face him, because I’m not interested in trading insults anymore. “Twice now, you asked to come back. As friends. As business partners. Like it was.”

  “It was good.”

  “It was. I’ve been thinking, I have no one in my organization I can use when things expand.”

  With a single, sharp nod, his whole demeanor changes from guarded and suspicious, to excited. “Which they will. When you get the corona, boom. World at your feet.”

  “And that’s coming soon.”

  “So you know how to get it?”

  Damiano’s willing to marry a woman he doesn’t know to get on my side of the veil. The admission I’m about to make proves my good faith by shifting the veil just enough for him to trust that he’ll be inside my world.

  “Yes,” I say. “I know how to get it.”

  “Wow.” He clicks his glass with mine. “Salute, coglione.”

  Calling me a jackass just as he finds out I’m close to the crown is a sign he’s going to be casually disrespectful when no one’s looking. I drink my Pellegrino rather than correct him. There will be plenty of time for that.

  “So what are you thinking?” he asks. “That school over the river, maybe? What’s the play? Those kids don’t carry cash, but there’s plenty of receipts.”

  “True. It could work.”

  “And I have an angle on the real estate market over there.”

  “Good. But first…” I wedge the lime between my teeth and pull off the pith. “I’m going to end the ‘mbasciata.”

  “What?” He blinks hard, eyeing me sidelong as if my stupidity can’t be looked full in the face. “You’re serious?”

  He thinks I’m an idiot, but I’m not. I’m just a fool blindly chasing love over a cliff.

  “With the Corona Ferrea, you can expand your territory to the four corners, but this crazy shit is what you want to try to do?” he asks.

  “There will be no more debt brides.” I jam the sucked-dry peel into the ice. “Starting with yours.”

  He laughs, then waves, rocking in his seat as if his body can’t contain everything he wants to say.

  “Man,” he says, shaking his head with false regret, “I’d really like to take you up on that. But you’re just not getting it. This entire thing with Gia? It’s out of my hands now. That’s not my money. It’s a deal I brought to my father, and it was good enough for him to smile on me. That’s his money, and if you have the choice between insulting him and walking away with your life, or insulting him and ending up in the ground? You shit on his lap. You kick his dog. You fistfuck his mistress, but you do not throw his money back in his face.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  He gets off the stool and slaps my shoulder. “Call me.”

  I’m left with a choice I never wanted to make. My wife or a war.

  “I’m going to miss dinner,” I tell Violetta on the phone as I get into the Alfa.

  “Okay. I need to go to the store for the party and some woman things.”

  “Make Armando a list.” I’m being more terse than I want, but I have bigger problems on my mind than her feminine products.

  “For the party stuff, it’s fine, but for the other stuff… it’s the kind of thing a woman does for herself.”

  Especially now, with her birthday so close, I don’t want her outside alone. “Celia can go with you.”

  “She’s off tomorrow.”

  Flora Street taught me a lesson I don’t want to learn again. If the Tabonas had succeeded in taking her, I would either be standing in the rubble of Secondo Vasto or I’d be dead.

  “You go with Armando or you don’t go.” I start the car. “And go to the drugstore over the river. The big one, by the school.”

  “Why?”

  “Damnit, Violetta, just do it.”

  Silence. I should apologize for snapping at her, but I need her to do what she’s told.

  “Please,” I add. “Trust me.”

  “Fine.” She hangs up, and I’m left staring at Genovese Street out my car window.

  Fucking Christ. I want to make her happy and keep her safe. That was what the house by St. John’s was about, but I don’t know how to do either.

  If I could take her away—far away—and live with just the two of us, I would do it. We could start over. I’d run a café and she’d run her life around simple things. Our home. My cock. Eventually, children. And she’d be happy, because she’d never know of another ‘mbasciata, or think it was in my power to stop them.

  That’s how it started.

  Not with a decision. Just a desire for a life I didn’t want.

  All I wanted from that fantasy was for her to forget what I’d done and what I’d allowed. She said she forgave me, but she’d never forget.

  21

  VIOLETTA

  My strategy is to get the guy in the bright blue jacket to meet me at the front with a pregnancy test, and it works. I bring a basket full of birthday party junk—streamers, candles, little plastic tooters, and party hats—to the register.

  Bright Blue Jacket puts the test on the counter, pushes his thick wire glasses up, and says, “This is the one you wanted?”

  Yes, it is, because it’s just like every other test. One line for the status quo. One line for time to change the world I live in.

  Two lines for an immediate decision. Raise a child in it, or leave it.

  “Violetta!”

  I spin around to find Santino’s zia Anette, then I turn back to the cashier who’s still holding up a pregnancy test.

  “That’s the one,” I say quickly, then I hold my arms out to Anette for a kiss on each of her blush-heavy cheeks, while the beeping of the register goes on.

  “You shouldn’t come here for that,” Anette says, flicking a finger toward the items being shoved into a plastic bag, and I tighten. She saw the test. Is she telling me to go to the doctor? “Lorenzo owns a party store on Fifth.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know.” I don’t care either, but shame for my ignorance is a good excuse for my hot cheeks.

  She takes out an old flip phone. “I have to drop by there to get something for Gia’s reception.”

  Gia’s reception? Santino said he would end it. Maybe Anette didn’t get the memo?

  “I’ll call Lucia right now and have her tell him you’re coming.”

  “Did someone say party?” another voice asks. It’s Scarlett getting rung up at the adjacent register. I feel attacked from all sides. “That’s impossible since I’m not invited!”

  I hug Scarlett so tightly I’m just short of breaking a rib, and when I let go, her eyebrows are knotted with concern. We move away from the counter.

  “Violetta?” She’s looking me up and down as if she’s never seen me before.

  Scarlett’s going to ask me if I’m all right and I’m not going to lie. I’ll tell her straight out, right in the drugstore, and Anette will hear it.

  “I thought you were in Monaco,” I say.

  “Ugh! Don’t get me started on my father’s business.”

  Anette comes up to us, clapping her phone closed. “Are you coming? I have to go today or the ribbon won’t be here in time. Is that Armando?” She waves him over.

  I never wanted or needed party supplies. The birthday dinner will be like any other except for a cake, which isn’t a big deal, but why is Anette in such a rush for a wedding that may not happen?

  “How long will the ribbon take?” I ask to make conversation.

  “Paola’s giving me agita. Now-now-now. Everything now. She called me at two this morning—from her lunch.”

  I’m getting the feeling the wedding isn’t being called off at all. My heart pounds like a drum. I want to run to my husband and choke him first and ask questions later, but I can’t. I have to breathe. I don’t have the whole story.

  “Do you have time for coffee?” I ask Scarlett.

  “Well, duh. Yeah.”

  “Lorenzo closes at four,” Anette says.

  “Oh, I’m so rude. Aunt Anette, this is my friend Scarlett from school. Scarlett, you met Santino. This is his aunt.”

  They exchange greetings, and I realize the pregnancy test is at the bottom of the bag, totally visible pressing against the thin white plastic.

  I have to get out of here.

  “So tell Lorenzo I’d love to come by another time, okay?” I kiss Anette before she has a moment to object.

  I pull Scarlett into the street, toward the Leaky Bean, sure Armando’s hot on our heels, trying to look inconspicuous.

  “Who’s the hot guy following us?” Scarlett whispers.

  “He’s really nice. But no.”

  “Is he your bodyguard or something?”

  “Kind of.”

  “I knew it!”

  We enter the coffee shop, where a duet of acoustic guitarists strum a song with unremarkable lyrics, and I go right for the counter and order for Scarlett first.

  “Green tea, and double espresso shot with lemon.”

  The cashier blinks once, tilts her head just enough for one red braid to slip behind her shoulder, and smiles. “We don’t have lemon.”

  Of course they don’t. I’m on the wrong side of the river to drink lemon with my espresso.

  “That’s fine.” I catch sight of Armando at the door. “Make it two.”

  She gives me a number on a stick, and Scarlett and I sit at a table with the number between us.

  “Don’t think I didn’t see it,” she says. “You’re knocked up?”

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t need the test.” I put the bag on my lap and shift the box to the middle.

  “Are you excited? Or… too soon?”

  Normal question in the normal world. No one else will ask me that.

  “Yes.” I drop the bag between my feet. “And yes.”

  “How does that husband of yours feel about it?”

  When I walked in here, my only intention was to get away from Anette before my day was sucked into a party-supply vortex where I’d have to avoid questions and meaningful looks about the pregnancy test. I never intended to tell Scarlett anything about my situation, but I’ve caught her at some weird moment. She’s not talking about herself but leaning forward in silence, waiting for me to fill her in.

  “I haven’t told him,” I say.

  “Are you keeping it?” Another question that would only be asked on this side of the river.

  “Yes.”

  “So why do you look like you want to throw yourself over a cliff?” Her eyes scan mine. “Is he all right with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t be mad I’m telling you this, but if you need somewhere to go and you forgot the helpline numbers, I have them. Or you can stay with me. Whatever you want.”

  “You’re a good friend.”

  “So do you need help?”

  Our order comes. I send the extra espresso to Armando. He waves to me when he gets it. Then I face Scarlett.

  “He is good to me.” I sip my coffee from the tiny paper cup. “And I love him.”

  “Good.” She relaxes so much I realize how tense she was. “Really, that’s good, because as soon as I saw that guy, I was worried.”

  “You didn’t seem worried. You sent me a text that he was hot.”

  “Yeah, well, he is. But he had a gun on him, same as that bodyguard you have.” She shrugs. “And all of us from school? We all know you, but honestly…” She blows on her tea. “We also know what goes on over the river.”

  “What goes on?”

  She sips her tea with an abundance of caution. “Like, the mob and shit? And police jurisdiction stops at the bridge. Supposedly, it’s like this other whole world on the other side.”

  “How come I didn’t know you felt that way?”

  “Why bring that up? So you can get hurt?” She tries to sip again and does a little better. “Not interested. You seemed okay. You never said anything. But then you obviously didn’t go on your trip, and Signore Hotstuff showed up, and I thought, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s a thing that happens over there.’ So I just filed it. Figured I’d see you in September.”

  My future education is a big fat question mark, but I don’t tell her that. She’s seen the pregnancy test. She knows it already.

  “It’s everything you say,” I tell her, realizing—as the words come out—how silent I’ve been on the subject. “Everyone’s in everyone’s business, unless it’s real business… and you’re a woman. Then it’s definitely not your business. But there’s peace. Zero crime. I mean… except the stuff that’s against the law.”

  Scarlett chuckles.

  “Everyone agrees on how things should be, more or less,” I add.

  “Even you?”

  Stalling, I finish my coffee.

  “Espresso’s thicker from a Moka pot.” I put down the ridiculous, toy-sized mug. “And the rim should be rubbed with lemon, which you can’t do with a fucking Dixie cup… but when there’s a world war on and you don’t have enough water? The citrus sanitizes it so you don’t drink… basically sewage. And if you have to drink chicory because the fascists raised the coffee tariffs? A drop of sambuca corrects the bitterness.”

  “I take it you don’t like the espresso.” She looks at me over the rim of her green tea.

  “Sambuca ruins good coffee. It’s not necessary anymore. The war is over. And that’s how I feel about a lot of what goes on where I grew up. We’re correcting things that don’t need it anymore. We have solutions for problems that were already solved in other ways, and now we’re calling them traditions we have to live by. And all I’m saying, all I think with my whole heart, is that if you like sambuca in your coffee, drink it. But don’t tell me I have to correct something that’s fine already, then call it tradition and act like it’s normal.”

  She sits back, cradling her cup at her chest, and shakes her head. “You lost me at the war being over.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I just want to know you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. But I’m not okay with the way we are. Things have to change, and if I have to be the one to change them, so be it.”

  “Fine.” She shrugs. “But are you inviting me to your party or not?”

  I laugh, but no. She can’t come to this party. Nothing on this side of the river is powerful enough to change where I’m from.

  She tells me about a guy she met in a fender bender with her new BMW, who she asked on a date in the ensuing road rage—right after threatening to put a tire iron through his windshield. By the end of it, I’m laughing so hard my side hurts.

  And unlike the last time I saw Scarlett, I can see the future. There’s no reason not to see her again. I can go to school and have the life I want.

  This time, when I hug my friend and say good-bye, I feel as if I have the power to make anything possible.

  I do have the power. It makes me smile uncontrollably in the back seat of the car.

  Armando looks at me in the rearview. “Happy today?”

  “You could say that.”

  My phone dings. There’s a message from Gia.

  I open it, reading a series of short, textual bursts, and each one is a punch in the face.

  22

  SANTINO

  Engraved inside our wedding rings, where a date or a line about love would usually go, is a number—a lawyer’s bar license, given to me in the days following our meeting with Emilio in the hospital.

  After Rosetta died, I looked up the number so I could tell Nazario Coraggio it was all over. The deal was off. But there was no such license issued.

  When I heard Damiano had designs on Violetta, I married her, then tried the license number again. Nazario protected himself—the license didn’t lead me to him, but a partner in a generations-old international firm, with an office a hundred miles away, in a part of the state with high rises and a Starbucks on every corner.

  The receptionist denied there was a Nazario Coraggio in the firm, then gave me a phone number to call on a certain date.

  Today is the day.