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“What?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Whatever you said now?”
“Oh.” His tone implied he had expected me to ask something else. “It means good evening, sister-in-law.”
I nodded. “Where’s your brother?”
“Your husband is in his office, nursing his broken heart,” he quipped, watching my reaction.
I sneered, “I didn’t think he had one.”
“Wow… claws out much today?”
“Well, if he has one, he wouldn’t be going around murdering … women and children, while he has one of his own,” I retorted.
He was sitting upright and turned towards me before I was done speaking.
“Is that what my mother told you?” he inquired.
“Isn’t it the truth?” I asked.
“Why don’t you ask your husband?”
“I am asking you.”
He watched me for a minute, his Adam's apple visible when he swallowed slowly.
“There are many shades of black, the darkest being to kill women and children, which we are not.”
“Black is black.”
I wished I could talk back like this with Antonio. It was so much easier with Angelo. With Antonio, I was a dimwit without a thought process and a throbbing between my legs.
“Black is black,” Angelo repeated after me. “Sì, except it's not. We don’t harm women, we don’t trade women, we don’t harm children. We don’t even harm men… unless there is no other option.”
“Your mother…”
“My mother was giving word to her dreams,” he snapped, startling me. He sighed at my shock and took a sip of his drink before looking back at me.
“My mother is not the best of women, and that’s putting it kindly. You know this, right?”
He shook the drink in his glass, swirling it softly around, his eyes following the movement. “Why don’t you have some faith in your husband? He is not all that bad as he would like people to believe in. Without him in my life, I would be a different person.”
“Probably not killing people,” I muttered.
He took another gulp of his drink. “Believe it or not, Cosa Nostra is not like it has been pictured in the movies. Especially not with the involvement of my family. We don’t just go around killing innocent men. If they get killed, they ask for it. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a heart. Is he innocent? If you ask me, who is? Although if you ask him, he will tell you that you and Cora are.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
Does my husband really think so highly of me?
He finished his drink and put down his glass, looking at me. “We have very strict moral codes to follow, just like any good company. Some of these rules were brought in by my grandfather, and then my father. Antonio has followed in the tradition. Do you know this is the exact reason they asked him to come to Boston?”
“What?”
“Boston wanted to legalise parts of their business, and our family has been strongly advising for this very step. That is why Antonio came here. To get it set up.”
He picked up his glass. “You know he could have easily killed off Yuliya…” I squeaked, hands flying to my mouth. “No need to panic, cognata. He didn’t, because that’s not what he is. Although many other men would have gladly done that in his place, Cosa Nostra or not.”
