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That, or you’re in the fucking ground.
I follow Curse out of the room. As I pass the door that leads to Deirdre’s quarters, my inhale is a little too hard, my heartbeat just a little too quick. I shake it off and head for the stairs.
Curse and I reach the ground floor, passing several guards who nod and mutter deferential greetings as we head for my office at the back of the house. My office door is open, and I can already see Uncle Vinny, Zizi, and Valentina inside. Zizi and Uncle Vinny are seated in the large leather armchairs in front of my desk, while Valentina wanders the room, inspecting the bookcases lining the walls.
Valentina sees me first, her blonde head turning just as I enter the room.
“Elio!” she says warmly, coming around the desk to greet me. Though she’s my cousin, she’s more like a younger sister. Her parents raised Curse and me as their own, even going so far as to give us their last name. Or maybe they didn’t really give us the name Titone. We just took back Mamma’s name from before she married the man who’d be the death of her.
Valentina stops short, letting her father greet me first. Uncle Vinny rises from the chair and clasps his hands to either side of my face. I lean down to kiss him on each cheek before turning and doing the same to Zizi, then Valentina. Even though it’s past two in the morning, and I don’t know if they’ve come from a New Year’s Eve party or they’ve just rolled out of bed for this, both Valentina and Aunt Carlotta are coiffed and poised. Their hair is perfectly in place – Valentina’s natural dark blonde brightened by bleach, Zizi’s dyed a deep burgundy colour. Their faces are streaked with all kinds of powdery stuff in shades of pink and bronze and black.
They both love that shit. I wouldn’t be surprised if my cousin and aunt are single-handedly keeping Canada’s cosmetics industry alive. I asked Valentina to help prepare Deirdre’s quarters – she’s the one who chose all the décor – and she filled the bathroom with about eight thousand dollar’s worth of lotions and potions. It baffles me that soaps and shampoos could possibly cost that much, but I know they do, because it was all charged to my credit card.
Idly, I wonder if Deirdre is using any of the stuff in the bathroom yet. If she’s naked and scrubbing herself or if she’ll sit in my blood just a little bit longer.
I’m not sure which idea appeals to me more.
I don’t get to dwell on it long. Now that the kissing and greetings are out of the way, my uncle gets right down to business.
“So, what the fuck happened tonight?”
Unlike Morelli, Uncle Vinny speaks English and French fluently, though with a much stronger accent than me. When we first settled in Canada, we lived in Montreal, and my uncle pushed himself to learn the languages as swiftly as possible. Zizi did the same – she watched English and French soap operas all day long for years to learn. I’m pretty sure she still watches them, actually. Just doesn’t need the subtitles now.
I walk over to my desk and seat myself at the high-backed leather chair there. Zizi sits back down, as does Uncle Vinny. He’s much shorter than Curse and me – we got our height from Papà, and Vincenzo is our mamma’s brother.
Was our mamma’s brother. Twenty years later and it still sometimes feels wrong to say was.
But even so, even a head shorter and sitting down in a chair, Vincenzo Titone fills the space. At fifty-five years old, he’s only just started going grey at the temples, the rest of his hair coal-black like Curse’s and mine. And like Mamma’s. His eyes are sharp, and he’s built like a bull, broad-shouldered and bulky, wearing a perfectly tailored Brunello Cucinelli suit.
“Had to go get something of mine,” I reply coolly.
Uncle Vinny’s forehead wrinkles.
“The money you lent that Irish accountant? What the hell’s his name again?”
“Jack O’Malley.”
“Well, did you get it?”
Valentina’s honey-brown eyes flash to mine. She knows what I know. That I never had any real intention of recouping that money. That I went for something, someone, else.
“Nope,” I say. My shoulder throbs. As does my head. So, like any reasonable man, I take out a bottle of whiskey from the shelf beside my desk. I almost grab Scottish whiskey, but at the last moment go for Irish in honour of my songbird. I grab two scotch glasses, fill them, and raise a brow at my uncle, but he shakes his head and grunts. Valentina reaches for one of the glasses.
“That’s not an appropriate drink for a young lady,” Uncle Vinny says, pinning her with a hard stare. Valentina smiles, and I want to say it’s sweet, but it’s not. Not really.
She grabs the drink and holds it aloft in a cheery sort of salute. “If I’m old enough to get engaged, I’m old enough to drink whiskey.”
“Engaged?” I ask. It’s the first I’m hearing about this. But as Valentina takes a swig from the glass, I notice the monstrosity of a ring on her finger. I’d have to be blind to miss it – that thing could be seen from outer fucking space. There’s a giant pink diamond in the centre surrounded by two circles of smaller pink diamonds, all perched on a rose gold band inlaid with yet more pink diamonds. It looks less like a ring and more like a fucking cupcake to me, but what the hell do I know? Valentina loves pink, and diamonds, so maybe she likes it.
“Now that she’s eighteen it’s time she does her duty to la famiglia,” Uncle Vinny says. “Marry well and help grow the Titone empire.”
I watch Valentina’s face carefully as Uncle Vinny speaks, trying to gauge her reactions. She looks vaguely annoyed, but not overly upset. It’s not like she hasn’t been groomed for this by her parents since birth, but still, I want to make sure she isn’t too unhappy about her husband-to-be.
I still remember the day she was born. I was sixteen and she was a wrinkled little thing who could scream the goddamn house down. I was the third person to hold her, and as my lanky teenage arms tried to awkwardly get her into a comfortable position, she promptly shit on my chest. Staking her claim and telling subtlety to go fuck itself. I smirk at the memory.
Valentina’s a force to be reckoned with, but my protective instinct towards her runs deep, and I ask, “Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Dario Fabbri,” Zizi says, beaming nervously, her eyes flicking back and forth between Valentina and Vinny. She’s always been the peace-keeper, trying to smooth over disagreements between her powerful husband and headstrong daughter. “We’ll announce it after Valentina’s nineteenth birthday in the summer.”
