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“Yup.” I say.
“Some of his soldiers caused a scene last night. We dropped their bodies off to Darragh early this morning,” Curse adds from behind her. He leaves his station by the door and sits down in the other chair across from my desk.
“Shit,” Valentina whispers. It’s hard to tell with the makeup, but I’m pretty sure I can see some of the blood drain out of her face. “I guess she doesn’t really have nothing, then. Because she’s got one hell of an enemy.”
I already know what she’s thinking. It’s the same shit I’m going to hear from Uncle Vinny when he finds out about all this. That Deirdre isn’t worth it, that no amount of tight Irish pussy is worth risking a fucking war with Mad Darragh.
But when Valentina speaks again, her voice firm with conviction, her words surprise me.
And I have to admit, they kind of make me proud, too.
“Good,” she says with a decisive nod. “You’ll marry her and in doing so can give her the protection of our resources, our name. She’ll be a Titone and nobody will wanna fuck with her.”
I give her a crooked smile.
“Anybody ever tell you that you’re real fucking smart?” I ask her.
She snorts.
“Only Mamma every damn day of my life.” She frowns prissily in an imitation of my Zizi, Aunt Carlotta. “‘A man doesn’t need a wife with a clever mind and a filthy mouth, Valentina! He needs one who knows how to make decent pasta alla norma!’”
“Pasta alla norma is pretty fucking good,” I reply.
“Well, maybe if I ever learn how to make it, I can teach your wife to make it too,” she says sourly.
Your wife.
Fuck, does it ever feel good to hear somebody else say it. And now I can’t stop picturing Deirdre in my kitchen, lovingly cooking me a meal. Not that she’ll ever have to do that if she doesn’t want to. I’ve got Rosa and other people for that.
But I still can’t shake the image. My sweet little Songbird stirring a pot, maybe even in an apron or some cute shit like that.
As long as she doesn’t put poison in it, we’ll be goddamn golden.
“Deal,” I tell her. “But first we gotta make everything official. Starting with this.” I jab a black finger at my computer screen, gesturing at the various white and pink and red rectangles with their fancy writing. The computer screen looks like Valentine’s Day threw up on it, and then I blink, because Valentine’s Day is actually really soon, and for the first time in my life I actually might want to do something to mark the day.
Elio Titone celebrating Valentine’s Day. Goddamn elementary school shit. It’s so fucking saccharine it makes my teeth hurt.
And I don’t even care. Because Deirdre is mine in every single way and that means she’s my valentine, too.
“Alright,” Valentina says. “What kind of announcement are we talking about, anyway? The wording is going to vary depending on if it’s something for, like, social media versus an engagement announcement that goes into a newspaper.”
I stare at her flatly. Social media? Is she for real?
Not that I don’t have accounts, because I do. Anonymous burner accounts I use to keep track of Deirdre’s profiles. But she’s not very active online, so I don’t use them much, anyway.
“Right,” my cousin says, reading my look. “So newspaper-style, then?”
“Yes,” I confirm. “We’ll be sending it out to all our contacts in the media as soon as it’s done. Get them to plaster press releases all over their website homepages and get it printed in tomorrow’s paper editions.”
She nods, all business, then grabs some spare paper and a pen from my desk, beginning to make notes.
“Typically, newspaper announcements like that are from the point of view of the parents,” she explains. “Like, So and So are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter. That kind of thing.”
“No. Not like that,” I say. I don’t want Deirdre’s papà or mine listed, because neither of them has a name worthy of being printed beside hers. And I doubt my Uncle Vinny and Zizi, who are essentially my adoptive parents, will want to be listed when they don’t know this thing is even being written in the first place.
“Make it from my perspective,” I tell Valentina. “Elio Titone is pleased to announce his engagement to Deirdre O’Malley… Is there a better word than pleased?”
Pleased sounds too… lame. I’m pleased when one of my capos follows my instructions to the letter, or when the car shop does a great job detailing one of my vehicles. There’s something too distant and sterile about it to be used in the context of marrying Deirdre.
