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Why? It’s a good question. One I’d ask myself if I were in her position. “Because she was volatile, Elise. And we weren’t prepared for her. Hadn’t run a check, nothing.”
She sits up suddenly, spilling the water all over herself. “Did you bring her to the dungeon?” The tone of her voice suggests that’d be unthinkable.
I shake my head. “No. Why would we?”
“I don’t know,” she says coolly, looking away. “You put me there.”
“And for good damn reason, Elise. You know why we did.”
Her eyes meet mine in bold challenge. “And if you had it to do again, would you?”
“Absolutely.”
Shock flits across her features. Her jaw drops open, and her eyes are wide and frightened. “Why, Tavi?” I don’t miss the reproach in her voice. I expected as much, but it still stabs my heart.
“Because I did then what I thought I had to. And with the knowledge I had then, I’d do the same. But you have to understand, Elise.” I hold her to me. “My loyalty to my family is more important than anything.”
“Even to me?” she asks in a little voice.
“Baby,” I say warmly, holding her to me. “Why do you think we marry? Why do you think I wanted to take vows with you now instead of waiting four weeks?”
“Well,” she says thoughtfully. “It wasn’t because you wanted to have sex, because nothing came in the way of that.”
I kiss her temple. “Right. You’re my family now, Elise. It’s why I wanted to take vows early. Why it mattered to me. Because we have oaths that we take, all of us, and I couldn’t make you as important to me as I can now, before I took those oaths.”
“Ah,” she says softly. “I understand.”
I’m not sure if she really does. I’m not sure anyone outside my circle of brothers ever does.
“What are the oaths you take?”
“We take many,” I tell her. “And we seal them in blood. We don’t ever go back on the oaths we take. I can tell you some but not all of them. You know all of us take vows of silence, obedience, fidelity.”
It’s late at night, and we’ll arrive in Tuscany well past midnight. Her eyes are heavy and drooping. It will be better for her if she sleeps now, before we touch down. Her medicine’s kicking in.
I want to tell her everything. I need to tell her about Piero. It’s my hope and prayer that preparing her for the truth by telling her about my loyalty to the Rossi brotherhood, the truth about having no regrets with her imprisonment, and the promise that we’ve forgiven the past as we embrace the present, will prepare her for what I’ll tell her myself.
“Tavi?”
“Mmm?”
“How exactly did you leave things with my mother?”
“I told her I’d talk with you, and that after I did, I’d get back in touch with her.”
“Oh.”
She plays with the wedding band on my finger. “It’s a nice ring,” she says with a soft smile. She spins the gold back and forth. “So it wasn’t my mother in the dungeon, then.”
“No.”
I can’t tell if that pleases or disappoints her. There’s a pause, and she swallows hard before she asks, “Who was it, then?”
“I don’t know, baby. No idea.”
“And if you did know…” she begins.
“I wouldn’t tell you unless it involved you. But I wouldn’t lie.” I really don’t know the answer to the question.
Slowly, she nods. I hope she’s starting to understand where I’m coming from.
“Isn’t failing to tell someone the truth the same as actually lying, though?”
My guilty conscience plagues me. If that were the case, I’ve been lying to her from the beginning. I frown. “Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no.”
“I get it, Tavi. I do,” she says. “I mean, I think I do.” But growing up in the mob doesn’t mean we lived parallel lives. Her family was very different from mine, and even though we have many similarities, they aren’t the same. “Still… What does my mother want from me?” She makes a sound of disgust and looks out the small window, as the plane’s wings dip to the side. I hold her tighter.
“I don’t know, but she said something about the inheritance and you getting a share.”
“Inheritance? Like I fucking care about any of that.” She wrinkles up her nose. “She can keep it.”
“Even the shop in Copley?”
Her eyes widen a bit and she shakes her head. “Bitch better leave my shop alone.”
That makes me smile.
“We’ll look into why she came, while we finish our business here,” I tell her, threading my arm over her shoulders. I’ve told myself from the beginning that she couldn’t know everything that happened, that our marriage was a marriage of convenience and nothing more.
I also told myself I couldn’t ever really love someone. I couldn’t become vulnerable, and open myself to the prospect of being hurt.
