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5
The apartment wasquiet when Aria walked in after running errands. She was still spending time at the community garden, but with less and less to do there she was already remembering how difficult it was to fill her time during the off months. She’d spent the morning shopping for groceries and choosing a wedding gift for one of the men who was getting married. She’d set everything up to be delivered, then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the Brooklyn flea. Primo would never let her use any of the things she found there — his tastes ran to glass and steel, chrome and concrete — but she loved running her hands over the worn wood of old furniture, checking the markings on vintage china to see if she could place them, holding old crystal up to the autumn light. She was lucky she’d talked Primo into the apartment in the financial district. With its prewar architecture, it was more her style than his. She considered the antiseptic nature of his chosen decor a compromise.
She set down her bag and made her way toward the living room.
It was after five and the electronic shades that covered the big windows overlooking the river were already drawn, casting the expansive room in shadow. It took her a few moments to notice the figure stretched out on the couch, one arm folded over a sheath of papers on his chest. She crossed the room quietly, coming to a stop when she reached the sofa.
Primo’s face looked different in repose. Softer and younger. He still slept with abandon, one arm suspended over the wood floors as if he’d fallen asleep while reaching for something on the coffee table. She used to watch him like this when they were kids, hoping for a glimpse into the enigma that was his mind. It hadn’t helped. He was as much a mystery to her asleep as when he was awake.
The papers on his chest were face down, sliding toward the floor. She reached down, pulled them out from under his arm. When she turned them over in her hand, she saw that they were maps of the city, some neighborhoods circled in red. She was still trying to figure out their meaning when Primo stirred.
“You’re back,” he said.
She smiled, set the papers down on the coffee table. “Just got in.”
He pulled up his legs, making room for her on the other end of the couch. “Sit,bella. I missed you today.”
She lowered herself to the couch and lifted his feet into her lap. He’d used the term of endearment often when she was a teenager still reeling from the death of their parents. His kindness had appeared more often then, and they’d spent every Friday night ordering in Chinese and watching movies, always her choice. He’d been indulgent and tender with her. Had made her feel safe at a time when feeling safe was next to impossible.
She rested her hands on his feet, still in her lap. “You can always come with me, you know.”
She said it in spite of the fact that she couldn’t imagine spending that kind of time with Primo anymore. Wandering the flea market, laughing over the ridiculously expensive wedding gifts at Tiffany… it all seemed beyond him now. A world that existed on a shore far from the island of Primo’s madness.
His transformation from protective older brother had been so subtle she hadn’t noticed the breadth of it until it was too late. She hadn’t been a child when he’d taken over her care. Had known even then he was getting into some shady activity.
But it had been for her. For them.
He’d struggled to support them at first, and she’d been too willing to look the other way, to make excuses for him and what he was doing in the interest of her own survival. Her worry had been overshadowed by relief that they could pay the rent without worry, that there was always food in the fridge, that she could afford to go to college. Going to school in the city and living at home instead of the dorms hadn’t even felt like a sacrifice.
The four years she’d spent studying, majoring in psychology, had made it easy to ignore the implications of their increasingly lavish lifestyle. Before she knew it, she’d graduated and Primo had moved them to the luxury apartment downtown. By then Malcolm had already been on the scene, her place as Primo’s number one confidant usurped by a man even Primo seemed to know little about.
“I had work to do,” he said, glancing at his chest as if he’d just remembered the papers he’d been reading when he fell asleep.
“I set them on the coffee table,” she said. “They were on their way to the floor.”
“Did you read them?”
He looked at her through narrowed eyes and her heart clutched in her chest. She knew the expression well. It meant that the switch inside him was on the verge of flipping. That he was perilously close to morphing from her brother Primo to Primo the erratic and dangerous criminal.
She suspected bipolar disorder, and possibly a personality disorder. She’d tried to suggest the benefits of professional help during his more vulnerable and honest moments, but they were always met with a breathtaking anger she recognized as denial. There was no point in having the conversation under those circumstances; people who didn’t want help rarely benefitted from having it pushed on them unless they were hospitalized against their will.
And that was something she could never do to him.
“I just glanced at them when I put them down,” she said. “Why are you looking at maps of the city?”
He seemed to relax back into the sofa. “It’s business,bella. Don’t worry.”
She hesitated, not wanting to break the peace that felt increasingly fragile between them for reasons she couldn’t decipher.
“I do worry," she finally said.
He met her eyes across the gray light of the living room. “Don’t.”
She searched her mind for the words that would explain without setting him off.
“I know what we do isn’t legal.” Her use of the pronoun wasn’t an accident. She might not commit the crimes, but she did more than look the other way when they were committed. She provided support and shelter to the organization that allowed for their perpetuation, for the man who commanded they be done. “I just don’t want to lose you, Primo.”
She held her breath, exhaled in relief when he reached for her hand. “Nothing will happen, Ari. Everything is under control.”
