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Movement draws my attention to my left where, through a doorless frame, Christio Vitale enters wearing a spotless light gray suit. His sinister green eyes meet mine immediately. He walks slowly, befitting a man of his age. As he reaches out to me, I pull away. My resistance only makes him smile. He takes a step closer, and unable to move any farther from him, I flinch as he brings his hand to my split cheek.
“Such a shame,” he says then. “If only you would’ve come willingly, none of this nastiness would’ve been necessary.” At that, he removes his hand and takes a seat across from me.
“Willingly? Why would I go anywhere with you willingly?”
“Well, I am your great-uncle, after all. But you know that, don’t you?”
“What I know is that you are nothing to me.” He laughs and crosses his legs, clasping his hands atop his knee. “Where’s Ray?”
“You needn’t concern yourself with him.”
“Well, I am concerned. Where is he?”
Vitale exhales in frustration. “We left him where we found him.” His careless tone strikes me, setting my mind in a tizzy.
“Alive?” Vitale lifts his hands as if he’s weighing oranges. “You son of a bitch. He had nothing to do with this.”
“This.” Vitale nods, moving his eyes from me to take in our surroundings. “And what do you think you know ofthis, this place, this war—me? Where do you think we are, Ariana?”
As fury radiates inside me, I sit silent. Please, please don’t let Ray be dead. He doesn’t deserve to die. He doesn’t even understand—
“You know, I never wanted any of this. It was my brother, your grandfather, who was involved with Domenico Amato and his business. He was the one who started all of this by allowing himself to believe he could dethrone a dynasty over a century in the making.” At that, Vitale nods and shifts his gaze back to me. “The day this house was engulfed in flames, the day my brother died, was the day he told me of his plans. They weren’t exactly actionable. At the time, Valentina was too young to play her part, at least, the part Carlo wanted her to play.”
“And what part was that? Marry her off to the heir of some competing criminal syndicate? Use their men and arms to take down the Amatos, like you tried to do with Joseph Cullen and the Irish mob?”
“My, my. You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”
“Well, it’s a bit of an unoriginal scheme.”
“You’re right. It was. Mine was so much better, at least before Valentina put it in jeopardy.” He smiles, and the simple gesture pulls my rage from what he may have done to Ray to what he most certainly did to my mother. As memories of the night my mother was killed flash through my mind, a rush of warmth courses through my veins. I am sitting mere feet from the man who took everything from me. It doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t feel real. But it is. As more rain falls from the clouds above, stinging my open wounds, I know I’ve experienced few things more real than this. If only I weren’t restrained, I’d—
“Valentina was beautiful, spirited, and strong—like you, at least before—”
“Before you forced her to be your slave?” My throat is raw as the words scrape through me. Finally, after all this time, I will get the answers I’ve been searching for. Despite everything I’ve learned with Alister’s help and Josephine’s, I want to hear it from the horse’s mouth. I want to know every tragic detail so that when I find my way out of these restraints, and I will, I won’t feel guilty for the things I plan to do to him.
“Your mother understood that the Amatos had to be stopped. When she learned of what Domenico had done, killing her entire family—”
“You mean the lie you told her about an unprovoked attack that not only claimed the lives of your brother and his wife, but your daughter? Right? That’s why you’ve done all of this. That’s why you never stopped.” As I speak, all civility leaves the man with the slicked-back gray hair. Vitale jumps out of his chair and reaches me within seconds. He pulls his arm back and smacks my already bruised and bloody cheek with all his might. “Ah!” I cry out as my head snaps to the right under the weight of the blow.
“You should have a little more respect for the man who provided for you all those years,” Vitale whispers. His breath smells of old cigars laced with whiskey. He’s so close, the mere smell burns my nostrils. I want to tell him to fuck off, that he didn’t provide for me, my mother did. But I don’t. One, because, in a sick way, he sort of did provide. And two, because I’m not ready to take another hit. Vitale backs away from me then, wiping the sweat from his brow with his handkerchief and adjusting the lapels of his suit. How can he be sweating at this temperature? Once collected, Vitale returns to his seat and his story.
“You’re right. I did tell a lie to get her back to New Orleans, because I needed her cooperation, albeit, in a different way than her father planned for her. Carlo sent Valentina away because he didn’t want anyone to know she’d been defiled, let alone been impregnated. But, once I had her back under my thumb, a dead girl no less, I used her in quite the opposite way.” As a wicked grin spreads across Vitale’s face, I press my chapped lips together to keep more antagonizing words inside. I knew it. There’s no way my mother would’ve agreed to the life that befell her in New Orleans, even if she blamed the Amatos for her parents’ deaths. And considering Vitale’s blatant use of force against me, I can imagine he kept my mother in line in a similar way once she realized how he truly planned to use her to take down the Amatos.
“Valentina became a go-between for my spies,” Vitale continues. “They’d visit her without drawing anyone’s suspicion. We all have our whores, after all. When my men would gather new intel on the Amatos, they’d share it with her. The sex she provided was their reward for a job well done. She’d then share the information with me in exchange for a roof over her head, food on the table, and, of course, being able to keep you. It was a system that worked. The more I learned about the Amatos, the more elaborate my scheme to destroy them became and thus, the more drawn out.” At that, Vitale pauses. He lowers his gaze from me to the ground as if lost in thought. Finally, he says, “It’s an indescribable thing to lose the person you love the most. But you know that, don’t you? Your mother was that person for you, just as my daughter…my daughter was that person for me. She was taken from me,” Vitale admits. “Domenico Amato was the one who killed her, but she died because of your mother,” he says, pointing his finger at me.
“How can you blame her? She was just a child.”
“She was a child,” Vitale agrees. “Which is why her pregnancy was such a disgrace. It was that shame that sent Carlo and his family out of the French Quarter to here, two hours away from me and my sweet Veronica. That’s why my daughter was with me the day that I came to see my brother. I hadn’t seen Carlo since the unexpected move, and I wanted to check on him. Veronica missed her cousin, so she asked to tag along. If your mother hadn’t gotten pregnant, they never would’ve moved here. And even if my brother continued with his idiotic scheme, my daughter would not have died that day.”
Vitale turns away from me and blinks away what might be tears. It’s hard to tell in the poor light as the storm clouds above continue to darken and rumble, threatening a downpour rather than the light trickle currently irritating my skin. I could feel bad for him, if he hadn’t retaliated against my mother, who was nothing more than a teenager at the time. There is no excuse for what he did—none. His daughter’s death was tragic, but so was my mother’s and all the pain she suffered before he finally ended her. Not to mention his ruthless assault against Alister and his family. His vendetta against Domenico, I understand, but going after his wife and children…
“When Carlo told me of his plans, I left. I went for a drive to process all he’d said and calm down. I knew that if he went through with it, he’d end up dead, but he wouldn’t listen. He was greedy, stubborn, and stupid. I took my time searching for the right words to convince him to abandon his plans. By the time I made it back to the house, it was already engulfed in flames. There was nothing I could do to save them.” He shakes his head and clears his throat as the memories haunt him. “In the days that followed, everything went seamlessly,too seamlessly. It was immediately ruled an accident even though my brother had just had an inspection done before moving in. And then, when Domenico Amato came to me about taking my brother’s place in the business, I could feel it in my bones—he did this. Somehow, he found out what my brother was up to, and he killed him. I didn’t have proof. In fact, it would be years before I knew with certainty. But the day I accepted Domenico’s offer and took my oath was the day my plan was hatched.” At that, Vitale nods as if thinking back over his greatest hits. It’s sick.
“When my attack against the Amatos failed, I was forced to lay low. And, in doing so, I took pleasure in Domenico’s suffering. Losing his wife broke him. He became paranoid and withdrawn from everyone except his children. He put all his energy into preparing them for the world they’d inherited, mostly Alister. But even the girls were taught things no ordinary Mafia princesses are. He trained Alister to fight and kill. He taught him the ways of the Mafia and of the world. Alister had to be perfect in his mother’s absence, because anything less and his father’s worry for his children would consume him. He wanted to ensure they could take care of themselves so that they wouldn’t suffer the same loss he did. And that’s when it occurred to me. I would not grant Domenico a quick reprieve from heartbreak. I would force him to live without his wife until the day came that I would take what’s left of his family. I would take his children from him, one by one.”
Vitale looks to me then as I absorb his words. This explains why Alister is so afraid of love, no, afraid of loss. It’s not just because of the pain of his mother’s untimely death, but because of the pain his father suffered as he was forced to live without her. Alister had to be strong because the death of his mother broke his father. And ever since, he’s been afraid of suffering the same pain. Perhaps even afraid of neglecting those in his care because of his all-consuming grief. And most obviously, he’s afraid of not being perfect. He’s afraid anything less will put his sisters in jeopardy, a feeling I’m sure was only intensified after Cara’s death.
“It’s a pity cancer took Domenico before he had a chance to witness what I had planned for his children. Nevertheless, his death did not ease the pain of losing my daughter. Perhaps nothing ever will. But I am owed Amato blood for Domenico’s hand in Veronica’s death. And Amato blood, I will take.”
