different life for years. It made sense that he would develop skills to help him stay hidden.
Back in the day, it was easier to disappear. Everything wasn’t digital in the old days.
“You got something else to say to me?”
He was staring at me, hard, like he was debating. “You didn’t ask for this,” he rushed out. “But.” He pulled out an envelope from his back pocket, handing it to me. “The second article. It mentioned a little girl. Apparently there was some speculation about what happened to her. Vittorio killed her parents, but no one knew what had happened to her. Her name is or was Marietta Bettina Palermo. Your half-sister.” He shrugged. “Some information is listed for her. Birthday. Blood type. Thought you might want it.”
“How’d you fucking find that?”
“I find everything.” He shrugged. “Even when someone doesn’t want to be found. The guy you’re looking for, it’s not that he doesn’t want to be found. Simply put: he doesn’t exist anymore.”
“What about her?” I said.
He shrugged. “He doesn’t exist and neither does she, except for what I gave you. Or maybe I didn’t give it to you at all. Maybe he let me find it to give to you.”
He was controlling this fucking conversation, too. Everything he gave, he gave for his own reasons.
“Keep looking,” I said.
His eyes narrowed, but after I raised my eyebrow at him, he nodded.
“Yeah, okay, but I don’t think—”
“You’re right,” I said. “That’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s only giving you what he wants me to have.”
Sooner or later, when he was ready for me to find him, he would get in touch with me. Sooner or later, this kid was going to get a message from a ghost, and boo, motherfucker, it was going to be on. He was going to be there when I got close enough. Close enough to touch. Close enough to fucking kill.
33
Alcina
We had spent the day driving around the city in his old Cadillac. Even though his grandparents’ place was big enough, with excess to spare, I felt as if we were repeating history to stay there.
I did not tell Corrado this, but he seemed to sense it. Or perhaps he wanted out for his own reasons. I could sense that, too.
It was hard to put into words, but the house almost felt like a part of the family, but not ours. The other one. It was built to protect secrets, to protect them, but it was not made to keep a family close.
Corrado wanted me to get a feel for the different areas of New York, even though he mentioned staying close to where we were. Instead of buying something already there, he decided that we should build.
“So we can put in hidden rooms?” I turned to face him in the car.
He didn’t respond, so I called his name. He still did not look at me. He was in his own world, and it was only getting worse.
“Don Corrado,” I said with force.
He looked at me then, narrowing his eyes before he turned back to the road. Of course he would respond to that. It was all he was lately.
He nodded. “I feel it’s necessary.”
“You heard me?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I hear everything.”
I cursed in Sicilian.
“That’s why I didn’t answer,” he said. “I don’t want to argue with you. I know where the conversation is going. And I’ll do what I have to do to keep my family safe.”
I shook my head. “My walls will not be stained with the blood of men who had no idea they signed up for a death sentence!” I understood the concept of it, but I refused to live with ghosts. We had enough of them roaming around. “What about Dario Fausti? He’s an architect. He understands this life. He would be trustworthy enough to do it.”
The mention of the Faustis made him visibly change. He became harder, more difficult to read. I knew he had a problem with Rocco, but Dario, his middle brother, was different.
Corrado had a problem with one, and he blamed all. I could trace the vein of it in my mind, like I could reach out and trace one on his arm. It was the same vein where vengeance for my cousin lived—he blamed one man for an entire family’s wrongdoing, not able to see that my cousin had more than one side. Our side was good people.
I sighed, looking out of the window. “If we must have the rooms, and you’d