do we go from here?”
“I’m going to spoil you, angel eyes,” he said, weighing my breasts in his hands as they floated close to the surface of the water. He caressed my nipples with his thumbs. “After breakfast, we’ll do some shopping. I’ve already arranged it. You need clothes, and the house needs furniture.”
I forced myself to focus on him and not what he was doing to my body again. “I mean in the future. Your grandfather. What he meant about you going home and taking his place. When?”
After his grandfather had said it, I heard Adriano call Corrado the future Don Capitani. Corrado had told me he had enemies in New York, and I was no fool to his business, but I wanted to know what was going to happen now that we were married. Would it take years or months for his problems in America to be resolved? Or was our future in Italy just as uncertain as anything else?
His hands moved to my back, and he swam us around for a while before he answered me. “It depends.”
I nodded. “You will be Don Capitani after we get to New York,” I said, staring into his eyes.
He nodded once.
“You are so…young,” I said.
“Age is just a number.” Then he said something about not being the youngest in history.
“What about the bul—Junior?”
He studied my face for a second. “He won’t be a problem.”
I grinned at him, but it was weak. It bothered me that he did not trust me with this part of his life. Not fully. “Nothing is a problem for Don Capitani,” I said.
“Not a fucking thing,” he said, his answer quick and solid.
I looked away from him, staring into the distance at the mountains, wondering how that was going to work. I was not afraid of the bull, but I did not want to see him either. The bull’s patri seemed even more eager to make me pay than his son.
Corrado turned my face toward his, his grip firm, staring into my eyes for a second before he tilted his head. “Tell me you trust me, Alcina.”
“I trust you.” It was them that I did not trust.
He shook his head. “You trust me what?” He turned his ear closer to my face.
“I trust you, Don Capitani,” I breathed in his ear.
“That mouth is going to get you into fucking trouble, mia moglie.” My wife. Then he dunked me under the water. I could hear him laughing as I started to resurface, the sound of it deep and raspy.
19
Alcina
Corrado had a car waiting to take us to Milan after our morning swim. I asked him what kind of car it was. He said it was an Aston Martin Vantage. It was not sleek, but strong and sporty.
It sounded like an animal on the hunt as it raced against the twisting and turning roads that led us closer to the city. Since it only had two seats, Nunzio and Adriano stayed close behind in a fast car of their own. More men followed behind them in a van.
“I have never seen you without them,” I said.
“My grandfather ordered them to stay with me,” he said. “Extra protection.”
“These men, these enemies—they really want you dead.”
He wore sunglasses, but I could tell he glanced at me from the side of his eye.
“I am not made of glass, remember?” I reminded him.
“No, you proved that last night.”
I lifted a finger. “This morning, too.”
A slow grin came to his face before he answered me. “They do. My cousin Bugsy figured out that a man who was working for him was using his casino in Vegas to auction women. We don’t fucking stand for that.”
“So you killed him.”
“Them,” he corrected. “But yeah, that’s the short version of how things went down.”
“I have time for the long version.”
He reached across the seat and took my chin in his hand, stroking the side of my jaw. I wrapped my hands around his fingers, stopping him. “I am your wife,” I said in Sicilian. “I am sworn to the same secrets you are. I am bound by this life. I am here to be your highest council.”
He squeezed my fingers, bringing them to his mouth, placing a long, warm kiss on my wedding rings. He stared out of the window for a few minutes, taking the turns as if he were a born racer. He cleared his throat. “Sì.” He nodded. “You are my wife. My secret keeper,” he said, answering me in the same language.