high brow furrowed sympathetically. “Not before she met me, and not after.”
He was right. She’d never really needed anyone.
Not even her daughter.
“Then she met my father,” I continued with a catch in my voice. “And he called her bella, and I think she may have loved him because she’s never told me his name, and I was born. And then you came back.”
“I’d been working like a fiend—forming connections in Hell’s Kitchen, watching the Corleonesi spread like an infection.” He propped his elbow against his wrist. “Growing powerful enough to make a difference. When I considered branching uptown to Little Italy, I started taking long walks—just soaking it in, the Raines law hotels and tenements and street vendors. One day I saw Catrin again, and. Couldn’t look away. We’d never suit each other, but instead of evading her, I planted myself in her path. When your mother nearly ran into me, she set her hands on her hips, laughed, and invited me back to the Step Right.”
This brought the specter of a smile to my face.
Of course she did.
“Which is where I learned about you,” he added.
Swallowing, I let the pigeon pass from one of my hands to the other, back and forth. I thought of the day I was shot at the Tobacco Club, of my guardian’s words just before he killed the little brown bird.
People will do practically anything for you, just so long as they believe they’re on the right side.
“You were ferocious when I first saw you,” he said wistfully. “Screaming at one of Catrin’s johns to give you back your favorite handkerchief. As you grew older, you grew less visible, but never less alive. And you were always watching.”
“And you felt alone.”
“Yes.”
“So you took me.”
“Not precisely,” he corrected, sipping his drink.
“You killed three people.” My knuckles were crushed against my mouth, the pigeon cupped against my chest. “No, it was four. You killed Nicolo, that day. The person he was died.”
“It’s natural for you to think so.” Mr. Salvatici inclined his head. “I admit, I didn’t expect the results to prove so drastic. Rebellion, open defiance? Rage, even? I hoped for that. Did I expect this . . . twisted mechanism of a person to be born? No.”
“How could you,” I whispered. “No—don’t answer that. You were telling a story.”
The dash of his lips tilted.
“You wanted a world where people fought back against the unspeakable, so you did something unspeakable to make them fight.”
He lifted one shoulder. “When my father’s torso was slit from his breastbone to his cock by the Family, and he was left to rot in our vineyard, it was the crows’ screeching that led us to him. He’d been crawling for the house with his entrails in one hand. I’m happy to tell you he didn’t get very far. The event became a source of . . . motivation for me. As far as the Benenati family is concerned, I admit I needed a catalyst. But I am sorry all the same, my dear young lady.”
We were silent for a spell. Just the bird nipping my sweater, and the delicate scrolled rail, and the memory of Harry Chipchase begging that Nicolo kill him rather than leave him to the mercy of my guardian.
Just don’t turn me over to the boss. I’s seen what he can do.
Mr. Salvatici cleared his throat. “The Veuve Clicquot was a conciliatory gesture, but it was also a celebratory one. While you were at the Cabin, I traced the missing counterfeit. It was stolen by a police captain with a certain enthusiasm for gambling, and luckily for us he indulges at our faro palace on a Hundred and Tenth. When he showed up far more flush than usual, I was notified—oh, he’s quite all right, I simply removed it from his keeping and elicited a promise to think of us fondly in future, considering what we know about him. He hadn’t spent much yet. There’s approximately fifty thousand dollars in immaculate bills in my bedroom safe. I’m quite admiring of the craftsmanship. The cops only seized it in the first place as part of a liquor raid.”
“Congratulations.”
“Don’t sound like that.”
“Why not?”
“All right, forgive me, you’re . . . tired, overwhelmed. Perhaps even bitter. But because I want you to invest it.”
Raising my eyes in astonishment, I sat dumbstruck as the bird flapped out of my hands and landed on a metal curl beside my guardian.
“In a saloon, a casino, a racetrack, anything that interests you. Nobody, it’s