The band was going full tilt on “The Darktown Strutters’ Ball,” and he was tapping fast enough to set the stage on fire.
I’ve got some good news, honey,
An invitation to the Darktown Ball,
It’s a very swell affair,
All the “high-browns” will be there,
I’ll wear my high silk hat and frock tail coat . . .
“So if you’ll excuse me, there are arrangements to be made. I’m calling in a favor from your old childhood friend Nicolo Benenati.”
That got my attention.
Rye, with an impossible smile on his face—one beginning to be toxically wide—was just finishing a step so intricate I couldn’t even see it. But I turned to the Spider, who had planted himself companionably beside me. He closed the thin seam of his mouth around his champagne glass.
“Whatever for?” I asked.
“He hates the Clutch Hand, and by extension, Sammy the Saint.”
“Of course he does. But why wouldn’t you use one of your men?”
A pucker formed between Mr. Salvatici’s dark brows, a fond but admonishing expression. “Because Benenati is too powerful to keep at arm’s length any longer.”
He brushed his hand across my hairline, the commonest of his affectionate gestures and one that always soothed me. And Mum had been right. The Spider never looked at me the way my occasional gadabout beaus did. The way I wanted Rye to. Despite everything, in his own unique fashion, I truly think he loved me the whole time.
It’s better for me to believe that, and it doesn’t do anyone any harm. I’d curl into a shell and never emerge otherwise.
“Ah. Here he is now, right on schedule.”
My heart gave a jolt, and not the sort it suffered whenever Rye called me “darlin’.” For Nicolo Benenati stood below us, on the spotless new Venetian-tiled floors. Placidly removing thin leather gloves, flanked by his gang’s lieutenants: Dario Palma, Cleto the Crow, and Doctor Vinnie.
“I didn’t know our Sammy problem would be accelerated in quite this manner, but it’s timely that I made contact with him,” my guardian said calmly. “Now an introduction will simply become a meeting. Have him join me upstairs, will you?”
I swallowed an intemperate gulp of champagne.
“You can manage him, my dear young lady.” He patted my shoulder. “Just don’t disappear with this one. He watches you too close.”
The song ended, Rye struck a final triumphant pose, and the entire Salvatici outfit erupted in heady applause. The Spider made for the discreet stairs to his office.
And then Nicolo raised his eyes, found mine, and he smiled.
For an instant, nothing had changed. His ax-like profile was chiseled at age twenty-three, his lean physique filled out, his raw charisma undiminished. He was the leader of a sinister brotherhood—one ruled by his own iron fist, universally terrifying, and avoided even by the likes of the Clutch Hand’s impressive array of scurmi fituzzi, allowed to operate on the outermost edges of what passed for law in our streets. His mother lived quietly above the cigar shop Nazario managed. And I lived avoiding Nicolo, because I could see the death’s mask behind his sallowing skin and I was still tied to him in that almost musical way childhood friends are. When you hear the same song on the air whenever you’re in the same room, because you share a set of interlocking memories like bass and treble notes on a page.
Then Dario touched his shoulder, and the smile froze, and all that was left was the body of my old friend.
I started down the stairs.
After slaughtering Giuseppe Morello’s horse, he’d divided his time between gathering darkness around himself like a cloak, punctuated by rumors of unspeakable violence, and seeking me out. But when he saw I was cared for with Mr. Salvatici, I think he smelled blood on his own hands and stopped trying as ardently. Or maybe murdering cagnolazzi and recruiting his vicious pack dogs took precedence. I didn’t know. I cared deeply, but not knowing felt safer. I didn’t want him kissing me again, didn’t want the ghost ring I could see on my left hand whenever he glanced at it. So our meetings eventually were reduced to a quick embrace in the streets as I stammered excuses and he regarded me as if to say, I know. But I must do this.
I remember how we used to be, and I know.
Dario and his repellent friends fell away respectfully when I approached. Nothing to do with yours very truly, naturally. But they’d sooner cut off their own noses than offend Nicolo Benenati.
“Alicia.”
Nicolo kissed me on either