then you’re not as smart as Peter gives you credit for.” Her lips quivered as she fought the urge to cry. “And if it wasn’t for Peter, you’d have been dead six months ago.”
It was all starting to dawn on me. “Peter didn’t have anything to do with any of this?” I asked, not really understanding any of it but coming to the conclusion anyway.
“No,” she said.
I decided to go for broke. “What’s he going to do when he finds out that you’ve been ordering hits on your own?” Peter was in charge of the family and, if I had my Mafia rules straight, only he could order a hit.
A look passed across her face, but I had no idea what it meant. “Why would you think that I couldn’t order a hit?” she asked.
“Because Peter’s in charge,” I said.
“You think Peter had something to do with all of this? You think Peter’s in charge?” she asked, wonder in her voice. “Huh,” she said, amazed that I had drawn that conclusion. She regained her composure. “I’m always amazed that nobody has figured this out. And especially you, Alison. Peter’s always talking about how smart you are. Let me fill you in on something, Alison: Peter is a moron.” She blessed herself—the name of the Father, son, and Holy Spirit. “God forgive me.”
I knew that he was a moron but I wasn’t convinced it made him any less deadly. “I have a hard time believing that, Gianna. He runs the largest organized-crime family in the tristate area. He couldn’t be that much of a dope.”
“Oh, he is.” She laughed, and it was one of those moments where, if she wasn’t going to kill me minutes later, we would have had a great chuckle over all of it. Peter the moron. The imbecile.
I had one of those moments of clarity that usually only happens in the seconds prior to waking up. Where it seems like everything is crystal clear but you come to find later that you were really sleeping, almost dreaming, and not quite awake. I waited a few seconds to see if I would wake up and all of this would be forgotten, but I was still in the same place and confronted with the same horrors. I felt my energy start to flag and I grabbed Bea’s hand for support.
Gianna let the gun drop to her side. “I’m in charge, Alison. I always have been. Do you think my father would have turned the family over to Peter Miceli?” she said, amazed that I would have thought otherwise. “But it’s still a man’s world in the family. We needed a figurehead. And that’s how I ended up married to Peter. He really was the logical choice given my father’s loyalty to Joe Miceli.”
“It was an arranged marriage,” I said, stunned.
She nodded. “Of sorts. I have a soft spot for the guy, but nothing approximating passion,” she said. “I had passion once. For Sal Paccione.” I remembered Sal from our college days; he had disappeared one day, never to reappear. She picked the gun up and pointed it at me again. “And we know what happened to him.”
Yes, we do, I thought.
“Of course, that’s not to say I like the thought of Peter being in love with someone else,” she said pointedly. She held the gun chest high and steadied it.
“Why did you kill Terri?” I asked.
She looked confused. “Who’s Terri?”
“My neighbor. Terri Morrison. I found her a few days ago.”
“That is something that I know absolutely nothing about.”
“But the hands and feet…” I didn’t have the energy to protest so I dropped it. I would be dead and nobody would know whether or not I had gotten Gianna’s confession. In what I assumed were my final moments on the earth, I thought of Max and Trixie. An image of my father in his UPS uniform flashed before my eyes as did my mother in all of her incredible Gallic beauty. And I saw Crawford, shaking his head sadly, but smiling at me. I choked back a sob. “Please, Gianna. I’m begging you. Let us go.”
“Alison, I might have considered that but now you know way too much.” She shook her head, chagrined. “Way too much.” She leveled the gun at me and I felt my knees go weak. “How far we’ve come,” she mused.
Bea squeezed my hand.
Franco finally spoke and Gianna turned to the sound of his voice. I had never heard him speak, so I was surprised to