our regular table. She was the only one who wasn’t outright cold. I wondered how much she knew, but more so—how much would she talk if persuaded?
Giuseppe Parisi came out of the kitchen when he heard Nunzio ordering drinks. He always did. He wanted to make sure that I knew that he knew I was there.
I nodded at him, as usual, and as usual, he stared at me a moment before he started to grin—no. He wasn’t grinning this time. His eyes narrowed even lower, his mouth pinched into a tight line, and his head tilted to the left, like he was studying me harder.
After a second, he threw his hand in the air, like he was disgusted, and then disappeared into the kitchen.
Nunzio had started to place our usual order with the young waitress, and I was barely listening, until Adriano nudged me with his arm. My eyes moved to the waitress, who was listening to Nunzio but staring at me.
I smiled at her and her cheeks flushed. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, constantly nodding at what he was saying. He was ordering seafood dishes and a bottle of Amaro Averna for after dinner. Even after he finished, she kept staring at me.
“Your name?” I asked her in Sicilian.
“Calista,” she said, her voice soft, her eyes lowered. She tucked another strand of hair behind her ear.
“Ah. Beautiful.” I grinned. “Ask her if she’s lived here long,” I said to Nunzio.
I had most of the Sicilian language, because I grew up listening to it and speaking it in certain circles, but Nunzio was born and raised in Sicily. Adriano had even less than I did.
Nunzio spoke the words to her. She nodded, answering.
“All of her life,” he said to me.
“Do you know the Parisi family well?”
Nunzio looked between her and I, his eyebrows drawing down, but then asked her. As soon as the question was out, she looked toward the doors to the kitchen and then back at me. She bit her lip, going for her hair again, and nodded at me once she realized the coast was clear.
I kept my eyes connected to hers, cleared my throat, about to whisper the most important question to her, when a loud voice from the back made her jump clear off the ground.
“Calista!” Giuseppe shouted, looking between the two of us. Her name was followed by a string of Sicilian words too fast for me to follow. The girl’s cheeks turned bright red and she hurried off to the kitchen. A few minutes later, she came back out and started readying a table facing the sea for what seemed like a few guests.
She refused to look at me again.
“Hah!” Giuseppe Parisi said, watching me. He crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head.
I grinned, turning my face away from his and toward the older guy who set our food down. “Tell me what that was about,” I said to Nunzio.
A piece of octopus dangled from his fork. It jiggled when he paused to answer me. “He told her to stop flirting and get back to work.”
“The way he looks at you, Corrado,” Adriano said, taking a bite of pasta, “you’d think he wants to poison you.”
Nunzio’s fork stopped close to his plate, going for another bite, and stayed that way for a minute. He looked between Giuseppe and me and then put his fork down, wiping his mouth after. He’d finally caught on to why I never ate a bite from this place. I only drank from the bottle after we opened it ourselves.
Nunzio opened his mouth but snapped it shut when Nicodemo Leonardi walked through the door of the restaurant, stopping for a second to look for me. He nodded once when he saw me, heading toward our table.
Nicodemo Leonardi had few friends but many enemies. He didn’t work for one family, but for himself. Some called him “Bones.”
Underneath his white dress shirt, I could see the stark black lines of ink running along his collarbone, forming the Latin words: Veni. Vidi. Vici. “I came. I saw. I conquered.” He had the same tattoo twice, but with the words in a different place and in a different order: I saw. I conquered. I came.
When I was younger and I’d come to visit my grandparents’ family in Italy during the summers, Tito Sala had introduced us. There were no real friends in this life, but Nicodemo and I had an understanding.
I stood, and when he was close