Mercenary (Gangsters of New York #3) - Bella Di Corte Page 0,82

eyes and mouth. Since he cared enough to send them to my wife as a warning, and put my family—my wife and baby, my little cousin—in danger, I’d care enough to give them back to him.

“Nunzio,” I said, taking a card out of my desk. I flipped it around my fingers, thinking about the fuck who offered my wife candy. I had asked one of my younger guys if “candy” was code for sex these days. If it had been, Halifax would have been buried underneath his building, not leaving it. “How’s the situation?”

“Gone back to England. The store will be closed in a week.” Nunzio grinned at me. “I made him an offer he could not refuse. We will have sweets for a long time.”

“I’ll take it off your hands,” Adriano said.

“Get outta here,” I said, waving my hand. They all started to leave and I stopped Nunzio. “Adriano doesn’t go near that shop.”

“He needs an intervention,” Nunzio said, lifting his fist, and then he shut the door behind him.

An intervention to Nunzio would be breaking Adriano’s jaw so he couldn’t eat. He’d suggested it in Italy.

Uncle Carmine remained with me, since he was staying for dinner. I went back to the window and found my wife again. She was in the same spot, staring toward the sky, the sun falling on her face. She could have been sitting in the dark, for as blank as her expression was. I didn’t fucking like it.

“Uncle Carmine,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Get Tito on the phone.”

It was time to make some plans.

27

Alcina

Winter had been brutal, but spring was blooming all around us. I could barely get up without help these days, but to get out of the house, and to do something different than make candles, I spent time with Corrado’s grandmother out in her garden.

She grew frangipani on one side. Her husband had the other side of the garden when he was alive. He only grew tomatoes. They were all dead. I had asked her if she wanted me to help her replant when it was time. She told me no, they had died with her husband.

The wind swept the ground, and the sweet but spicy scent of the flowers drifted in the air. The scent of vanilla, cinnamon, and roses all mixed together in the breeze. They were a common flower in Sicilian gardens. Some even grew them on balconies.

The smell brought me home. I held my rosary tighter, thinking of my famiglia.

I missed Anna’s big mouth. The way we would fight and then laugh over nothing.

I missed mamma chasing us with wooden spoons. Her words of wisdom. The smell of her cooking. The way papà would be grumpy until we made him laugh.

I missed Sicily. The colors. The smells. The sounds.

My eyes moved to the big house. My heart twisted with pain at the sight of it. It was more like a prison than a fortress.

“My nonna gave me this plant the day I was married,” Teresa said, pointing to the frangipani with her trowel. She moved the wide-brim hat from her face so she could see me better.

Her hair was pure silver, always pulled back into a chignon, and her eyes were warm brown. She was short and plump, and her eyes matched her face—warm. I had seen a picture of her on her wedding day. She had been a pretty woman, and some of that youth came through her smile, when she used it.

“To bring to your new home.” I smiled.

It was an old tradition for Sicilian women to plant the flower and then give it to their daughters or granddaughters after they were married.

She smiled, too, maybe remembering. “I decided to plant it here. I was close with my nonna.” She had started to dig around the flower when we first came out, and I did not realize until then that she had probably gone deeper than the roots. She stopped for a second, looking up at the window. “My grandson is watching you again.”

I looked up and met his eyes. We did not turn away from each other. That was not the problem—no. Problems. He had become obsessed with my safety after the scorpion incident, especially since the man who had sent them had not been found. He had become obsessed with the man without a name, too. And it seemed like each day he moved into places that I could not follow without a bright light.

He was always watching me, though. Per sempre. Maybe waiting for