Page 85 of She's My Queen

We should compromise. For her sake, I’ll wait a few months. But then again, if I take her with me to Paris, we won’t have to wait at all.Hmm.Decisions, decisions. I don’t have to decide now or even by myself. We can choose together. Since I’ve never made important decisions with a woman before, my sister notwithstanding, I’m a little out of my depth.

Even Paulina lets me choose for her. Cristina, my future wife, while cute and very much submissive both in and out of the bedroom, won’t let me get away with choosing everything for her. She enjoys independence and having the freedom to make her own choices. She’s also a risk-taker. She’s not reckless, but calculated. An entrepreneur, I’d say. I like this about her.

Cristina’s mother enters the alcove. She’s wearing a black dress, and her dark hair is pulled up in an elegant, tight bun. Her intelligent brown eyes assess the room, finding me at the head of the table. She moves toward me, followed by a younger man who reminds me of someone I can’t quite place.

I stand and pull out a chair for her.

“Severio Mancini never forgets his manners.”

“Indeed.”

“Before we sit down, let me introduce you to the man I was telling you about. Roberto Ricci.”

She has told me nothing about this man, but I play along and shake his hand.

Firm grip; youthful, handsome face. A blond with green eyes, and of Slavic ancestry, I’m certain. Kind of looks like tragic Romeo. Ah. I see now. They’re probably related.

He expresses his condolences for my uncle. I express mine for his relative, and he tells me Romeo was his brother. I’m unsure what Maria Capone wants me to do with him now.

“He studied law and is interested in a position in my new government,” she says. “I was thinking I could introduce him to a few people.” She’s asking permission to place him on our watch list, meaning for him to become a cardinal. Trouble is, his brother Romeo proved slow at assessing threats, and I would rather we didn’t rush into anything lest such terrible survival instincts run in the Ricci family.

“Is Cristina here?” he asks.

Maria scans the room. “I don’t see her.”

“She’s not here,” I say in what I was sure was a measured, neutral voice. Several people pause their conversations, and the man steps back. Did I bark? Possibly. I’m annoyed that he’s asking about her.

“Where is your family gathering?” I ask him, because Romeo’s funeral was at the same time as Gio’s. The members of the Order are here. I don’t know where everyone else went, and I’m trying to send him off before he asks more questions about my future wife and the gravediggers have to bury him next to his brother.

“At Papone’s down the street,” Maria answers, “but I was thinking Roberto could dine with us.”

As a new member of the Order, Maria hasn’t a damn clue about how things operate. No birds attend Order functions, even if those functions are funerals. Maybe especially the funerals. “I’ll tell you what, let’s meet next week for lunch, and you can present me with any proposals you have. I hear you want to build another ferry.” Maria does. I have no idea what this man wants.

His eyes light up, and he shakes my hand again, thanking me for my time, yada-yada.

Once he’s gone, I remain standing, checking the entrance for Cristina. I can’t see the entry from here, so I walk through the restaurant and go outside to look down the street.

I flick my wrist and check the time on my watch. Cristina might’ve stayed for a prayer. I should’ve probably joined her and sought forgiveness from both her and the Big Man. I think I will the next time she attends.

Blaring sirens draw my attention toward an ambulance that’s trying to make its way past the jammed cars scurrying out of its way by pulling up onto the sidewalk. Thankfully, it’s a hot day out, so not too many pedestrians are on the beach, but there’re enough that they curse and have to run out of the way of the cars pulling to the curb for the ambulance.

A man dressed in a long gray skirt runs down the street, apparently after the ambulance. His cross swings back and forth before him. Father Thomas.

Dread, like mold, spreads over my lungs, my heart, my belly. It’s cold and terrible and feels like…fear. True fear. The never-before-felt kind of fear. The fear I can’t dampen. It grows into a molded forest over my lungs, and I hear myself wheezing.

Jace elbows me. “Is everything okay, boss?”

I’ve told him not to call me boss a thousand times.

From inside Frenchy’s, a woman cries out in pain. It’s not a pain that’s physical. This is the kind of pain that comes from loss, the kind of pain my grandma experienced, the kind of cry my sister cried when our father died.

Maria bursts out of the restaurant, a phone in her hand. Since I’m in her way, she runs into me, weeping. “My baby girl, my baby girl!”

I hold her up so she doesn’t crumple to the ground, yet I can barely hold myself up. Something happened to Cristina. The mere thought of it is not letting me breathe properly. Maria sobs and screams, pulling at her hair, mad with sorrow.

I restrain her and bring her closer so she doesn’t start to hurt herself. I ask her nothing, because if I hear Cristina’s dead, Iwon’t want to breathe. I won’t care. I’ll collapse and will myself dead too.

“Maria,” Father Thomas shouts.

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