Page 139 of The Deadly Candies

The hallway to his father’s office vibrated with Don Ricci’s roar:"BRING ME MY SON OR DON’T COME BACK AT ALL!"

The door flew open, men scrambling out like roaches when the light hits. They murmured to Carmelo as he passed—"Kid… your brother… we’re trying…"—but their words were static.

Carmelo never broke his stride.

Cosimo Ricci looked up from the roll of his cigarillo, his bloodshot eyes meeting his youngest son’s. The decanter of Fernet Branca at his elbow explained the tremor in his ink-stained fingers.

"So,"the Don sneered, leaning back in his chair while fixated on the gun in his son’s hand."You’re a man now?"

Carmelo didn’t blink. The gun was in his hand before he’d fully processed drawing it.

"I am the man,” he said. “To send you to hell.”

The shot echoed off the mahogany paneling.

Cosimo’s chair toppled backward, his fountain pen rolling across the desk as his body hit the floor. Carmelo let the pistol clatter to the ground, his father’s blood spreading in a dark halo across the Persian rug.

"I am the man,"he said to the empty room. Men came running. He walked past them without stopping. Maria stood in the hall with her hand to her mouth. This time, no food was offered. He went to the basement door, opened it, and went inside Lucia’s sanctuary.

The screaming upstairs faded to white noise as Carmelo descended into the cool darkness. There, curled in the corner like a wounded animal, Nino clutched their mother’s favorite dress to his chest, the lace trim damp with tears.

Carmelo sank to his knees beside his brother. He pulled Nino against him, the way Matteo used to when they were kids, and the nightmares came after his father’s violent outbursts. Matteo took the beatings for them, the pain for them. There was no Matteo, no Mama.

"Be the man,"he whispered into Nino’s hair, his voice breaking."I’m the man now."

Somewhere above them, a telephone stopped ringing. Nobody answered.

* * *

Mama Stewart’s Diner– Brooklyn, NY – 1949

Mama Stewart’s laughter boomed across the diner as she wiped her hands on her apron, shaking her head at the wide-eyed couple hovering by the counter.“A thousand dollars for my recipe? Baby, my secrets ain’t for sale.”She winked just as the plate-glass window to the diner door exploded.

Splinters of glass rained down on the checkerboard floor and sprayed on customers. The man in the doorway didn’t bother stepping around the shards—he just lifted his .38 and fired into the ceiling. Plaster dust snowed down on the meatloaf specials.

“VIA! TUTTI FUORI!”the Sicilian yelled.

Chairs screeched. A waitress dropped a tray of milkshakes, strawberry syrup bleeding across the tiles like fresh wounds. Mama Stewart was already moving, her hips banging against the counter as she lunged for the office. Behind her, a tourist screamed for someone to call the police—it was some fool from Ohio who thought Brooklyn was all about egg creams and Dodgers games. Police would not solve this problem. People ran into the streets screaming. She had to turn and go the other way. The shotgun came out from under the cash register, not the office. Twelve-gauge, sawed-off. She pumped it once, the sound louder than the gunshot had been.

“You greasy bastards think you can?—”

Then she saw him.

Four men draggedCosimo Riccithrough the wreckage, his custom oxfords leaving smears of blood on her clean floor. The shoulder of his Brioni suit was a ragged mess, the fabric glistening black-red. One eye was swollen shut from the blast effect of the bullet nearly hitting his face, but it had taken off his shoulder instead. The other locked onto hers, the pain in it deeper than the bullet wound.

The lead gunman—some pockmarked soldier she didn’t recognize—kept his Luger trained on her chest.“You save him,Madonna Nera.”

“Fuck him!”She raised the shotgun.“I’ll send his ass straight to hell so Emilio can carve him up proper!”

The gunman didn’t flinch.“His boy, Carmelo, did this. You let Don Ricci die, the Families wipe out Cosimo’s whole bloodline. DeMarco’s already cold. That what you want? Another bloody Sunday?”

Her finger twitched on the trigger. Behind the gunman, Cosimo choked, a bubble of blood bursting on his lips.Lucia’s face flashed in Mama Stewart’s mind, then Matteo’s, then Carmelo’s, all those kids who still smelled of baby powder when she’d first held them to gift them with the blessing of theMadonna Nera. A secret blessing, even the kids didn’t know she performed.

“Motherfucker!”The shotgun clattered onto the counter.“Kitchen! NOW!”

The gunman crossed himself.“Grazie, Madonna Nera?—”

“Ain’t for him.”She was already yanking open the steel supply closet where she kept her nursing tools—the same ones she’d used patching up boys from Anzio to Iwo J.“You! Boil water! You! Rip that shirt off him! And somebody get me a goddamn grappa!”

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