Page 75 of The Deadly Candies

Debbie looked deeply into Matteo’s eyes before turning to her children, her heart laid bare. “Yes, baby. With all my heart. He gave me you,” she whispered, touching Christopher’s cheek tenderly. Then her gaze shifted softly to Junior. “He gave me you, too, Junior. Matteo always wanted you, even when no one would give him credit or let him claim you. Always. You, his little soldier, he used to say to me. From the moment we brought you home from the hospital, he wouldn’t let me or José hold you. He used to put you inside his shirt to keep you close to his heart. Remember, baby?” Debbie asked.

Matteo nodded, and his gaze shifted to his oldest son.

Junior swallowed hard, his eyes momentarily meeting Matteo’s before he quickly looked down again.

“Daphne,” Debbie said gently, turning to her daughter, “remember your Penny Man? Matteo used to visit the shop with his pockets full of pennies, just for you. He carried you on his shoulders to Coney Island, to the park. You drew pictures of him, remember? Those drawings you proudly took to the prison when you were little? Matteo would make sure the guards slipped you some candy before we left. They would always say, for a princess, from the Penny Man.”

Daphne raised her eyes slowly, finally meeting Matteo’s earnest, loving gaze. Her lips trembled slightly as she nodded in quiet recognition, a tear slipping silently down her cheek.

Christopher broke the quiet reflection. “I never knew José,” he admitted softly. “He was gone before I was born. But I heard stories. About him and about you, Matteo.”

Matteo started to explain, but Debbie gently shook her head, urging him silently to let their son speak.

Christopher sighed deeply, his voice quivering slightly. “I don’t understand it all. But…I want a father, Junior. I really do. You had one,” he said to his brother, turning next to his sister. “You had one too, Daphne. It’s my turn. Right Mama?”

Daphne and Junior exchanged a cautious, uncertain glance.

“Right, baby, he’s your father. And he’s here for you,” Debbie said.

Suddenly, Christopher pushed away from the table, standing up resolutely. Debbie reached instinctively toward him, uncertain what he intended. Daphne and Junior watched tensely as Christopher walked directly to Matteo’s chair. The boy stood bravely in front of his father, chin raised in a youthful challenge. “If you’re gonna marry Mama, then fine. But you gotta be my dad, for real. You understand?”

Matteo laughed, a heartfelt sound tinged with relief and gratitude. He pushed back his chair, pulling Christopher into a tight, protective embrace—the first since Christopher was a tiny boy and a guard looked away so Matteo was able to touch him. Daphne rose hesitantly, quietly joining them. Matteo’s eyes widened in surprise and joy as Daphne hugged him fiercely, pressing her cheek against his shoulder.

Debbie’s vision blurred with tears at the sight. She turned toward Junior, who remained rigid, frozen in his seat. Quietly, she reached out, her hand trembling slightly, laid open on the table between them. Junior stared down at it, his eyes stormy with emotion.

“Please, Junior,” Debbie whispered urgently, her voice raw with hope. “Please.”

Junior drew in a shuddering breath, finally lifting his eyes to hers. “I already hugged him, Mama. But…I owe you one.”

He rose and came around to her chair, enveloping her in an embrace of forgiveness she had waited years to feel. Debbie burst openly into tears, hugging her son fiercely, the weight of years of guilt and suffering lifting from her heart. In that moment, amid the quiet sounds of healing and reconciliation, Debbie felt a sense of freedom she had long thought impossible—her family, at last, together again.

* * *

San Quentin State Prison,California – July 1978

The ceiling of Matteo Ricci’s cell was a cracked canvas of peeling paint and water stains, a map of his fifteen years in the abyss. He traced its fissures nightly, imagining them as the streets of East Harlem—hisstreets—now ghostly and distant. The stench of industrial cleaner and stale sweat clung to the air, a cruel reminder that freedom smelled like Debbie’s jasmine perfume, like the garlic-and-oil aroma of his mother’s kitchen, like anything butthis.

“Ricci! Visitor!”

The guard’s bark jolted him. Matteo sat up, his cot and the iron springs holding up the thing mattress groaned under his weight.Visitor?Debbie’s last letter had been ice—“Don’t write again”—scrawled in her loopy hand script. He’d retaliated by sending his crew to lean on her landlord, to remind her whoownedthe ground beneath her feet. But this? They were at war again. And though most would think him crazy for causing strife with his woman, he knew the truth. Even if it was her anger instead of her love that he endured, it was emotion, enough of her emotion to keep him sustained. He’d do anything to keep her happy or angry as long as he was her focus. A visitor? Could it be Debbie, traveling all the way to California with her sexy ass, to cuss him out. He prayed so. This was unexpected. He smiled.

“Move it, greaseball,”sneered Jefferies, the squat guard with a face like a knuckle. Matteo rose slowly, letting the man savor his petty power.Greaseball.The word had followed him from the old neighborhood to Vietnam to this shithole. He turned to the wall, wrists out, the cuffs biting into his skin.

As they marched down the tier, inmates rattled bars, hissing“Don Ricci! The Butcher! The Butcher! The muthakfuckin Butcher!”in tones that swung between reverence and rage. Even here, his name carried weight. The Wolf of Harlem’s brother is the son of one of the founding fathers of the New York Mafia. A prince in exile.

But the walk took a wrong turn—away from the visitation room’s plexiglass purgatory, toward the warden’s lair. Matteo’s pulse spiked.Feds.They’d been circling Carmelo for years, digging into his “legitimate” empire—construction unions, casinos, the olive oil import front. Now they were coming forhim.

“What’d I do now?”Matteo growled, testing Jefferies. The guard spat but said nothing.

The Warden’s Office

The room reeked of cigar smoke and bourbon. Warden MacAffey—a bloated relic with a crucifix on his wall and a ledger in his desk—glared as Matteo entered. Two suits flanked him, Fed written all over their cheap haircuts. But it was the figure by the window that froze Matteo’s blood.

Carmelo.

The Wolf of Harlem turned, his tailored suit swallowing the light. At 49, he was all sharp edges—a jawline like a switchblade, eyes blacker than a Sicilian midnight. The scar from their father’s hammer was barely noticeable on his jaw, a relic of the night the boy Carmelo died and this man was born—the man who would later kill their father and be knighted King.

“Matteo Ricci,”MacAffey drawled, signing a paper with a flourish.“Governor’s pardoned your sorry ass. Effective immediately.”

---