Page 76 of The Deadly Candies

Matteo’s knees buckled.Pardon.The word hung in the air, sweet and poisonous. Pardon. Did that mean free? Sentenced to life plus twenty years in prison, freedom wasn’t ever a word he used. How could it even be possible?

“Perché?”Why?Matteo’s voice cracked, his mother’s Sicilian slipped out like a prayer.

Carmelo stepped forward, a shark’s grin playing on his lips.“La famiglia ha bisogno di un re,”he said.The family needs a king.Should’ve always been you from the very start,fratello.”

Matteo’s mind raced.King.The title their father had carved in blood. The one Carmelo stole when he buried a cleaver in Don Cosimo’s chest to cover up the real way his father was killed.

“You ratting?”Matteo hissed, leaning in.“Hai fatto un patto col diavolo?”You made a deal with the devil?

Carmelo’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.“The Feds want a scalp. I gave ’em a barber.”He nodded to the suits.“Told ’em about Gennaro’s docks, Vito’s brothels…oldsins.Yoursins stay buried.”

Matteo recoiled.Gennaro. Vito.Made men, loyal to the bone. But the info was tainted and flawed, which was a misfire that the Omerta would allow. Carmelo was one smart motherfucker. He had sold them a bucket full of fools gold, and the stupid motherfuckers didn’t know it. He’d take that risk to savehim.

“Perché adesso?”Why now?Matteo pressed.

Carmelo’s gaze flickered—a crack in the armor.Carmelo stepped up to him. Equal in height and mean, the brothers were face to face. “Debbie’s waiting. So are your kids. They need you.”He threw an arm around Matteo, pulling him into an embrace that felt like a straitjacket.“Sei libero,”he whispered.“You’re free. Be glad. I will tell you the price you will pay for my generosity later, brother.”

“Brother. I’ll do whatever you want to have my family again,” Matteo said and hugged him fiercely.

“Grazie,”Matteo muttered.

“Pergo,”Carmelo murmured with a smirk.

Outside the Gates

The sun stabbed Matteo’s eyes as he stepped into the world. A black Lincoln idled at the curb, its driver a ghost from the past—Caesar, his closest friend, now thick with muscle and menace.

“Welcome home,Brother,”Caesar said, opening the door.

Matteo paused, glancing back at the prison. Somewhere in its bowels, MacAffey was stewing, the Feds scheming, and Carmelo…

The Wolfhad howled his last command. Because if he was wrong and Carmelo had turned againstLa Cosa Nostra,they were all dead men. But as the Lincoln peeled away, Matteo fingered the St. Jude medal in his pocket—Debbie’s last gift.Patron saint of lost causes.

He’d need more than prayers.

* * *

The memory dissolvedlike smoke the second Debbie stepped into the lamplight. Matteo’s head turned, and there she was—hisDebbie, but sharper, brighter, a blade honed by time.

The bathroom steam curled around her like a halo, catching the platinum waves of her hair, styled in those soft, cascading curls that mocked the world. Marilyn Monroe meets Mahogany Queen.Fifteen years, and she went blonde—not the timid honey shade of white girls from the block, but a bold, buttercream sweep that made her skin glow like aged bourbon, rich and warm under the amber light. Back in ’65, when she’d first dyed it, he was sure the men of Harlem would come for her.

Caesar visited him to discuss business, but all he did was bitch and moan about the picture of Debbie wth her hair dyed, in a pretty dress with his kids. A father’s day card and that fucking picture. It made him crazy. He nearly dug out an inmate’s liver with a fork on the yard. He demanded that Caesar explain the hair color and if men were around.“A Black Marilyn? Che cazzo, Matteo! It’s hard as fuck to keep the men off her.”

Matteo freaked out, called her, and told her to dye her hair red. She cussed him out and accused him of wanting Rita Hayworth. The fight was on again. He then pleaded, saying she would make him kill a man. But Debbie had just called him insane to think he could control her from jail.“Let ’em stare. Don’t know body tell me what to do! Not even you!”

The towel hugged her curves like a confession—full hips that could birth empires, thighs thick enough to crush a man’s ego, breasts that defied gravity and every lie he’d heard in the joint about women “drying up” after forty was utter bullshit. Debbie pussy was wetter than he’d ever imagined it to be in the joint.

Her waist nipped in, a cruel tease of what his hands used to claim. But it was herfacethat gutted him: high cheekbones dusted with freckles she called “the devil’s glitter,” you could only see if you were up on her or in her, real close. And lips painted a deep plum even now, because Debbie didn’t do it halfway. She liked to leave her lip prints on him when they fucked. Sometimes he’d let them stay on him for the day when he was a free man. She didn’t fuck around. Not with her looks, not with her love for him.

A jagged breath escaped him. All those years in the hole, he’d tortured himself with rumors—some youngblood from the Bronx, maybe a slick lawyer or worse, a Black Panther or Nation of Islam muslim with a fistful of pride, circling his wife like she was a revolution to be won.“Heard she’s been seen at the Copacabana, Matteo. Dancin’ with a dude in a sharkskin suit. When she was in California to see you, think he was a panther or something.”The lies festered, rotting his sleep. But here she stood, unbroken, her edgessharper. The towel slipped as she reached for her lotion, revealing the scar on her shoulder and back from a beating her father gave her when she covered up for Kathy and Carmelo’s affair.

Her eyes—hooded, gold-flecked—narrowed at him. “What?” she said, voice syrup-slow. “Why you lookin at me like that?”

What.How could she not know?She was a walking middle finger to time, to the rules, to every sorry bastard who’d said they’d never last. Matteo’s throat tightened. “Nothin’,” he lied, nodding at her hair. “Just… still blonde, huh?”

Debbie smirked, twisting a curl around her finger. “You prefer I go back to the Afro? Or do you still have a hard-on for redheads like Rita?”

“Don’t bust my balls. I’m just the happiest I’ve ever been,” Matteo grinned. Debbie grinned and then jumped onto the bed with him. He laughed and tickled her, rolling with her.

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