Page 13 of Tormented Diamonds
My mother despised lilies. She thought they smelled like cat piss.
But there isn’t a lily in sight at Marcello Marchesi’s memorial service, only blood-red roses, Chianti, and a framed picture next to an urn.
“Cremation prevents exhumation,” Gianni explained.
Which is about all I’ve heard him say this past week. He’sgone when I wake up in the morning and comes and goes at all hours of the night. I never ask where he’s been, and he never tells me. It’s easier that way.
Tightening my grip on my wine glass, I hover near the back of the church, my gaze drifting over my shoulder again at the heavily tinted black sedan parked across the street.
“Staring won’t make them go away.”
I jump, dark red wine sloshing onto the back of my hand. Without a word, Gianni encircles my wrist and brings my hand to his mouth and licks it off as if it’s simply good manners.
Each day, he slips deeper into the mafia don role. He definitely looks the part. Expensive black suit. Diamond studded cufflinks. His dark hair slicked back like a gangster from a Hollywood movie. He seems so much older now.
Colder.Harder.
It’s like watching another personality bleed from the inside out.
“I know. This is just the first time I’ve seen the FBI crash a memorial service.”
“And it won’t be the last.” He leans close, that deep, gravelly voice winding around me like a thorny vine. “Don’t worry. Without a warrant, they’re powerless.”
“I’m worried aboutyou,” I say with what I hope is an innocuous shrug. “You know what they say—‘with great power comes great risk.’”
“I believe that’s, ‘with great power comes great responsibility.’”
“Responsible people settle their conflicts with words.” Cocking my hip, I fold my arm across my shitty black dress, placing the elbow of the one holding my wine glass on top. “When’s the last time you stopped a bullet with a well-aimed barb?”
He drags his tongue across the bottomof his teeth, a heavy silence falling between us before he flashes a dark smile. “There she is…”
I blink. “Who?”
“The competitive, infuriatingly tenacious psychiatrist who wields intellect like a fucking weapon.” He pushes the brand-new glasses he insisted on buying me back up my nose, then taps the end with his finger. “I’ve missed her.”
“You’re deflecting.”
“You’re distracting.” At my frustrated groan, he winks and presses his lips to my temple. “I appreciate the sentiment, but trust me, that curb is the closest they’re going to get.”
“Then what are they waiting for … someone to walk outside and drop a smoking gun?”
“Something like that.” Slipping his arm around my waist, he tugs me forward. “Come on, we have to go pay our respects.”
I glance up to find his expression layered with ice. “Are you seriously asking me to go in there and act like you didn’t kill the man we’re supposed to be mourning?”
“Yes.”
With his clipped tone leaving no room for argument, I swallow my nerves and walk inside the sanctuary, letting him maneuver me through a congregated “who’s who” of the underworld. My stomach lurches as, one by one, heads turn our way.
Just get through this. You can throw up later.
I tense as we edge close to the four gray-haired men from Marcello’s execution. They’re milling around like campaigning politicians, looking nothing like the cold-blooded killers I watched from the shadows. Immaculate suits and gleaming smiles make them seem deceptively dignified, like shapeshifting demons draped in human skin.
The moment we’re in front of them, I freeze. I’m barely listening as Gianni introduces the three on the left.All my attention centers on the one on the far right with the cold eyes.
Red. Red. Red.
“...and this is Benito Toscano, don of New York andcapo dei capiof the Five Families.”
