Page 174 of Dagger in the Sea

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Turo

The driver droppedme off about two blocks away from the church. I’d made my way through the back entrance, and found Marissa in the special room reserved for brides and their bridesmaids before a wedding. I scrubbed my hands, my face clean, got dressed in the new suit and shoes she’d brought me, rolled up the clothes I’d been wearing into tight rolls and tucked them into a plastic bag and then into the oversized handbag Marissa had brought with her upon my request.

Marissa’s phone rang and she answered it, her eyes popping wider. “I’ll let him know, thank you.” She grinned at me. “She’s awake. She’s awake. Thank God, she’s awake.”

I glanced back at my reflection in the mirror and took in a breath, my every muscle relaxing. My heart drummed in my chest, sending a new high seeping through every vein. I grinned back at Marissa as I buttoned my suit jacket.

So many friends and associates had showed up for James’s funeral, all dressed to the nines, all saddened and shocked, and all surprised to see me. The social set, politicians and local government officials I knew from my days working with my mother, and those I’d gotten to know from working for Mauro. All here under the glorious roof of this great cathedral. Incongruities gave me a thrill. The service concluded, the priest introduced me, and I stepped up to the lectern in front of the altar.

“James Bradley was a good man, a kind stepfather,” I said to the crowd at Notre Dame de Chicago, my voice steady, firm. “James made my mother very happy,” I continued. “And as her son, that has always been the most important thing to me no matter what. My mother’s happiness. She can’t be with us today, but I’m very pleased to announce that she is conscious, recovering, and getting stronger.”

A jovial murmur moved through the crowd like a gentle wave.

“I know I make her proud by standing here, in her place, where she would have been, sharing with you how her husband will be deeply missed. He was a dependable, trusted partner, a cherished stepfather, and a beloved husband. His loss will be deeply felt and grieved by his wife and all of us who knew him.”

The dour faces before me in the church nodded. My gaze landed on Marissa in the front row, her dark red lips curled in a discreet smile, an eyebrow raised. In the third row behind her was the police detective who was investigating the “accident” at my mother’s new restaurant. He looked at his watch and lifted his chin at me.

At this very moment the police were searching Valerio’s house. They would find the photograph of Med’s dead body that he had showed me and Mauro, that he and Mauro had touched. They would find Med’s DNA on a pair of his shoes, in a shirt crumpled at the back of his mudroom closet in his McMansion. At my former soldier Little Anthony’s apartment, they would not only find his dead body and evidence incriminating Valerio in his death, but also more of Med’s DNA in one of Little Anthony’s gym bags.

I returned my attention to the paper before me on the podium and began to read the poem “Ithaca,” from the Greek poet Cavafy, one of my mother’s favorites. I recited the verses about not hurrying to arrive at the island, that the journey there needed to be full of adventure and knowledge. That one should enjoy the delights of summer mornings, enjoy the precious riches the voyage itself has to offer. To always keep this Ithaca fixed in your mind.

My breath burned in my lungs.

I hadn’t expected my trip to Greece to offer me pleasures or riches.

But it had.

Oh, it had.

I recited, and with every verse, Adri’s hand squeezed mine, the glittering Aegean before us. Her rich laugh over glasses of wine. Her hair draped on my breathless body, warm lips on my skin. Her trust. The gift of her love that she’d given me freely, asking nothing in return.

I agreed with the last verse of the poem that left my lips. I had gained a particle or two of wisdom from my voyage. I had crossed the sea. I had charged forward on a fool’s crusade where there was no Holy Grail to be found. I had been betrayed in the cruelest way, yet had returned, alive.

I had killed for Mauro Guardino’s greed.

For my greedy ambitions.

For Serena’s justice.

For Evgeny’s entertainment.

Now I had killed my father—who was no father—for my mother. For me.

“They tore Dionysus up and ate him, but his heart survived and he was resurrected.”

Mauro had tried to oppress me and destroy me, but it was my heart that had remained, and my heart had made a choice.

Resurrected, yes. Liberated. Empowered.

Folding over the sheet of paper, I lifted my head, taking in the hundreds of faces, breathing in the bittersweet hush in the vast cathedral that waited on me. In the very back, against the wall, I spotted him. That know-it-all smirk of his saying,Salut, fucker. Luca Aliberti. Next to him a man who was a darker, meaner mix of Luca and Alessio. Their older brother, Emilio.

Luca would now sit at a Guardino business meeting instead of me, and he would take the heat, distract, and Emilio would conquer, destroy, usurp. I would be their silent partner.

Luca and Emilio left the church, and I tucked the poem in my inside jacket pocket.

Stin iyiá mas.

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