So I keep looking. All the while, I’m waiting for Giovanni to give me the news he’s gotten Santina pregnant. He’s had no luck so far and each month he gets more pissed. At her and at the world in general.
He’s been trying to reign as Don ever since our father died. Luckily for me, many of the made men remain loyal to me. Giovanni is trying to hold in his anger but sooner or later this animosity between us is going to boil over.
After the first couple of weeks of gun waving, an uneasy truce fell. The commission sent a memo to us both. No fighting. Obey the rules of the will.
I might have to kill Giovanni. I’d rather not. Family above all else as our father used to say. But how far do you let your family go down the wrong track? Giovanni is not the best businessman. Already, I hear rumors he’s spending too much on horses. He was always a gambler and now our father isn’t around to keep him under control.
I’m on my way back from talking to Matteo. He’s been talking to the commission, the only people who can keep Giovanni on any kind of leash.
It was the commission that brought him back from the brink in the weeks following our father’s funeral. They reminded him of the will, of the conditions and clauses within.
The Casella famiglia has no Don at the moment. That makes us look weak. We have had to break a few skulls to make sure people know we are not falling apart. We can only do that for so long. The commission are getting antsy. Matteo has managed to persuade them to let us have another six months.
If neither my wife nor Giovanni’s is pregnant by that time, our famiglia gets fucked up the ass by the Capo dei Capi. He takes everything from us and we are left with nothing but our battered pride and my father’s headstone. Everything else gets doled out to the other families.
That is not going to happen.
I make a decision on the way home. I’m going to make a stop first. Someone who wants to know what the commission had to say and I’m no longer talking to them on the telephone. It isn’t safe.
I pull up at the end of the drive. Giovanni’s at the races today. He won’t be home until after midnight. That gives me time.
Santina smiles when she answers the door. “Nico,” she says, waving me inside. “It’s good to see you.”
“How are you?” I ask as we go through to her lounge.
I can see the bruises on the back of her neck even if she’s tried to hide them under thick foundation. “Not so good,” she replies, sitting in her ancient armchair. It creaks underneath her like it might break into matchwood at any point. Despite Giovanni’s money, none of it seems to get spent on his wife. “He’s starting to lose it, Nico.”
“You’re sure you don’t want me to put you in a safe house?”
“Not yet.”
I know why. I do that and if Giovanni becomes Don, he’ll be able to find her wherever she is. He’d make her pay for leaving him. I have to be careful. I have to play the game.
She offers me a drink. I take a vodka and watch as she adds ice. Is that a black eye under that makeup? She sees me looking and turns away. “I’m all right,” she says. “Please, don’t say anything to him.”
“It can’t go on like this,” I tell her. “Let me help you.”
She shakes her head. “I love him, Nico. I can’t leave.”
“Sure you can.”
“What did the commission say to Matteo?”
“Gave us a deadline of six months from today. You think you can do six more cycles?”
She leans back in her seat, draining her glass of wine like its soda. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and talks while staring up at the ceiling. “I think he’s starting to suspect,” she says.
“What makes you say that?”
“Little things. He’s got me booked in at the clinic again next week.”
“Don’t worry. The doc knows which side his bread’s buttered on.”
“What if he changes his mind? What if he tells him the truth?”
“He won’t.”
She slumps downward, her shoulders sagging. “You won’t tell him, will you?” she asks, looking at me with eyes so full of pain, I want to shoot my brother in the head for what he’s done to her.