12. RANCH LIFE
SILVINA
Isaias’ place is tucked into the mountain of Hillside, with the view of the canyon on one side and the Valley on the other. Being nestled at the back of an ungated community, his property has enough acreage to give privacy and the added feel of having the wilderness to yourself. The building is modern, with only the top story showing. Built into the slope of the mountain as it is, the remaining two stories dip beneath ground level.
Gioele presses the intercom, and we’re instantly allowed access, with Isaias’ new wrought-iron gate sliding open. Ariadna opens the door for us. With a happy smile and kisses on both cheeks, Isaias’ daughter reveals her Italian roots with a slight accent to her English. The intensity of her gaze is her father’s through and through. As much as la famiglia frowned upon the relationship she was born from, they certainly didn’t have to worry about the parents being close relatives.
“Silvina, oh, my gosh, you’re so pretty! I want to look like you. Daddy-y-y! They’re he-e-re,” she sings, until her father shows up behind her.
Elbows on her shoulders, he smiles, rubbing his chin against her hair. “Hey, guys. I’m glad you made it home whole. That was close.”
“What happened?” Ariadna’s eyes go wide.
“Oh, nothing, sweetie. A big rock hit Zio Gioele’s windshield while they were driving in the mountains. It broke, and they had to drive without it for a while until they got it fixed. Isn’t that how it was?”
“Absolutely,” Gioele says, smiling reassuringly to the child. “There were tons of little shards of glass in the car. Zia Silvina looked really pretty, though. It was like glitter in her hair.”
“Don’t be silly,” I say, grinning. “Your uncle Gioele was the pretty one. The glass looked like diamonds in his eyes.”
“In his eyes? Were you bleeding from them?”
“She’s only kidding. No one got hurt, and we got a new windshield right away. Look how clean it looks.” Gioele spreads his hand in the direction of the car.
Ariadna bursts out laughing. “Nu-huh! Only the front window looks clean. Everything else is full of mud or something.”
“Oh, yeah, we mud-wrestled with another car. It was fun. We won. Score!” Gioele reaches out with a high-five, which Ariadna accepts.
Once in the living room, the brothers grow serious. Isaias has an urgency to his stare I don’t want to hinder, so I ask Ariadna to take me to her room. It’s a tacit agreement between all Nascimbeni adults that she shouldn’t have to live through any more scares than those she’s already been through.
GIOELE
“All right. You have any spare throwaways for Silvina and me?” I ask first.
“Yeah, one sec.” He digs in the drawer beneath his TV and fishes out two flip phones that are still in their plastic wrapping. I leave them in front of me on the glass table.
“So what’s our father done this time?”
“Faced off with the Santa Colombini again. Randolfo’s on the warpath, and he’s got shit to avenge.”
“Right.” Regular people forget old resentments, but if you’re mafia, you never do.
“Randolfo has been rebuilding his organization. He’s probably been stewing in his own rage—he lost a lot of famiglia the last time they butted heads.”
“I know.” The Santa Colombini are Barbarians. No doubt they’ll want to take down everyone we love, preferably slowly while we watch. The two girls laughing from the floor below us will be their top choices, together with Gabriela and Ma.
“What do we do, Isaias? You’re getting Ariadna out of here, right?”
“Of course. She’s leaving for the bunker.”
“I’m driving Silvina there anyway. I can take her.”
“No,” Isaias snaps. “I’m driving her to the door myself, and I’ll be locking that door after her with my own hands.”
“Okay, fratello.” I stand and slap his shoulder. “Any leeway with Tatiana?”
He chuckles drily. “My woman is stubborn. The only admission I got was that once this is over, she’ll finally marry me.”
“Whoa, congrats! Took her long enough. You had to knock her up to get her there?”
He punches me in the stomach. “It wasn’t for lack of trying,” he adds, rolling his eyes. “Also, for the record, I hate birth control pills.”
“I swear, sometimes you’re more macho than Il Lince.”
Our amusement fades with the gravity of the future. “So how did it start this time? Il Lince said hell’s breaking loose for a reason, which means it wasn’t just about Randolfo Santa Colombini’s army having grown to the right size.”
“Yeah. Basically, Il Lince has stayed out of drugs for years, sticking to heavy water and weapons trade. But over the last months, heavy water hasn’t been as in demand with the nuclear reactors in Europe as they used to be. They’ve found other ways of distilling what they need, and the Nascimbeni role isn’t as lucrative as it was. So Il Lince has negotiated a deal with a Mexican drug cartel.”
“Money laundering?”
“Yes. The Santa Colombini work in direct sales, but they do a hell of a lot of laundering too, so he’s on their turf again.”
“What’s wrong with him? He’s fucking too old to act like an idiot. There are people in this family trying to live actual lives!” I grab a throwaway off the table and start unwrapping it to give him a call.
Isaias stops my hand calmly. He doesn’t need to say anything. There’s pain in my brother’s stare. Fear for those he loves. We’re in this together, he and I, and neither of us wants what our father pushes, the longevity of an organization that thrives off the misfortunes of others.
I let my hands fall. “What’s next? Randolfo will fucking annihilate. We’ll get him back. It’ll be a blood bath, and for what? If we win, Il Lince will keep it up, adding more ‘lucrative’ opportunities to his repertoire. Before we know it, the Nascimbeni will be to blame for all kinds of crap, down to the goddamn heroin flooding people’s veins in this city. I can’t stand this.”
“Gioele, he’s getting older. Soon, he’ll have to select an heir who can take the organization in a better direction.”
“That heir will not be you, and in case you forgot: it sure as hell won’t be me.”
“I’m aware.” His hand is on my shoulder again, easing my anguish. How is he so calm? Dude’s been my hero since I was little. He always has everything under control.
“There’s so much wrong with our family,” I say.
“There is, but we need to focus. This is when we step up, when we do our best, okay? You’ll do it for Ma, for Gabriela, the twins, and for Silvina.” He sends me a look I meet steadily. I’ve got nothing to hide from him anymore.
“I’ll do it for all of you,” he continues, “for Tatiana, and more than anything, I’ll do it for Ariadna. Not a single person of the Nascimbeni loyals has as much to lose as we do, and no one will be as exposed to Randolfo’s cruelty the way we will. You good with that?”
“No, I’m not good with that. We don’t have a choice, though.”
“Right. Go grab the girls while I get some fire power into your car. I don’t want Ariadna to see.”
“D’accordo, fratello.”
The Nascimbeni family home, a five-acre horse ranch at the back of Hidden Hills, looks as peaceful as always when we roll up its long pepper-tree alley. On the sides, simple white fencing keeps our horses in.
Our seven-thousand square foot house holds ten bedrooms, two of which Ma still keeps at the ready for me. Our backyard has a large, kidney-shaped pool surrounded by a waterfall, palm trees, and authentic-looking AstroTurf. If it weren’t for the dry Southern California air, it’d pull off the illusion of a tropical island.
Silvina and I get out of the car and step into my mother’s arms on the porch. Choking on her fear for us, she pulls my forehead down to kiss me over and over. “Goodness, baby boy! You have to be careful.”
“I know, Ma.”
She drops me to drizzle kisses over Silvina’s face too. “And you, baby girl! What were you thinking?” The question is rhetorical.
“I’m sorry, Zia Carola.” Silvina blinks through Ma’s love barrage, which is accentuated by mms and little puffs of I-can’t-believe-this.
Isaias’ car doors slam shut in the driveway, and Ma’s small frame lets go of Silvina to bustle down the porch steps with her arms open.
“Ariadna, mio cuore. How long it has been! Your daddy is a bad, bad man to keep you away from your nonna,” she complains. Ariadna giggles and entwines herself with Ma in an embrace that’s become utterly familiar over the years.
Behind them, Isaias waggles his brows. “Ma. We were here on Tuesday. That’s only three days ago.”
“But you didn’t even get to sleep over, did you?”
“I had school, Nonna.” Ariadna grins. “I’m off now, though. Daddy says I can stay for a while.”
“Oh, yes, yes. You’re staying for a while, now. I’ve made ricotta cookies, Biscotti Regina, and Pignoli already. We’re bringing them to the bunker.”
Ariadna makes a show of licking her lips thoroughly. “What about the Pesche?”
“Oh, yes.” Ma winks. “How could I forget the peach cookies for my tesoro? Such a sweet-tooth you are. We’ll make them together in the bunker.”
“Yay! They’re Zia Silvina’s favorite too.” Ariadna finds Silvina’s hand and holds it up for her grandmother to see. “Looky, we painted our nails. Same color, see?”
“Che belle!”
“You are beautiful,” I murmur, my gaze sliding from Ariadna to Silvina and staying there.
The entrance to the bunker is behind the waterfall. Hidden under tree roots and Astro-Turf, the lock yields to the fingerprints of only a handful of Nascimbeni family.
Ma walks ahead of us, chattering brightly with her grandchild like this isn’t life or death. I admire her strength; I doubt I could have removed the stress of the situation for Ariadna the way she does now.
It never ceases to amaze me how thorough my father was with this bunker. He started construction on it when Ma was pregnant with Isaias, and it was finished by his first birthday. The steel steps taking us into the bowels of the desert dirt are narrow. Spiraling downward, we hit the ground fifty feet below the pool. Here, a mudroom leads to double metal doors and reinforced walls. They keep us outside until Isaias lends his eye to the iris scanner and the doors glide open.
“How old do I have to be to do that, Nonna?” Ariadna pleads.
“Oh, I’ll talk to il nonno for you. If my tesoro wants to scan her way in, my tesoro gets to scan her way in.”
“Ma.” Isaias sends her a look.
“What? He can give her access. It doesn’t mean she can exit on her own.”
The first room is a hallway with clothes hangers and shoe racks on both sides. The bunker is flooded by daylight lamps and has more bedrooms than the main house, made to accommodate all famiglia wives and children.
At the moment, the living rooms, the bar, and the kitchen teem with loyals, all of which came here blindfolded. They’re roaming about, inside gates only Nascimbeni famiglia can open. A small boy runs over to Ariadna, chattering in Italian. She nods and goes with him to whatever it is he wants to show her.
There are so many memories down here. I’ve physically fought Il Lince, calling him names, causing him disgrace in front of his associates. I’ve been thrown into my bedroom, having the door locked from the outside until he left and Ma was in charge. My worst time was as a thirteen-year-old, with Isaias here and Il Lince too. In Ma’s words, “You were driving me crazy! The three of you took up so much space with your egos and all that testosterone, the rest of us had trouble breathing.”
Well, that’s never happening again. I’d rather die on the outside than get locked up in here again.
“Ready?” Isaias asks under his breath.
I nod, my stare straying to Silvina. She’s helping Ma pack away shit in the kitchen.
“Go say goodbye to her.”
“Do me a favor?” I ask, and my brother lifts an eyebrow in question. “Tell her to find me in the dog park.”
For a second, he stares at me, and I know what he’s thinking: Risky. What if they see you? I give him a shrug, because I’m beyond that. We’re going out there against the Santa Colombini, and it could be the last time I see her. I don’t want her to remember me as the love who didn’t say goodbye.
I stalk to the dog park, an area at the far end of the bunker. In contrast to the rest of this shelter, it’s small, low-ceilinged, and crudely excavated. It smells of earth, sometimes animal excrements, if the owners haven’t been good at cleaning up. Today, the dirt walls exude the faint hint of iron and sulfur that to some extent infuses the whole bunker.
This dungeon-like room is scarcely furnished with two benches for the pet owners, and a fire hydrant, which Gabriela jokingly brought down here a few years ago. Then, there’s a miniature bath tub for the dogs to play in.
I’m lucky; no one’s here yet. I take a seat on one of the benches and don’t look up until my love hesitantly steps inside a few minutes later.
I rake my eyes over Silvina. Shake my head. My feelings for her never change, but for her, it only takes minutes with the family for her to withdraw from me.
Here she is, long, dark-dark hair shiny over a shoulder and eyes like wells. She’s afraid I’ll make her cry. She’s afraid I’ll make her happy.
“I just wanted a hug from you before I leave.” My voice breaks a little, and I don’t know why this upsets me. “We had a good time coming here.”
Silvina lowers Hyacinth, Ma’s little Chihuahua, to the ground, and cautiously, she takes another step into the room. She keeps her eyes on the dog, who’s sniffing the fire hydrant. I want her to keep moving toward me. I can’t always be the aggressive one. Not when I don’t know what’ll meet me out there.
“It was a one-off. I was scared I’d lose you.”
“And now you’re not?” I’m curious. Maybe it feels unreal for her to be in the bunker when I’m not.
She tightens her arms over her chest like she’s cold. “Should I be?”
“I don’t know, Silvina.” I laugh softly. “Isaias and I are meeting up with Dad and Zio Cosimo at the Malibu pad. I honestly have no idea where we’re going from there. Guess he wants to be on the offense.”
Her stare could kill, and it makes my heart feel bigger.
“It’s not like I have a choice,” I say.
“Yeah, you do! You could stay here with us.”
“Right, a grown man hiding behind his mamma’s skirts.”
She storms toward me. I catch her as she stumbles, as her breath hiccoughs like it snagged on the uneven ground too. Then, she’s in my arms, tight, close, right where she belongs with her nose nestled under my ear. She’s sobbing, already having lost me, and I press my love against me, assuring her that she hasn’t.
“It’s just another raid. We’ll be out of there in record time.”
“But it’s the Santa Colombini! That’s not how it works.”
I push a lock of hair away from her face, nuzzle soft skin with my lips until I find her ear. Then, I cover it with my mouth and breathe warmth against it. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving you behind, Ina mia. I’ll be back.”
“You can’t decide that. You’re not God. All we can do is wish and pray.”
“If you love me, I’ll make sure to be the one opening the door for you once all of this is over.” I smile; it’s such a pretty thought.
“Don’t be silly.”
“About what? Opening the door for you?” I joke.
The huff she emits is staccato and sounds like an involuntary snicker. “Do you know how strange you are, Gioele di Nascimbeni?”
“Humor me. What am I silly about?”
“About the love. I love you, always.”
“Like the earth and the sky, or like famiglia?”
“Like so much more than famiglia.”
I can leave in peace now. With Silvina’s love fresh on my ear, I can go to war for a cause I don’t believe in.