CORA
“Thank you, Father, your sermon was beautiful.” I reached out and shook his hand.
He placed his hand on top of mine. “Of course, my dear. I’m quite sorry for your loss. May your cousin rest in peace.”
Nodding, he let go as other members of the congregation approached, leaving me standing at the church doors. Turning back, I walked toward the altar, a photo of Imani surrounded by her favorite anemone flowers.
“Rest in peace?”
I didn’t even need to turn back to know who it was. She reeked of Chanel Number 5 and an inflated sense of self-importance. When I did turn around, I saw she was dressed in a huge, horrible black church hat, suit, gloves, and even a black handkerchief.
“How can my daughter rest knowing her murderer is walking around free?” my aunt asked coolly. “When the murderer dares to even show up at her funeral.”
“I’m sorry, Aunty, I don’t know who you are talking about. Imani died of an air embolism. I’m sure it must be very tragic for you; after all, you visited her about a dozen times in the last decade.” Turning to her, I saw her brown eyes glaring back at me. “Please accept my condolences—”
SLAP.
For a woman in her sixties, I had to hand to her—she could smack the hell out of a person. My cheek burned so badly I hand to flex my jaw and rub the side of my face.
“Do you think I’m a fool?” she snapped, stepping into my face. “One moment my daughter is fine, then the next your sister-in-law needs a heart and my daughter is dead. She trusted you and you served her up on a platter. Do you have no shame, Coraline? Do you have no heart or soul or anything in you anymore that makes you a human being? She was family! Our family! My family! You weren’t always like this; how corrupt, how low, have you become?”
I smiled at that. “Our family? We were never family. I was your ATM, your emotional punching bag, and when I finally punch back, now I’m the corrupt one? The heartless one? Where was your speech after your daughter murdered a man and tried to blame me? Where was your heart when she found out she was sick or when she was in the hospital? Where were you? What were you doing? Oh right, you were jumping from one rich man—” I saw her lift her hand to slap me again and I prepared for it, but before she could, Declan grabbed her wrist.
“Ma’am, I understand you are grieving, but no one hits my wife for any reason, at least not without a fight from me. Whatever it is, I’m sure we can talk it out,” he said calmly. In all honesty, I didn’t want him there right then.
“One day Coraline, one day all of this will come back to you and you will suffer for it. But don’t worry, I’ll still come to your funeral and offer my condolences.” She turned around to leave.
Declan moved to take my hand but I weaved around him, saying nothing as we stepped back outside, the sun so bright I had to put my sunglasses on again. I didn’t have the energy to talk to anyone and luckily I didn’t have to as the car pulled right up in front of the church at that moment. Declan held the door open for me to slide in first and when I did, the noise of the outside world muffled. I closed my eyes, breathing in calmly.
“You were going to let her hit you,” he said, and I didn’t reply or bother to look at him. “You were going to let her slap you because you think you deserve to be slapped. You want to be punished for it.”
We went to a few couple’s therapy sessions and now he thinks he can always just read my mind.
“I’m not going to say you did nothing wrong,” he replied, and at that I did open my eyes to stare at him through actual rose-colored glasses. “I’m not going to say you did a good thing or even the right thing. It’s not as simple as that. You did the best you could do for us and our family. Everyone one else in the world may judge you, but to us and our family, it means everything. Thank you, Cora, for everything.” He kissed the back of my hand.
Was it possible to feel guilty without regretting what you had done? If so, that was how I felt. Leaning toward him, I didn’t speak because I didn’t know what to say. Instead, I just laid my head on his shoulder.
Life would be a lot easier without guilt.
FEDEL
“You shouda seen these idiots half dazed, they were just walkin around like motherfucking zombies, had half a mind to go out there beat some sense into them. Their poor mothers mustuv lost their minds. All of them running around screaming Potresti aiutarmi? Ho bisogno di un dottore!” Big Tony spoke to the whole barbershop as he leaned in close to the back of the man’s head sitting in the chair across from me, using a comb and scissors to cut closer. Despite his name, Big Tony was actually no taller than 5’7” and weighed less than one sixty, but what he lacked in appearance, he made up for in personality. He had moved to Chicago from Jersey at eight years old and now at fifty-four, his shop was where all the Italians came for their cut or a good bullshit story.
“Aeh Fedel, what the bosses saying about this new drug and shit? Is it really making people into zombies like Big Tony says or he blowin’ hot air again?” Giulio, the man in the chair, snickered.
“Yeah.” I lifted my chin for Dino, my barber, to spread the shaving cream. “It’s the apocalypse, Giulio, we got people eating faces and shit.” I got a few laughs from everyone around the shop, even Big Tony. “No, but this Blphine, it ain’t safe, and will kill you faster than taking smack and crystal back to back.”
“What I tell you, boys? Things made in China!” Big Tony replied and even I snickered at that. “Probably sniffing smog, plastic, and dog bones.”
“You racist as shit, Big Tony,” someone yelled and he just flipped them off.
“Vai e for titi, grassone bastardo,” he snapped back, which got the man on his feet. Three seconds—that’s how long it took for us to get into an argument. Jesus, our people, I swore they lived for that shit.
“What all this bitchin about, you little babies?” Uncle Vinnie hollered, coming out of the bathroom still adjusting his belt. Always clean-shaven with a top hat, sweater, and tie, Vincent Buccieri—or Uncle Vinnie as everyone called him because he really was like that odd old uncle no really knew at the wedding but somehow everyone was talking to anyway—was the oldest of us all, pushing eighty-seven next month. “When I was your age we were kickin them Irish dogs out the city, not fightin our own damn selves.”
“How many times we gotta tell you? We ain’t at war with the Irish any more, Uncle Vinnie,” Big Tony reminded him.
“We always at war!” He pointed his cane back at him. “You pussies have forgotten that since you been following pussy.”
One by one their eyes all shifted to me. It wasn’t a secret that I was the right hand of Melody Nicci Giovanni Callahan; it was part of the reason so many of them also came here, to get a word or a favor or a job in through me. They never made the mistake of insulting her in front of me.
“Oh yeah, Uncle Vinnie,” I said, sitting up in the chair. “The boss wanted me to thank you and your wife for the bottle of 1990 Masseto.”
“Non c'è problema!” he said, moving to take a seat in an empty barber chair.
“She asked if your wife enjoyed the 1961 Barolo Riserva she sent over,” I added.
“E' perfetto!” He kissed his fingertips. “I’ve always said no one can pick a bottle of wine like a Giovanni. When Orlando was young, they used to say if wine wasn’t flowing in the street of Bosa, he was either sleeping or fucking.”
I snickered at that. The last time I’d gone back to Bosa was right after Wyatt and Donatella’s fourth birthday.
“Fedel, how many more free haircuts until I'm upgraded to bottle service?” Big Tony asked me.
“When have I ever gotten a free anything?”
He frowned at me clippers, then at me. “See this, my friends? Straight up stingy, complaining about free haircuts when he can afford them.”
“Let’s not get sidetracked. Uncle Vinnie, when did you start givin and gettin thousand dollar bottles?” Giulio gasped out like the rest of the men there.
Uncle Vinnie pulled out his newspaper, proudly stating, “Il Buccieri e Giovanni sono famiglia.”
“If you two are family, what are the rest of us?” Giulio questioned.
Everyone turned to Uncle Vinnie, who looked over the corner of his paper. “I don’t know about them, but sei uno stronzo!”
We all laughed so hard at how matter-of-factly he said it.
“What so funny?” asked a small boy who looked around the same age as Ethan and had short brown hair and hazel yes. “I don’t understand.”
“Oh no.” Big Tony sighed, turning Giulio to face the mirror.
“Poor kid,” Dino muttered as he shaved above my lip.
I almost felt bad for him when Uncle Vinnie started his rant, “You don’t understand. What don’t you understand?”
In the corner of my eye, I saw the kid shrug. “I don’t understand Italian.”
“Then you’re a freak.” Uncle Vinnie rolled the newspaper up, pointing at him. Dino had to stop for a moment, he was trying so hard not laugh. “What do you mean you don’t understand Italian? Does a fish not understand how swim? Does a bird not understand how to fly? If you cannot understand your own people then you are a freak of nature. You will die out in the cold. You don’t understand Italian. Fine, I don’t understand English! Learn!”
He didn’t stop there but switched to over to Italian, asking him if he knew where he was from and then beginning to complain about this generation.
“Fedel!” he called out to me.
“Sì?” I tilted my head to the side, allowing Dino to pat the sides of my neck.
“Melody’s children, they understand our language, correct? Or do those Irish bastards got them wearing skirts already?”
All of us laughed, even I did though I was pretty sure kilts were a Scottish thing.
“No skirts yet sir, and the oldest, Ethan, understands, but is still struggling to speak back. He’ll get there, the boss is making sure of it.”
He nodded to himself before glaring at the boy in disgust. “You don’t understand Italian. Huh. Marmocchio!”
Poor kid, but I was sure he’d try learning it now.
“Thank you, Dino,” I said to him, handing him the bill as I rose from the chair.
“You leaving us already?” Big Tony questioned. “I didn’t even get my bottle of wine yet.”
“Next time. I’ll see you all next week, and kid.” I put my hand on the head of the poor kid Vinnie had destroyed. “Try to learn a few words by then. Take your time; you won’t be a freak forever.”
“Thanks,” he grumbled as I walked out, adjusting the collar of my jacket.
“Fedel Morris,” he said my name like the devil claiming a soul. When I faced him, he stood shoulder to shoulder with me in a black suit and dark green tie. In his hands was an umbrella, the handle of which was a silver wolf.
“Mayor Cortés,” I replied, scanning around the buildings in front of me.
“Now, Fedel.” He stepped in front of me with a sly smile. “If I were going to kill you, I wouldn’t make the trip down here personally.”
“So what does a the mayor of Chicago have to do with a nobody bodyguard?”
“A nobody?” He frowned and looked truly confused. “How can you, the Callahan family’s right-hand man, be a nobody? Everyone on this street knows who you are. That, to me, means you’re a real important somebody.”
“Mayor, I’m very busy at the—”
“Right, right, of course, the dog must return to his master.” He nodded, placing the umbrella up to his shoulder. If he was expecting a reaction, he wouldn’t get one from me. “Come work for me, Fedel.”
“Come again?” My eyes widened. Of all the things I’d figured he’d say, that was not on the list.
“I’m offering you a job. Change is coming to this city, and when it does I’d like you to be working at my side. Whatever you’re being paid—”
“You think I decided to dedicate my life to one family because of the pay?”
“Of course not. If you had I wouldn’t be here personally to give you this opportunity.” The smug, arrogant little bitch was starting to piss me off.
“Let me use this opportunity to let you know that you will lose this fight. I’ve seen men much stronger and much more ruthless try to stand in front of Melody Nicci Giovanni Callahan; none of them are alive to tell the tale. She wins. She always wins. The world, the sun, the moon revolve around her. And if you’ve been stalking her, then you should know this. So my answer is no, I don’t work for dead men.” Walking around him, I made a move to walk to my car farther up the road, but instead pulled out my phone and dialed. It took less than ten seconds for another car to come around the corner.
“Tell me, Fedel,” he called out. When I moved to get in, he turned back, his face emotionless and impossible to read. “Why does everyone call Melody by her full name? It’s a mouthful, don’t you think? Melody Nicci Giovanni Callahan.”
“When you earn a name, people respect it no matter how long it is.” I shut the door. Only when he was far enough away did I start the engine with the key. Nothing happened.
“You thought it was rigged?” asked Frankie, the driver who was only twenty-two and had just started to work under me after being a drug runner on the streets. “I keep saying you’re too paranoid. What happened to those stone instincts—”
BOOM.
My head whipped back to see my car now in black flames.
“Holy fucking shit! Did that really just happen? Shit! Holy shit!” Frankie screamed, about to jump out of his skin.
Emilio, you son of a bitch.
“Shut up and drive. It’s not the first car bomb in Chicago and it won’t be the last.” Taking out my phone, I stopped the recording, sending the file over to Melody, as always.
I didn’t go shave or get a haircut at Big Tony’s barbershop just for the hell of it. I sat in place of the boss, as her ears. Everything that was ever said, she heard it straight from them through me, because she knew she’d never be able to sit with them in the same way.
I wasn’t the dog…I was the fly on the wall, and I didn’t mind.