ONCE MORE
1902—New York
With a knife in her hand, Viola could pierce a man’s heart from forty paces. Because he wasn’t an idiot, Paul didn’t often allow her to have knives. Still, as she listened to her brother drone on about her most recent failings, she wondered what damage she would be able to do with the wooden spoon she was currently holding. Certainly, she should be able to do something to shut him up.
“I know, Paolo,” she said, her hands on her hips. “But I don’t want to go with John Torrio.”
“Why not?” Paul asked, his brows bunching. “You think you’re too good for him? Or is there some other reason, some other person I should know about?”
“I don’t like him, that’s why,” she said, practically spitting the words.
He lifted his hand to slap her, but she only smiled. “No,” he said, gritting his teeth as he lowered his hand. “We can’t have you bruised for the gala.”
“I still don’t see why I should get trussed up for that maiale to drool over. I don’t trust him, Paolo, and neither should you. He’ll cut you in the back the second he can.”
“You think I don’t know that?” her brother asked. “Why do you think I want you to go with him?”
“I know why you want me to go with him. You don’t trust me still.”
“I don’t trust anyone, including Torrio. I need my blade at my side walking into that gala, looking polished and sharp. You’ll go with the Fox, and you’ll do your duty to me and to the family, or you won’t have a place here anymore.” His mouth drew up on one side, exposing his crooked eyetooth. “But don’t forget, it’s not just Tammany’s patrols or the boys in the neighborhood you have to watch your back for. I have friends in higher places now too. I’m sure my friend Mr. Grew would like to know where one of the thieves who stole the Order’s treasures could be found. I’m sure they’d be even more grateful if I handed her over myself.”
She spit on the floor at his feet. “You wouldn’t dare,” she said. “You’d be dead before you could open your mouth.”
“So many threats, sister. And yet here I stand. Still holding your life in my hands.” He stalked toward her. “I took you back into the protection of the family because Mamma asked me. Because she doesn’t see you for what you are. She never did. You don’t think I remember the way she and Papà used to coddle you, leaving me to clean up your messes? All because you were born a monster—a freak. You always thought you were better than the rest of us, as though the rules of this world didn’t matter to you. But now you see. Now the rules are my rules. The city is my city.”
She let out a bark of laughter. “Those men use you, Paolo. Tammany and the men in the Order both. They don’t respect you or your money. It’s too new. And it’s too dirty for their liking.”
His expression was thunderous. “Maybe they think they use me, but my money’s as good as anyone’s, and the country is changing, sister. Soon the age of their purses won’t matter as much as what they contain, and I aim to have more.”
“Paolo—”
“You go with Torrio, or you don’t go at all, capisce?”
Viola clenched her teeth to keep from saying all the things she was feeling. If she didn’t need a way into the gala, she would have tried her luck with the spoon. “I understand,” she said, turning back to the pot she had been stirring before he’d interrupted her.
“I’ll have a dress sent to you. Be ready by six, eh?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to say more, but the minute he was out of the kitchen, she launched the spoon across the room, right at the place where his head had been moments before. She’d do his bidding just one more time and put up with John Torrio’s wandering eyes and too-free hands. But only because she needed her brother and his men to get close to the Order. After that, all bets were off.