Chapter 5 Home Truths

SAL

The Present

Our lovemaking is incendiary. After sitting my wife on the edge of the counter, I eat her sweet pussy until the dulcet cries of her release ring in my ears.

Then I shove her thighs wide and plunge inside, reveling in her tight, slick heat, like I have every single time we've made love for the last three and a half decades.

We're dressing again after our second shower of the day and I'm feeling more content than I have in a long time.

Ilaria finishes doing her hair, the final erasure of the evidence of what we did in the kitchen.

"Sometimes, I wish you'd just leave it down." The only place she allows herself to get messy as she calls it is in the bedroom and her ceramics studio.

Ilaria went to college like she wanted once Salvatore started school, but studied for a fine arts degree and made ceramics her art form of choice.

My wife faces me with the look she gets when she's about to ask or say something I'm not going to like. Usually because it has to do with me doing or saying something wrong.

"Traditional mafia wives don't leave the bedroom with an unkempt appearance."

I'm not relieved by her pretty innocuous statement. I've known this woman intimately for most of my adult life. That look says her words are just the tip of an iceberg I'm about to go aground on.

"We both know that while you are an exemplary wife, in the ways that matter to you and me, you are not traditional." I've never wanted her to be a carbon copy of my mother and sure as hell didn't want my wife emulating her cold fish of a mother.

She nods her head in agreement. "We have always broken from tradition when it's important."

"Yes."

"If our nephew's almost fiancée wants us to call her Candi, that's what we call her. We do not disrespect other people for the sake of tradition or what is considered appropriate by some."

"You know I call her Candi." That doesn't mean I understand why she eschews the use of her given name.

One far more acceptable for the wife of a man as high up in the mafia as Angelo.

"I am aware, Sal, but you do it under duress."

"Only you know that," I say defensively.

"I would think that I'm the one that matters most." My beautiful wife sighs. "I am also struggling to understand why you are so against the relationship."

"Angelo could have married a woman that would shore up Severu's support in Chicago or New England. After what the Sicilian godfather tried to pull, we need stronger bonds among the American Cosa Nostra." It's time we were more proactive about marriages happening between the different mafia territories.

Leaving behind so many of the old ways in a single generation might have been a mistake.

Ilaria's eyes narrow. "Angelo is already more than a decade older than you were when you and I married for the sake of the mafia. You know Enzo recommended more than one marriage to him and he refused every time."

"If Enzo had ordered him to marry, he would have." My brother could be harsh, but even with his own sons, he never demanded agreement to an arranged marriage.

He even made sure his daughter liked her future husband before he agreed to the marriage alliance with the Vegas Cosa Nostra.

"Yes, he would have. But then he and his wife would have been miserable. Or she would have been." Ilaria turns back to the mirror to put on her jewelry. "It's clear Angelo doesn't lack all emotion. Candi is proof of that, but he definitely doesn't share your passionate nature."

And my wife would pity a woman trapped in a passionless marriage. She's said so before and used it as her excuse for not encouraging either of our children to offer themselves to an alliance marriage.

At least Ilaria still believes she got lucky when she got me as a husband in her arranged marriage.

I lift her perfectly styled hair away from her neck and kiss her nape. "I'm happy to give you another example of that passion now."

We're in our fifties, but my desire for my wife still burns bright and hot.

Ilaria shivers and smiles at me in the mirror. "As tempting as that offer is, we are supposed to join Bianca and Salvatore for dinner tonight and if you want your son to believe you accept his wife, cancelling time with them is not the way to go about it."

"You are right, as always, cara mia." I kiss her nape again and step back. "When do you think they'll give us grandchildren?"

"Whenever it is, I'm sure we'll be two of the first people to know." Ilaria turns away from the mirror and meets my eyes directly. "Until then, we're not going to say a word about it to them, are we?"

"Of course not." I'll never forget how hard those kinds of questions were on Ilaria after we lost our first baby. "But I would like to have a grandson before I am too old to teach him the things a grandfather in la famiglia should."

"You mean like how to shoot a gun?" Ilaria teases. "I'm sure that's something Salvatore can teach his child, whether it be a boy or a girl, just fine like you did both him and Nerissa."

But will my son teach his children about duty to the Cosa Nostra? It's not Bianca being a former stripper that makes it hard for me to accept her as my daughter-in-law. It's the fact she grew up learning about the ugly side of the mafia so she doesn't have the innate loyalty to la famiglia women like Ilaria do.

But it's not Bianca on my mind when I speak next. It's our daughter, Nerissa.

"She wants to bring that boy to Christmas." Hands down, that's what really has me so fucking pissed off. My baby girl wants to bring a date to Christmas dinner. "You know what that means."

"First, he is a man, a made man no less. He is not a boy. And Nerissa loves him."

"She's the daughter of a consigliere. She can do much better than a soldier on a capo's crew."

"Ernesto isn't merely a foot soldier, and you know it. He's Domenico's second." My wife slips into her heels, increasing her diminutive height by a sensible two inches.

"With no hope of becoming capo himself one day."

Ilaria shrugs. "So? What's the real problem here, Sal? After all your talk about making an advantageous marriage, did you really think Nerissa was going to stay single forever?"

"Of course not. I know my beautiful, talented and intelligent daughter will marry one day. But she can do much better than Ernesto. She should be marrying a capo. Or at least the son of a capo."

Ilaria bursts into genuine laughter. "Can you see any capo in the Five Families allowing his wife to be second to another capo?"

"No, but once she's married, Nerissa will give up being her brothers second." And I'll be able to sleep better at night knowing she's not working on the front lines any longer

Ilaria stops in the act of putting away her makeup. She never leaves a mess behind her. Every room in our two homes, except her ceramics studio, stays immaculate. And it's not solely because we have excellent cleaning staff.

Her gaze fixes on me and it's not friendly.

No question, I have just fucked up royally even if I don't know what I said that was wrong.

She points at me like she's ordering my execution. "Listen to me, Sal De Luca. Our daughter is more than a satellite for some man's life. She is the center of her own universe. She's bright and beautiful and she's fierce as any woman I have ever known. Do you really want her to subsume her personal ambition for her husband's consequence?"

There is only one right answer that question. "No."

Ilaria nods, like she expected nothing less from me. "You know, I had a hard time with her getting made. But it was the path she wanted to take. And I'm very proud of the woman she has become."

"You never treated her differently after she took her vow as a Cosa Nostra soldier like you did Salvatore." It's something I've never understood and one of the few things Ilaria and I have never talked about.

"He killed the woman he loved. That he could do that devastated my heart. And that you could ask him to do it made me realize that had I ever been the one to betray la famiglia, you would have killed me too."

"Never!" I would never hurt this woman. If she betrayed the family, which I can't even wrap my mind around as a possibility, I would take her on the fucking run.

"Really? Bianca once asked me why I was so upset with Salvatore, but not the man who ordered the hit. And the truth is, Sal, I was afraid that if I let myself think about the fact you ordered our son to kill the woman he loved, I didn't know if my love for you would have survived."

"Are you saying you don't love me anymore?" Something in my chest cracks open and pain like I have never experienced explodes inside of me.

Does this explain the way she has pulled away from me? Did Bianca's question force Ilaria to face the monster inside me and find him irredeemable?

My wife's face softens, but the sadness reflected deep in her eyes does not go away. "No, that's not what I'm saying. Watching Bianca with Salvatore has helped me to see that we love the men we love, for who they are."

"Does that mean you forgive Salvatore?" Do you forgive me? I silently add.

"If our son had loved Monica like he loves Bianca, he would have gotten them new identities and taken her on the run. Like you would have done if it had been me."

Relief squeezes my heart so tight, it feels like I'm having a coronary. "Yes, I would."

She nods. "Even so, what did it do to our son to be the instrument of that death? He's never been the same, though I see glimmers of the boy I raised in the man married to Bianca. If for no other reason, that would make me love her."

"I thought killing Monica would help Salvatore get over the shame of being duped by a woman." If I had it to do over again, I would have killed her myself.

My wife looks at me first with shock and then with pity. "That's such a masculine way of looking at things, Sal, but that's not how the heart works. I'm just glad that Bianca brought healing to Salvatore. She can bring healing to our family if we let her."

"I didn't know our family was broken." But Bianca has helped Ilaria to accept Salvatore's past and my role in it. "She's a special woman and I'll make sure she knows I think so."

If I learned anything from the shock of discovering my brother had been a closet artist and seeing how his paintings reflected emotions he never spoke about and how that impacted his entire family, it's that the words should be said.

Ilaria smiles approval at me, no shadow in her beautiful eyes this time. "Remember our first Christmas together, marito?"