No one had ever had such unshakeable belief in me before. It made me feel like I could do anything.
And I would.
I’d work every minute of every hour of every day to get him back to me.
“Ti amo, Capo,” I whispered against his lips. “Ti amo, martio mio.”
I love you, my husband.
He smiled against me, his hand reaching up to palm my throat. “Sono con te, lottatice mia, anche quando non lo sono.”
I am with you, my fighter, even when I am not.
Despite my abandonment issues and the fear that pooled like iron on the back of my tongue, I trusted him.
I trusted myself.
And when we said our final goodbye at the door ten minutes later, I didn’t cry even though tears burned in my heart. I just gave my capo one last kiss, a stamp of ownership I hoped he would feel for the days and weeks to come, and then I let him go.
Because I knew no matter what, he would come back to me.
The headline in The New York Times the next morning read ‘The Mafia Lord returns’ followed by a grainy black and white photo of Dante being handcuffed by police officers at the 23rd Precinct.
I stared at it for a long time as I sat at the kitchen island drinking my coffee. My thumb moved over the photo until it was inked with newsprint.
It was too early to call, but I did anyway.
“Any news?”
Yara sighed. “The arraignment is in two hours. It’s a Class A misdemeanor, Elena, and Judge Hartford is on the case again. There’s no question Dante will go to prison until trial for the RICO case.”
“I know.”
“Then why the phone call?” Yara asked coolly and I knew she was probably raising her eyebrows over the phone.
We’d spoke yesterday about the game plan, but it was hard not to be directly involved in Dante’s legal team after so long of being Yara’s associate, especially now that I was in love with him. It made me feel impotent to sit there knowing there was legal work to be done.
It was legal for lawyers to represent their family under New York law, though it wasn’t exactly advisable. Still, there was no way I was going to take myself off the RICO case now. The only reason I couldn’t attend the arraignment was because technically I was still on leave from work.
“I want to ask Ricardo Stavos for help.”
There was a surprised pause, then, “What can he do that Frankie can’t?”
“He’s the best private investigator in the city. Frankie can do amazing work through the computer, but if we want someone on the ground, there is no one better than Ric.” I’d thought about it a lot in the last two days and decided I would reach out to him even if Yara vetoed it. “He could be invaluable in tracking the di Carlos.”
“One thing at a time. Let’s focus on proving Dante’s innocence.”
I picked at a hangnail until it bled then cursed softly. “Dante said you would know who to speak with to get a speedy trial.”
“I do.”
Another pause while I tried to stop the flow of blood with the edge of a napkin.
“Elena,” Yara called, her voice firm. “I know this is scary. I know it’s against your nature to sit back and do nothing. But I’ve got this, I promise. Dante will spend minimal time behind bars while we set a date for the trial and then we’ll hit it out of the park. He didn’t even kill Giuseppe di Carlo.”
“No, but USA Dennis O’Malley knows that and he doesn’t care. He wants to use the case to build his political career. Now that Dante’s fled and come back, he won’t want to lose even more badly.”
“Too bad for him.”
Chen came into the kitchen in his workout clothes, dripping sweat all over the tiles. “Donna, the cops are downstairs. Seems they think they should talk to you.”
“Yara?” I said into the phone. “Do you think you have time to meet me at the police station for the arraignment?”
It was beyond bizarre to be on the other side of the table in a police interrogation room. We were at the 23rd Precinct where Dante had turned himself in late last night. The two uniformed cops who had come to pick me had long ago handed me over to a pair of detectives.
One of the men was an older man with a slight underbite that made him look almost feral and the other was a gorgeous younger man with close cropped dark hair and pale blue eyes like chips of arctic ice.
It was the latter who leaned over the metal table intimidatingly.
“Ms. Lombardi… or should we call you Mrs. Salvatore now?” he questioned as if he was clever and shocking.
I blinked at him. “You can call me whatever you like, but I won’t answer until Mrs. Ghorbani arrives.”