Inferno(25)

‘But the bloodshed didn’t end, did it?’ I asked quietly.

‘The Marinos endured the terms, at first, but they obviously didn’t swallow them – maybe the twins’ survival gave them courage, or maybe it was my mother’s sister, Donata, who changed things. She married Cesare Marino when she was barely twenty years old. He was almost twice her age, but she didn’t care. Donata was hungry for money, for the power she couldn’t find in her own family.’ His expression soured as his mind turned to his aunt. ‘The Genoveses were on the way out, and I guess you could say the Marinos had an opening.’

‘And she took it,’ I supplied. I considered the idea of marrying some random forty-year-old mob boss for money and power, and it made my skin crawl. What twisted brand of ambition would make someone want to do that? I remembered Luca’s mother’s words to me in my hospital room: The Genovese women are survivors; we have the blood of Sicily in our veins, entire families who work beneath us.

Luca nodded. ‘Donata became more of a boss than her husband. Within a couple of years, she was running the whole operation. The day Valentino and I were born, Donata sent her Marino soldati after my parents, out of some sick, delayed retribution.’ At my look of confusion, he clarified, ‘Soldiers.’

‘Soldiers?’ I repeated in a voice much higher than normal. In my head I pictured an army of mafiosi marching towards a hospital, and bringing death with them. I swallowed hard. ‘But why?’

‘Donata wanted to orphan Valentino and me, the same way the Falcones orphaned the Marino twins. She wanted to kill her own sister.’

‘That’s ruthless,’ I said. ‘I mean, they’re sisters.’

Something unreadable flitted across Luca’s face. ‘They’re Genovese,’ he resolved, as though that would explain everything. It didn’t, but I stayed silent and after a moment, he picked up the thread of conversation again. ‘My grandfather got a tip-off that the Marinos were going to move against us, so he met them on the streets outside the hospital that day and they took him instead.’

‘God,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ said Luca. ‘He paid the ultimate price in the end.’

‘For killing the Marino boss and his wife?’ I thought about the wife. Had she been someone like me, ushered into the family by her feelings and naïvety, or was she raised the way Nic’s mother and her sister were? Did she marry Vincenzo Marino willingly, knowing what might one day happen to them?

‘For ordering it,’ Luca clarified. ‘The hit on Vincenzo Marino and his wife was Felice’s. His first. Well, first and second.’ A bitter smile twisted on his lips. ‘If you ever want to piss Felice off, mention the missing Marino twins and he’ll go so red you won’t recognize him. The ones that got away,’ Luca said with mock wistfulness. ‘Only Felice would lament the failure to kill a couple of kids.’

‘He ruined their lives,’ I said, bitterness overtaking me at the thought of Felice’s stupid face. His leering grin. His murderous eyes. ‘Wasn’t that enough?’

Luca shook his head. ‘There’s a long history between our families, Sophie. It doesn’t come down to a couple of murders, not of their boss, not of my grandfather. We’ve been warring with the Marinos since Sicily. It started with land, and land became profit and drugs and arms, and territories, and revenge. There have been losses on both sides.’

‘I don’t see how that excuses anything.’

Luca’s voice hardened. ‘I never said it did.’

‘Nic told me once that you never go after members of the Mafia culture, no matter what they’ve done.’

Luca’s laugh was mirthless. ‘Nicoli says a lot of things. That doesn’t make them true.’

‘So he lied.’ I tried to keep the surprise from my voice. I know Nic was more than capable of being dishonest, but when he had sat beside me in his sitting room, pouring out the secrets of his lineage, he had seemed so sincere.

Luca’s forehead creased. ‘I think it’s less about him lying to you and more about him lying to himself. The Marinos have always been different from the other families. We’ve never shared a history of respect with them.’

‘Are you still at war … in a “blood war”?’ I amended, wondering at the sick turn in my stomach, at the way my panic flared at the thought. How strong were the Marinos now? How close were they to the Falcones? Just how bloody was a blood war?

‘No. Not for a while now.’ Luca’s face was pale and drawn; he looked tired of standing, tired of talking. He sat down, tucking his boots under the bench and leaning forward. He steepled his fingers in front of his lips, thinking. I was struck by the memory of Valentino – how alike they were in that moment, one in my memory, the other beside me. I stayed standing, curious now that I was steeped in their history. I circled the room, scanning names I couldn’t pronounce and Roman numerals that made no sense.