Page 31 of Hateful Vows

TWENTY-FOUR

DANTE

A few days later, Aleksei has not yet come around and Irina’s lips have turned down deeper than when I first married her. It doesn’t matter how many times I make her come in our marital bed—I can’t get enough of having her there—she’s back to moping once she’s cleaned up and dressed.

But I can’t attend to her moping today. My mother’s turning sixty-four and, as I do every year, I’ve organised a small, private lunch at the back of her beloved garden. I won’t lie and say I don’t care about my wife’s turmoil, but my mother is my priority.

This year, the guest list is extended to include Irina, Lucie and Aleksei, making it a little brighter than the four-people affair we had last year, with only my father, Tino and I in attendance.

The early summer sun shines through a canopy of trees, granting us light without the sweltering heat.

A nice breeze weaves through the branches.

We can almost believe we are back in Italy, in my mother’s ancestral home.

Despite being a mafia wife for decades, always dressed like a queen and perfect in appearance, Mariella Ventura likes to eat on a half-broken white plastic set of table and chairs, the table cloth also made of plastic and decorated with lemons, inherited from her Italian great-aunt.

Irina’s almost smiling as she and my mother set up the table while Tino and I grill meat and ripe vegetables.

I can’t stop looking at them, almost conspiratorial, the black summer dress on my wife’s body moulding her curves perfectly and clashing with my mother’s bright yellow maxi-dress.

It was my father’s favourite. Something clenches in my chest, the feeling of contentment spreading through me.

My life might be threatened, but for half a day, everything is perfect.

“We brought wine,” Lucie exclaims, blonde ponytail swishing side to side, and she sets three bottles of rosé on the table before embracing my mother, then Irina, and finally getting to Tino and I.

“I don’t know what you did to my husband, cugino , but I think he beat his own brooding record,” she whispers in my ears before winking.

“I heard that,” Aleksei says with a frown.

He stays on the other side of the table, well away from both Irina and I.

She might be used to not getting what she wants but I’m used to taking and not asking for permission.

I stride toward him and don’t let him dodge me.

My hand snaps around his throat and I bring his lips to mine, tangling my tongue with his.

I swallow his grunt of surprise, nerve endings firing when he melts under my kiss.

“We’ve missed you, pretty boy.”

“Oh, Dante, your lover is here, that’s fantastic,” my mother says before planting kisses on Aleksei’s cheeks. He blushes and even Irina snorts. “Come, come. You will play piano for me later, won’t you, dear?”

His face softens and he nods. “Of course, Mariella.”

The wind chimes in the trees, leaving the moment suspended in time. I wish it would never end.

The cork of a rosé bottle pops and Lucie smiles unabashedly, pouring generous amounts into each glass, then raising hers for a toast to my mother.

Today is a good day for her, but that’s the trick with Lewy body dementia.

Compared to Alzheimer’s, which progresses rather steadily, the disorder affecting her brain is unpredictable.

She can be herself one day like today but tomorrow, she might barely remember who she is, be stricken with insomnia for days, or fall down the stairs because she forgot how to put one foot in front of the other.

Irina’s hand lands on mine and she squeezes.

She doesn’t smile but she doesn’t have to.

Her eyes express more than she thinks. The brown swirls with warmth and a reminder to enjoy the moment rather than be scared of losing my mother like I did my father.

And between a brutal separation and the slow descent to nothingness my mother faces, I’m not sure which one is worse.

Lucie must pick up on my sour mood because she launches into a story of our youth, drawing smiles and laughter from everyone. She was just four or five when Gio died but she embellishes, to my mother’s delight.

“I can’t believe you still planted oleanders, despite having children so young around, zia, ” Lucie scoffs.

“That’s asking for trouble,” Irina confirms.

I have no clue what they’re talking about. My mother loves her garden dearly and she tried to tell me which plant was which, but I was never a good student. That was Gio’s thing. Truly, I never gave a fuck about studying and especially not about gardening.

“Bah,” my mother bats her hand at her. “If you don’t tell kids not to do something they won’t even think about it. Imagine I would have told them not to eat them, you can bet Gio or Tino would have been the first one to ingest the whole plot.”

Tino’s ears tinge red. “It’s not my fault I can’t resist a challenge.”

“So what?” I ask good-humouredly. “Would we have been vomiting our guts on your pristine tile floors, mother?”

It’s Irina who answers me, looking down her nose at me like she does so well. It makes me want to punish her and I lick my lips. “Dante, Oleanders are one of the most poisonous plants in the world and your mum has enough in her garden to kill a little army.”

The air around us shifts.

Tino’s fork stops on his way to his mouth. The sound of the cutlery of porcelain plates stops abruptly.

Irina’s face falls.

Aleksei’s gaze jumps between Irina, Tino and I, the silent conversation loud enough for him to understand. “Mariella, why don’t I play for you in the piano room?”

She follows him and he glances at us behind his shoulder, subtly nodding.

“What do you need me to do?” Tino asks.

Ringing is loud in my ears, my heart screaming in my chest and violence tainting my vision.

“Who knows about this garden?” I ask.

My gaze lands on Lucie, my heart clenching painfully. I haven’t seen her in so long, but she knew about the garden.

Tears rise in her bright blue eyes. “You can’t be serious,” she says, chin wobbling.

Irina steps in front of me, framing my face with manicured hands. “Don’t. That’s what they want. They want you to doubt your own family, the people you’re close to.”

She releases me and my shoulders fall. She’s right but my thoughts are jumbled, grief rising all over again. My father’s murderer was here. They knew. And they knew the seed of dissent and doubt they sowed.

“Let’s list who knows about this place,” Irina says, ever the mafia leader I know she can be.

Tino and Lucie list the very short amount of people who know about this garden.

Lucie, her adoptive parents, who are in France now and haven’t set foot in the country except for my father’s funeral, Aleksei, Irina, Tino, Lorenzo, my mother, our staff and I.

No one had any reason for killing my father.

“Then, we need to exhume his father, do another toxicology report. Who did you work with the first time?” Irina asks.

I give her the name of a doctor who’s worked for my family for years.

“We have to assume he’s been compromised. We’ll use ours. Where’s Lorenzo?”

I’ve known Lorenzo for years. He moved up the ranks alongside me. He’s in Manchester today, dealing with legal real estate projects we have as he usually does. He’s never been one for mayhem and murder.

“In Manchester,” I tell her. “I don’t think?—”

“You were ready to accuse me but Lorenzo whom you’ve known for just a few years is beyond reproach?” Lucie admonishes and she’s right.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Fuck, I don’t know how it could happen.” I pull my hair at the roots, my vision getting blurry with hurt and doubt.

“Oleander poison doesn’t work fast. Your father probably ingested it over the course of months, if not years,” she says and I don’t have time to ask how she learnt all this. Clarity hits me like a freight train.

“If my father ingested poison in his own home but my mother lived…” I swallow around bile. “It means my staff knew about it.” My voice takes on a dark edge. Olivier is the only person who cooks in this house.

He saw me grow, him and his wife were loyal to my family for years. To think they could have murdered my father, someone they knew and respected for so long.

“We exhume my father. Look for the poison. Then, we summon the traitors.”

The words ring hollow and pained. A toxic sensation slithers across my skin. I want to annihilate them, and mourn them at the same time.

F or two days, I bide my time, but I don’t eat anything Olivier prepares.

Anxiety swirls in my gut, all I can think about is how long they have looked me in the eyes while they killed the man who raised me, the one who loved my mother so intensely. He had his faults, but he deserved better than to be poisoned over time by the people he trusted most.

When Irina brings me the toxicology report, her face somber and ready for war, I already know what it will tell me.

“Line them up,” I tell Tino.

Our feet are heavy as we gather in the bright kitchen in the middle of the afternoon. My vision wavers as I imagine blood spreading on the pristine floor.

Olivier is cleaning up the pans while Margot is closing the garbage bag, readying to go home until tomorrow. They usually leave enough food for my mother to re-heat in the evening, though she forgets more and more these days.

“Mr Ventura?”

I whip my gun out of its holster and hold it to his face. His wife yelps but he simply raises his hands in surrender. Jaw set. Eyes hard. Ready to die.

Tino clasps a hand above the maid’s mouth, holding her tight as she fights against him. She doesn’t stand a chance.

My throat clogs until I can’t swallow and tears threaten to fall on my cheeks.

“Why?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Dante. It was your father or my daughter. She’s only fifteen. Do what you have to do but leave Olivia and my wife out of it. I beg you.”

He drops to his knees, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Who paid you?”

He clamps his lips shut, shakes his head. Tears escape his eyes.

“Who paid you!?”

I raise my weapon. My hand wavers. Margot cries and fights Tino with anguish on her blotched face.

I have killed hundreds of men and never lost a night of sleep over them.

Bad men, good men. Men who stole, men who killed.

I never doubted, never wavered. But Olivier's weathered face is one I’m so familiar with, almost as much as my father’s was.

I know the lines around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth.

I know his boisterous smile and his indulgent one.

I know he loves to kiss his wife’s neck when she passes as they do chores around the house together.

He’s ever silent and discreet, yet always made sweet treats for me even when my father forbade me to eat them. I barely knew he had a daughter.

Shame coats me head to toe, the weight of what I must do so heavy on my shoulders I fear I might crumble.

Irina enters my vision field, standing just a little on my left right. All I see is her. Determined, cold eyes meet mine. Her slender hand slides against mine towards the trigger.

“I’m a coward,” I breathe.

“You have a heart.”

A beat later, I nod and she doesn’t hesitate to press our fingers on the trigger.

The maid’s wails are loud but none louder than the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground.

A single tear drops down my cheek. On her toes, Irina kisses it away. Then, we both clean up and bury the man who died looking death in the face, while Tino takes care of the mourning widow. Not a step closer to the person who orchestrated it all.