Page 57 of The Killer Cupcake (Poison Cherry #3)

THE FAMILY THAT SLAYS TOGETHER STAYS TOGETHER

T hree days blurred together like watercolors in the rain.

In the eye of this storm, Kathy and Debbie held each other steady.

The bakery's familiar rhythms provided sanctuary from two unbearable extremes: the suffocating grief that enveloped the family and friends of gentle giant Pete Freeman, and the men's hushed conferences that reeked of gunpowder and revenge.

"Kathy?" Debbie called from the kitchen doorway, still wearing her work apron. The evening's last customer had gone, and Kathy finished counting out wages for their helpers. Now they just had to wait for Brother to drive them home.

"Sit. You need to rest," Debbie insisted, bringing over a sandwich and a tall glass of water.

Kathy's stomach growled with hunger, but she'd grown accustomed to long days of labor. Hard work had become her constant companion. With Uncle Pete’s death rocking the family to its core, it would remain so. She and Debbie would run Kathy’s Sweets until Ely and her Daddy decided otherwise.

She walked over, ready to get off her feet.

The reunion between cousins had remained pleasant, comforting, and natural for one solid reason. They both ignored their shared history with the Ricci brothers and made small talk about Harlem gossip.

“So you and Ely are staying in my bedroom, huh?” Debbie asked.

Kathy chewed on the sandwich and nodded. “Yep, I can be close to Auntie. I know you got a lot on your hands with Junior. Plus, home is a nonstop traffic of Bumpy’s men now under the control of Daddy. He brought back so many men from Butts. I figured they could take my room,” Kathy reasoned.

Debbie studied her.

Kathy looked up. “What?”

“You haven’t been home in so long. You avoiding the place?”

“No. I just told you,” Kathy rolled her eyes.

“I know Auntie Brenda misses you. And I figured you would want to stay in your old room. You know.”

“Well, I don’t wanna,” Kathy mumbled. “Your place is fine.”

Debbie nodded. She took a deep breath and tried a different approach at conversation: “I heard Brother last night. He was talking to his crew and José at my house. They had come by.” Debbie’s gaze lifted.

She waited for Kathy to look up, but Kathy ate her sandwich, keeping her eyes down.

“They are planning to do something in Queens on the day of the funeral. I don’t know what, but… I’m worried.”

Kathy ate in silence, just chewing.

“I ah, Kat, my son. I…” Deb’s voice faltered. “I have to think of him, his father.” There was a pause. “I think I should tell Matteo that Harlem is retaliating if we are going to war. If my brother goes after the Italians, he could be the next target. Right?”

Kathy set down what was left of her sandwich. “Are you loyal to anyone other than Matteo, Debs?”

“How could you say that to me? My Daddy just died!” Debbie frowned.

“How could you think about going to the Ricci’s when they killed him?” Kathy asked.

Debbie stared at her for a moment, then dropped her head in sadness.

“Not the Riccis. Don Cosimo killed him. Matteo tried to stop it. Uncle Henry said he found out that Daddy…” Debbie paused on the emotion clogging her throat.

“He said that Cosimo Ricci paid the cops to kill Daddy. He knows it for a fact.”

Kathy looked away. When Kathy turned her gaze back to Debbie, she was on the verge of tears. “How could you keep it from me, Debs?”

Debbie bit down on her bottom lip. “It didn’t happen the way you think.”

“Then how! HOW DID IT HAPPEN!” Kathy shouted.

“God, Kat, you have no idea how bad it was after their mother’s suicide, do you?

I called you. I was going insane. Everyone across the city said Matteo was hurting people.

And Carmelo—Jesus, he didn't just break down. Something in him died, like his soul got ripped out. He was begging me and José for help like some lost little boy. I told him… I told him?—.”

“What? What did you tell him?” Kathy asked.

Debbie sobbed.

“WHAT!” Kathy demanded.

“God help me, but I told him to be a man for once. To be the man. To do something! Then it all exploded. Carmelo went home, got the gun, and shot his father, and suddenly the mob went insane. I saw them bring Don Ricci in off the streets, bleeding. They took him into Mama Stewart’s.”

Kathy’s eyes stretched, though pooling with tears. “Why Mama Stewart?”

Debbie wiped her tears away. “Turns out she’s some nurse for the Mafia. She used to work to heal folks. It’s where all this stuff with him and her begins, I guess.”

“Oh?” Kathy said, hiding her discomfort. She didn’t want to open a door to her heart again; she closed it the night she made her vow to Ely to be his.

“Carmelo, after the shooting, was beaten up by Ricci’s men for shooting his father.

They brought him and Nino into Mama Stewarts.

I don’t know what happened in that meeting, but he was different the next time I saw him, Kat.

Very different. He came over to my place one night early in the morning.

He came with Nino, begging me to hide Nino and watch over him while he went in search of Matteo before…

the other families found him. For two weeks, Matteo was out there turning Queens into a slaughterhouse.

He went after everyone—soldiers, associates, anyone who'd ever worked with the families or for his father. The killing, Kat... knives, throats slit, butchery, I still don’t believe the stories they tell about him.

The papers called him New York's Jack the Ripper, the Butcher, hunting mobsters instead of women.

The families wanted his head, the cops looked the other way.

All I wanted was to find him and save him.

Kathy frowned. “You sure it was Matteo?”

“That’s just it. If you saw him today with Junior, you wouldn’t believe a word of what I’m saying. If you saw how sweet and protective he is with me and Junior. He’s not some madman with a knife, hurting people. He’s not a butcher.”

Kathy shook her head in disbelief. “You can never know who someone truly is, Debs. Look at what you did, after everything you saw me go through to love Carmelo. You kept Carmelo’s marriage and kids a secret from me for two years.

You’re my sister. My blood. And all you are doing is sitting here trying to get me to feel sorry for them?

Who are you?” Kathy’s voice broke, and tears welled in her eyes.

“Please let me finish explaining,” Debbie pleaded.

Kathy rolled her eyes. “No, this is stupid! I’m a married woman now, and I have a—I have more important things to focus on.”

“Please!” Debbie grabbed her arm and made her sit. “Please.”

Kathy sat back down.

“Cosimo had been shot, and mob was divided,” Debbie hurried to explain.

“Mama Stewart stepped in to help. She sat me and Carmelo down and told us what would happen if we didn’t find Matteo soon.

The other families would take him out for attacking “made men,” and then finish off Carmelo.

Last would be Nino. In a year or two, Don Cosimo, with no family, would be exiled.

The Ricci empire divided and given to the other four families.

Carmelo had a chance to fix things because Don Ricci didn’t die.

He told the families that his son was sick with grief, and the other one is going insane.

He saved his sons by telling them this, and from every corner of the Ricci family, we looked for Matteo.

If we didn’t find him, it would all end.

This is their way. Their tradition. Their rules, Kathy. ”

“How did you find him?” Kathy asked.

“Mama Stewart said that she felt we would find him at his mother’s grave.

So for days, she had men watching it all through the night.

And one night he appeared. But when they tried to approach him, he ran away.

” Kathy wiped her tears. “That made Carmelo remember a place their mother took them as kids. A place in Queens. He said that when Cosimo was mad at her or beat her, she would take them to a shelter with a church from her country. And there was a house there that was abandoned that they played at as kids. So he and I went. And that is where he was—drunk, dirty, unconscious in rats and filth. José picked him up and put him in the car. José and I took care of him while Carmelo worked on his father.”

“Worked on him?” Kathy asked.

"Carmelo never breathed a word about finding Matteo.

When Carmelo finally went to his father, he made what he still calls 'the devil's deal'.

Kathy, it was all because of that letter.

His mother wrote it before she jumped off that bridge.

She said Carmelo was born to shield the family, not Matteo, and her sacrifice would guarantee he did it.

She knew about you Kathy, and me, and her mind snapped.

She demanded Carmelo marry that Italian girl to protect them all.

So Carmelo said he negotiated for his brothers like his life depended on it.

He'd obey his father completely, box, do whatever if Cosimo kept Nino out of those horrible institutions and found Matteo before the other families did. Mama Stewart spelled it out for us—without this deal, Cosimo would gladly serve Matteo up to all those grieving families just to gain some respectability. His reputation was in the toilet, with all the fractures in his family. The very next day after that wedding, you know what Carmelo did? Threw some clothes in a bag and took off for New Orleans. God’s truth, he did.

All that time, Kathy—he was trying to get back to you. "

"He came home to her, though. Made babies," Kathy said, the words bitter even as Debbie's story lined up with what Carmelo had told her.

"Twins. And listen to me—it was killing him.

He'd drink himself sick every time he had to leave you.

Matteo told me Carmelo slept on the floor rather than share her bed.

He was saving every penny from those boxing matches, planning to take you away somewhere safe.

Then she claimed he got drunk and attacked her.

He came to Matteo sobbing like a child, swearing he never touched her, terrified he'd lose you forever.

He was coming apart at the seams, Kathy—trying to protect his family while holding onto you with both hands.

When those babies came, he panicked. Begged me to keep it from you.

He had this wild plan even Matteo didn't know about.

He was going to steal from his father's operation and disappear with you to Vegas, had some connection with a Jewish gangster out there who'd protect you both. "

Kathy went completely still, unable to speak as the truth settled over her like a shroud.

She slumped in her seat, finally understanding.

Carmelo had tried to tell her—she could see that now—but Aunt Janey’s poison had already taken root.

She'd been too furious to consider that maybe, just maybe, none of it had been planned.

"Kathy, honey... I tried everything to stop you from marrying Ely. Phone calls, letters, telegrams. I needed you to understand what was really happening here, but you'd already made up your mind."

The tears came hard and fast. Kathy's head fell forward as the weight of her mistake crushed down on her. “It’s too late. I’m married now, Debs.”

Debbie crossed to Kathy's side of the booth and gathered her close. They held each other the way only women who've known real loss can—fierce and gentle at once. Tears came freely, apologies tumbling over each other until the words themselves became a kind of healing.

"He never stopped loving you," Debbie murmured.

"I know. But it doesn't matter anymore." Kathy's voice was surprisingly calm. "We've been nothing but heartbreak from day one. Ely tried to warn me. You tried. Some loves are just... poison, Debs. I've made my peace with it."

"You're wrong. Everything good in my life—Matteo, Junior—exists because of what you and Carmelo had.

That day at Magdalena's, when I almost destroyed my baby, Matteo pulled me back from the edge.

That's when I realized we're all connected by something bigger than this prejudice.

We can't let their world or ours dictate our happiness. "

"Maybe that's true for you. But I've spent three years becoming someone else in Butts. The girl you remember? She's gone. I don't belong here now. All I have left is my ba—" She stopped abruptly.

Debbie tilted her head, waiting.

"The bakery," Kathy corrected quietly. "Just the bakery and old memories."

"Kat, don't do this?—"

"Brother will be here any minute. We should finish closing."

Debbie sighed deeply but moved away, understanding the dismissal.

Left alone, Kathy allowed herself one last moment of grief before locking it away.

She'd made her choices, played her part in this mess.

Changing the past was impossible, and Carmelo couldn't be her future—not when she had a child to think about.

She swore to herself she'd never look back, though even as she made the vow, she recognized its fragility.

After all, every promise she'd ever made with her heart had eventually crumbled.