Page 1 of A Love Most Fatal
1
VANESSA
The grandfather clockticks away in the front room; the sound is the only thing grounding me through another infuriating meeting in which a man tries to pawn his nephew/widower-brother/cousin from the mainland off on me as a reasonable marriage candidate.
Apparently, marriage shouldn’t be anything more than a business deal.
Because that workedso wellfor me the last time.
I hear the men out because it’s rude not to when we’ve been in business together for so many years—generations, for some. But sitting through these asinine meetings is not good for my health. I’m not entirely sure what it feels like to have high blood pressure, but if anything were going to bring it on, it would be this. I always leave with a headache, which should be coming on any second now, along with?—
“I’m sure you both can find an arrangement that is suitable to your. . . more physical needs.”
And bingo. Cue the headache.
I take a sip of tea, now lukewarm after Ronaldo prattled on for twenty minutes all about the great ways this relationship would benefit us both, and set the mug back down. A marriagewith his family would be practically useless to me. Still, I listen because it would be more annoying to hear him moan about my disregard for tradition and clan loyalty.
Ronaldo’s cup has, once again, made its way to the wooden tabletop instead of the coaster provided.
“Your cup,” I say. Because he has some sense of self-preservation, he moves it onto the coaster.
His face displays a calm surety, but he’s picking at a loose thread on his Gucci pants. He’s off balance while talking to me and doesn’t exactly know where he stands. He knows that I hold more power than him in this city, a lot more, and he probably knows that I have multiple men in his employ keeping tabs on his dealings, though he doesn’t know who. He was afraid of my father, and that fear remains for my father’s heir, but he doesn’t know precisely how to account for the fact that his heir is a woman.
“Are you saying that your nephew is going to cheat on me, Ronaldo?”
After a beat of shock, his eyes nearly bulge out of his crusty skull, and a vein in his forehead twitches. If I were a man, he would extend this same curtesy.
“Well, no, Vanessa, that’s not what I?—”
It was.
“Enlighten me, then. What sort of arrangement do you mean?” I ask, my tone almost generous.
His lips are thin, floundering open and closed while he puts coherent words together in his pebble of a brain. “Of course, James will have needs, and I presume anyone in your position would as well.”
“Ah.”Needs. “And if you wanted him to marry my younger sister, would she be extended such liberties as well?”
I think this question might be what breaks him: a concept so incomprehensible I can’treallymean it. As a rule in ourworld, women cannot take lovers. They ought to be pure, loyal creatures who belong to their father, then husband, or their son if their husband dies. But of course, men are welcome to their pick of lovers, so long as they’re not a part of the clan, lest they embarrass their wives. Foreign women are fine, but God forbid they be from the homeland.
Ronaldo clasps his hands and leans forward with a patronizing smile.
“Your sister would be a different situation. You understand,” he says.She’s not in charge, is what he means. My power doesn’t extend to her.
“Sure. A wife could never undermine her husband’s status in that way,” I agree with a shrug.
Ronaldo looks relieved, relaxing back into his chair, like finally I’m showing some reason.
“Right.” He takes a sip from his coffee, the ends of his gray mustache coming back wet.
“And James would never do anything to embarrass me,” I say.
Ronaldo’s head keeps bobble-heading on. James would never take an Italian lover, only Polish or Russian, he thinks I mean. As another man said last week, his nephew wouldn’t ever piss in his own pool.Great.Cool.
“Wonderful. So, infidelity of any kind from James will not be tolerated. You understand,” I echo.
He chokes, and then places the mug directly on the table next to his coaster, a bit of coffee splashing over and landing on the wood. Before I can correct him for a third time, though, he hurries to pull a handkerchief from his pocket and sops up the spill, replacing the cup again to its coaster.
Before this house was mine, it was my father’s, and he was very particular about his things. He liked them kept nice; credenzas dusted, wood floors polished, settees and ornate rugsfree of bloodstains. Capos knew if they were invited in his home they were not to disrespect it. Perhaps it was his attention to detail that made him such a good don. Even with him gone, I’m glad that fear still lives in Ronaldo.