Under the Bones Read online

  But Nico was not Konstantine.

  I know why you’re really doing this! He’d shouted through the gag as three men dragged him from the truck bed and tossed him into the back of the waiting truck, the coarse straw pushing through his night shirt. I know why!

  Nico was the only real threat to Padre’s empire and his heir. For if given much more time, Nico would’ve risen up and seized his father’s throne. He was what the Ravengers needed. To be the most feared crime family not only in Italy, but the world.

  His father had grown weak and indulgent in his old age. It wasn’t only that he’d sheltered all the brats in the city. Or his soft ways with women. It was that he viewed his work as something other than what it was. This is an opportunity to shelter the forgotten. To offer discarded souls a way out of the gutter. Out of the dark.

  Bullshit!

  They sold drugs! They governed the underworld. The cities they built were meant for those like themselves. Souls without a future. Souls with no way out but down. His father spoke of revolution, of freeing the people. And Konstantine was infected by the same blindness.

  Nico was the only one who could see the world clearly. Some were meant to live beneath the boots of others. There was no shame in that. The notion of equality and freedom for all—grow up, brother. There was no place for idealism in their world.

  Nico had thought all of this as the truck shifted and swayed. There was only one salvation on that terrible night. The truck and pre-dawn exile meant his father hadn’t had it in him to kill him outright.

  That was his mistake.

  Because if he’d lived long enough, Nico would have put a bullet between his eyes.

  After the exile. After the ten long years in a work yard where he toiled and sweat and endured endless humiliations until news of his father’s death reached him.

  And he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. The time had come.

  At the edge of the Ponte Vecchio, Nico paused to look out over the water. The camp felt like a lifetime ago. His father, a mere dream.

  And maybe this was not even the same city. For now the sun shimmered on the surface, like pebbles tumbling in a stream. Tourists clustered around the shops and gelaterie. A beggar woman lay prostrated, face down with her open palms cupped in offering.

  Nico put a euro note into her outstretched hands. He knew what it was to be hungry and to have nothing but your own will to sustain you. It had been his hate for his father that had kept him breathing all those years in the labor camp. Konstantine was nothing in the face of that hatred. The will.

  He’d survived hell. He’d rallied the others in the camp and overthrew their guards. They killed every single one of them, stole every gun, every ounce of supplies. They’d traveled the treacherous miles between the camp and Florence, hard weeks of living hand to mouth, stealing for food, sleeping where they could.

  What obstacle did Konstantine pose compared to what he’d already overcome?

  How would it have hurt him to know that for months his old friends had sent word to Nico, letting him know Padre was dead, that he should come home. That they would help him reclaim what was rightfully his?

  He remembered the look on Konstantine’s face when Calzone and Vincent pulled their guns on him, and Nico stepped victorious from the shadows.

  He would replay that memory for years to come, wringing every ounce of joy from it.

  Nico crossed through a portico into the apartment’s atrium and courtyard. He passed beneath the rounded archway and ascended the old stone steps, noting each number beside the apartment door. The attic then. Overlooking a lush courtyard and fountain on one side and the Arno itself on the other. He paused to admire the carved cherub, his delicate mouth spitting water while his fingers poised above the strings of a lyre.

  He turned the key in the large metal lock and heard it release.

  He could’ve sent anyone for this mission, but he’d wanted to see for himself. How better to know his enemy than to see where he slept, where he dreamed?

  Nico stepped into the cool apartment and hit the light. He pulled the curtain, revealing the courtyard below, giving the room even more light by which to see. A large chair in one corner and a desk with a computer in the other. A red and brown rug covered the length of the room.

  He went up the stairs to find the loft. A rumpled bed. The compressed pillows. He opened the double doors on a balcony and the glory of the shining Arno river. Someone was cooking in an adjacent apartment, rich spices and sweet cream wafted through the open window, carried on the cool river breeze.

  He opened drawers, looked in closets. The closet lights were already on. And strangely, when he tried to turn them off, it seemed the bulbs had been screwed into a socket in such a way that the lights couldn’t be turned off. A quirk of an old apartment perhaps?

  He found a collection of shoes. Some Italian leather. Some American. Two leather jackets and an abundance of black shirts and several pairs of sunglasses. A toothbrush on the sink. A single bottle of soap in the shower stall. Cologne on the bedside table.

  Downstairs he searched again. Pencils and pens and paper in the desk. The laptop itself which was password protected. Some novels in both English and Italian.

  He unplugged the laptop from the wall and wrapped the cord around it. This was likely his only find.

  A giant oil painting of a man with a sword raised high hung on the wall. Is this how he saw himself? Konstantine The Great? A warrior astride his horse? More like a joke of a man. A stolen horse.

  He’d stood sneering at the painting until he heard a small sound behind him. A shoe scuffing on stone.

  “Konstantine!” A boy called out. “I’m back. We’ve—”

  The boy’s voice froze in his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed the rest of his sentence down. He took one look at Nico standing the middle of the apartment and bolted.

  He didn’t get far. Nico seized the back of his jacket and hauled him into the apartment, kicking the door closed. He slammed the boy against it, eliciting a cry.

  Nico’s hand pressed over the kid’s mouth, the same moment he tossed the laptop toward the chair. It landed squarely on top of the rose-colored cushion and bounced. Good enough. Nico needed his free hand to pull his blade and press it to the kid’s throat.

  The boy’s body went perfectly still.

  “Where did you come from?” Nico asked. Because he’d laid siege to this city in the last 48 hours. Surely this boy had learned of the change of power.

  “Prato,” the boy said, without hesitation. Good. Perhaps Nico wouldn’t have to kill him.

  “And what were you doing in Prato?”

  “Where’s Konstantine?”

  “Dead.” Or he soon will be.

  The boy’s shoulders softened against the door.

  “What were you were doing in Prato?”

  The boy swallowed. The knife pricked the skin.

  “He wanted me to check on something.”

  “Check what?” Nico pressed the blade against his throat. Blood trickled down, soaking the collar of his t-shirt.

  This terrified the boy into silence. His eyes going as wide as cow’s before the steel bolt penetrated its head. He released the pressure only enough to encourage speech.

  “He’s having a room built there.”

  “Go on.”

  The boy looked horrified for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure exactly how he would go on.

  “It’s—it’s just a room, signore,” he said, sweat beading along his hairline, matting his bangs to his forehead. “In an old winery outside of town. It’s in the basement.”

  He believed him. After all, if Konstantine was smart, he would’ve chosen the boy for his ignorance. If he himself were commissioning a room for some dark purpose, would he tell anyone what it was for? As a safe for his fortune or a bunker against one’s enemies? No. He suspected that secret would stay quite close to his chest. As close as this terrified boy with his panting breath stood now.

>   He released the kid. “What purpose do you think the room is intended for?”

  Visible relief washed over his face as he stood and tugged his shirt and jacket back into place. “I can’t imagine. It’s a strange room.”

  “Describe it to me.”

  “It’s padded. Floor to ceiling. Not even a ceiling really. It’s only lights up there. Every inch. Too high to reach. The lights do not turn off and it makes the room so bright. It hurts my eyes.”

  The lights do not turn off.

  Like the closet in the apartment.

  What a mad man you were, Konstantine, Nico thought.

  “He sent you to check on this project of his?”

  “Yes.” He used the collar of his shirt to mop up the blood from his throat, crushing the cotton against his slender throat.

  “And what was the message you came to deliver today?” Nico asked, wiping the boy’s blood on his pants.

  “It’s ready.”

  10

  When King stepped into the hospital room with a cup of coffee and a wrapped po’boy sandwich, he knew something had changed. Lucy was sitting up in bed. Nurse Naomi, King’s favorite of all the caregivers at the center, was beside her. Naomi was a lovely woman with dreads tied at the base of her neck. The woman spoon-fed Lucy a steaming bowl of soup, in slow, patient offerings.

  “Good morning, ladies,” he said, sliding the door shut behind them. “Looks like I’m in time for lunch.”

  The nurse spared him a small smile. “Good morning, Mr. King. Miss Lucy and I were talking about my niece Cassandra. She’s getting married at St. Thomas parish this weekend.”

  “Congratulations,” King said, pulling up the chair on the opposite bedside. “I hope the weather holds for you.”

  Lucy turned her face away, her features pinching closed. Naomi and King exchanged a look.

  Naomi set the bowl down on the side table. “You tired? We can pick this up later.”

  “Leave the bowl and we can try in a little while,” King said.

  Lucy didn’t speak until Naomi had excused herself, slipping unobtrusively from the room. Then seemingly to the wall she said, “Weddings are lovely.”

  King unwrapped his sandwich. The smell of fried shrimp, vinegar, and BBQ sauce wafted up to greet him.

  Her face pinched again.

  “Is this smell bothering you?” he asked, wondering if he’d made a mistake in bringing it. He’d given up on the beignets. If he was sick, dying from the cancer eating away at his bones, would he want someone trying to force feed him donuts every other day? Probably not.

  She didn’t seem to hear him. “I’m so nauseous today.”

  “Is it the smell?” he asked again. No food at all then. That’s where they were now. His heart sank even as she shook her head no.

  He was torn between his own hunger and trying to read unspoken cues.

  “I’d always hoped that I’d see Lou get married.”

  King snorted. “Imagine the domestic disputes over drawers left open or socks on the floor.”

  It was either eat the sandwich quickly or throw it away. King dared to take a bite.

  Lucy turned and smiled at him then. “We could get married.”

  King coughed, choking on the po’boy. It wasn’t what she’d said. It was the clear eyes and sweet smile. Perfect lucidity. This wasn’t the drugs talking.

  “What’s wrong, Robert?” she asked with a broad grin. “Not the marrying kind?”

  If there was a woman in the world that he would dare to love again, to give himself completely to, it was Lucy Thorne. But he’d already done that. Not on paper. But what did that matter?

  “I didn’t think you’d have me,” he said, cracking open a water bottle and washing down the shrimp stuck in this throat.

  “Don’t I already have you?”

  “Yes.” He wiped at his fingers with a flimsy paper napkin.

  She turned away then. “I’m a fool to expect more than I’ve already received.”

  He snatched her hand. “Not a fool.”

  She laughed, a tired, dried out sound. He offered her the water but she turned her face away.

  Her blue eyes measured him. She wanted a real answer.

  And what could he say to her? As she lay in this hospital bed, her body turned against her. And so young. She would never see her fiftieth birthday. He had already seen ten years that she wouldn’t. And why should he get the extra time? What in the world was he doing with his life that was so damn grand? She was a thousand times worthier of a long life than most of the bastards who got one.

  She had every right to feel like the world had jilted her. He couldn’t count on one hand all that it had taken from her.

  Her brother. Her health and sometimes her mind. Twenty or more years of life that she could’ve spent seeing Lou become the amazing woman she dreamed she would be. Her chance to guard and guide the young woman. Any hope of fulfilling her promise to Jack.

  And what about his own selfish wants? He would’ve given his testicles for twenty more years with her. Hell, for ten.

  “Can you imagine the wedding? In my condition?” she said, more to herself than to him. “I should be grateful I had one more good summer with you. It was a great summer, wasn’t it?”

  “The best.”

  He was certain she was drawing deep on some Buddhist bullshit. Non-attachment. Gratitude. Something to lessen the fact that she was too young to be dying, yet still had the audacity to dream. And why shouldn’t she, damnit?

  He squeezed her hand. “If you’re serious, and if you’ll have me, I will marry you. Big wedding and all.”

  Lucy smiled. “Lou might even come.”

  “I’d make sure of it. Say the word and I’ll make it happen.”

  “The word,” she whispered, and her eyes fluttered closed, a smile tucked sweetly into the corner of her lips.

  * * *

  With his car parked in the alley behind him, King stood on the curb outside Melandra’s Fortunes and Fixes and watched the world go by. On the worst days, like this one, when Lucy was as ill as he’d ever seen her, the world felt like a dream. It floated past him like clumped debris in a river.

  When the nurses had tried to get Lucy up and walking, the screaming had frightened him so badly they’d asked him to leave.

  How long do I have? he’d asked the doctor before getting into his car and coming home.

  It’s so hard to tell. She’s still having good days. The best we can do is keep her comfortable.

  Good days, but not as many King knew. How long could she last now that the pain made it impossible for her own bones to support her?

  And what happened when they couldn’t make her comfortable anymore? How could he watch her suffer, knowing he could do nothing for her?

  The world came into focus again. A breeze from Lake Pontchartrain cutting across St. Peter.

  The first thing his eyes registered was a group of Asian tourists across the street, talking rapidly as they read a map. Filipino maybe.

  “What are you looking for?” he called out to them, switching the briefcase from his left fist to his right, feeling the weight of the world again.

  A short man with thick black hair said, “St. Louis Cathedral.”

  King pointed them toward Royal Street, with instructions to follow the long and winding road until it opened up on the square and grand white cathedral they were looking for.

  They thanked him, and disappeared down the adjacent street, leaving King on the sidewalk.

  A small brass band a block up played bluegrass music.

  He breathed deep, caught the scent of fried pralines. Could the world really go on without her?

  It had to. It had no choice.

  He would never say this to Lucy, knowing it would hurt her feelings more than help her. But when he returned home after long mornings in the NOLA Cancer Center, sometimes he stood on the street corner, or on his balcony above and breathed. Cajun spice, fresh air. Hell, even the scent of booze or
vomit was more pleasant than the hospital stench.

  The French quarter smelled like life. No matter how boozy, or marijuana-ridden that scent became in the hours between midnight and dawn, he welcomed it as he welcomed the ruthless heart beating in his chest.

  And it was more than that.

  He could no sooner stop pulling air into his lungs than the world could stop spinning.

  His heart, like the world, was slave to its own momentum.

  When he spent three days in the rubble of a collapsed building, King had been sure he would die then and there, his organs crushed beneath tons of poured concrete and metal beams. For a long time, that moment was his Big Bang. The cataclysmic remains that he carried with him through the gravity of the day.

  Now the low-ceilings of the cancer center were what he dreamed of. His fear of Lucy’s impending death and his own claustrophobia had entered his psyche and mixed somehow. Lucy’s death would unmoor him again.

  Already his nightmares stretched the cancer center corridors to funhouse lengths. Pressed the ceilings down on him from above and Lucy’s screaming filtering through the space that remained. On most nights, he had to transverse the darkness to find her. To claw his way through the rubble to rescue her trapped body.

  None of this would stop him from visiting her of course.

  Not the claustrophobia. Not the anxiety.

  No number of sleepless nights or nightmares. But he would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that standing here on the open bustling street, so full of life and vibrancy, was better than the center. He was freer here. The air came easier.

  And he didn’t think she would hold that against him.

  “You drunk or something?”

  King pried his eyes open and followed the voice up. Piper stood poised on a metal ladder, hanging cobwebs from the Melandra’s Fortunes and Fixes sign. She wore baggy jeans and a black Star Wars t-shirt with its iconic yellow script. Chucks on her feet. Her bleached hair was braided into a side ponytail, revealing the silver cuffs on her ears. Her hemp necklace with its glass beads caught and reflected the sunlight across the metal sign.

  “No,” he said, with a smile. “Do I look drunk?”