Russo Blood Debt Chapter 07
Three Days
The wake runs three days at the Russo brownstone in Brooklyn Heights.
I watch it on the monitor like it’s a soap opera.
Closed circuit, twelve cameras, the works. My father’s people wired the place during the funeral home pickup. Audio is grainy. Visuals are perfect.
Day one: Dante does not move from the chair beside the casket. Doesn’t eat. Doesn’t drink. Doesn’t change his shirt.
Day two: Nonno comes in leaning on his cane. The old Don sits across from his grandson and says, “Basta. Enough. The boy needs his uncle. We have a christening to plan.”
Dante doesn’t look up.
“Get out.”
The whole Family hears it. The old Don’s face goes the color of liver. He doesn’t speak to Dante again for the rest of the wake.
Day three is when Bianca finally has the nerve.
She walks in carrying the baby. The baby Marco, who is five days old, who is the future of the Russo Family, who is the entire reason my daughter is dead.
I lean forward in my chair.
Bianca is in black. Tasteful. Pearls. The Italian widow look perfected. She crosses to the casket and lays a hand on Dante’s shoulder.
“Tesoro. Don’t do this to yourself. She wouldn’t want this.”
He doesn’t move.
“Sera is at peace. Marco — the baby — he needs his family. You’re his uncle. You’re all he has of his father.”
Long pause.
Dante lifts his head.
“You know what she was thinking.”
“Caro?”
“At the end. When she was bleeding out alone in a basement of my clinic. You know what she was thinking.”
Bianca’s smile freezes.
“How would I —”
“She was thinking, where is my husband.”
His voice is flat. No tears now. Tears are for day one.
“She was thinking, every doctor in this building, every nurse, every soldier, every drop of medicine — they all gave it to the woman next door. The one who’s having a boy. And nobody is coming for me.”
“Dante. Caro. I almost died too. The baby’s heart rate —”
“She did die, Bianca.”
The baby fusses. Bianca shifts him to her other arm.
“Two of them died.”
Bianca’s face hardens. I can see the exact second she chooses violence.
“Dante. Listen to me. I am the mother of the only male Russo of this generation. I’m what’s left of Marco. My son is the future of this Family.” She looks at the casket. “She isn’t. She wasn’t. I’m sorry to say it like this, but you are wasting your grief on a woman who was already on her way out.”
Papa, beside me, growls under his breath.
I lift one finger. Wait.
Dante stands up.
Slow. Like an old man.
“On her way out.”
“Tesoro. You and I both know — if she’d lived, you’d have left her by the boy’s first birthday. We talked about this. After the baby, you said —”
I do not look at my father. I do not need to.
I already knew. I have known for a while.
But hearing it confirmed, on a security camera, four thousand miles away —
It still cuts.
Dante’s face does nothing.
“Get out of my house.”
“Caro —”
“You and that baby. Out. Tonight.”
“You don’t mean that —”
“You have until morning. Take him to the old man’s. Take him anywhere. I don’t want to look at either of you.”
Bianca’s face goes white. The baby starts to wail.
She walks out.
At the door, she turns back. The Italian widow gone — just a furious woman with a son and a knife.
“Dante. Don’t forget who gave the Family its heir. Nonno will choose blood over a dead girl. Every time.”
The door slams.
Dante sinks back into the chair next to my casket. Puts his hand on the polished wood. Doesn’t speak again for hours.
Papa kills the audio feed.
“Cuore mio. You heard.”
“I heard.”
“Are you all right.”
“Sì, Papa.”
He looks at me for a long moment. Then walks out.
I sit alone in the library with the monitor.
On screen, my husband is bent over my coffin, talking to it, mouth moving, no sound. Telling a corpse the things he never told me.
I pour another glass of wine.
I take out my phone.
I text our man inside the Russo Family’s bank.
Begin.
The reply is immediate.
Sì, principessa.
I shut the phone off and watch Dante mourn me for one more minute.
Then I get up, pull the curtains, and go down to the kitchen for breakfast.
Tomorrow the Russo Family wakes up to the first round of what is about to happen to them.
I am very, very hungry.