Chapter 9: Kira - Marrying the Mafia Daddy

I pull the chair closer to Mom’s bed until the metal legs scrape against the linoleum, a sound that feels too loud in the hushed room. Her hand lies still beneath mine, the skin cool and papery.

“Hey, Mom,” I say, trying to sound chipper for her sake.

She looks the same as she did yesterday, and the day before that, and before that, and, well, since she ended up here after my dad lost control of the car one and a half years ago. Her chest rising and falling in a shallow rhythm is the only sign that she’s alive.

Her lips are dry today, and there’s a faint line between her eyebrows that hasn’t smoothed away. She looks like she’s concentrating on something just out of reach.

I fish out the chapstick in my jacket pocket and carefully apply some to Mom’s lips. “There we go,” I say as I smooth it across her skin.

Before the accident, Mom wasn’t the kind of person who cared if her lips were dry. But since she can’t make a decision and take care of the problem herself, I feel better doing it for her.

The room smells the way hospital rooms always smell: like antiseptic and industrial cleaner with something sweet underneath, like the air freshener they pump through the vents to mask the rest. Fluorescent lights hum overhead.

As I look around, I notice there’s a fake bouquet of wildflowers on the side table. The stems are plastic, the petals too perfectly shaped, a spray of purple and yellow that doesn’t belong in this beige room.

Even though I know it’s pointless, I ask Mom, “Do you have a secret admirer?” I swear her fingers twitch slightly at my question. “Oh, so you like the idea of that, do you?” I tease, hoping she’ll give another sign that she knows I’m here. But she doesn’t move again.

Next to the mystery flowers sits the get-well card I brought last week, the one with a watercolor sunset I thought she’d like. My handwriting inside is small and cramped, filling every inch of blank space because I had too much to say and nowhere else to put it.

I smooth the thin hospital blanket… wait, this is a different one. This isn’t the thin scrap she usually has. It’s plush and feels great. When I check the label at the bottom it even says it’s temperature regulating.

“Lucky you,” I mumble as I smooth it over her chest, tucking it under her arms the way she used to tuck me in. Her hair has gotten long—she’d hate that—and a loose strand falls across her forehead. I brush it back with my thumb, feeling the fine texture against my skin.

“Your hair is getting out of control,” I tell her. “You’d be so pissed.”

I can’t help wincing as I take a sip of the coffee I bought from the cafeteria downstairs. I tell Mom she needs to stay away from the cheap stuff when she wakes up. It tastes as if it were brewed yesterday and reheated this morning.

Luckily, it’s also strong enough that the yawn building in my chest gets swallowed back down. I need that. Three days of barely sleeping have left a fog in my head that caffeine is the only thing cutting through.

Three days.

It feels longer since I saw Greg kneeling and bloody in the penthouse. Since Domenico told me I was the reason Greg was still alive. Since… well, since I basically told my husband I fear him.

Despite saying he wouldn’t let me be alone, he left a few hours later, and he didn’t come to bed until after three in the morning. I know because I was still awake, staring at the wall, listening to the penthouse settle around me.

I pretended to be asleep when he finally slipped under the covers, pulling me close and wrapping his arms around me. That’s how he held me all night. Whenever I tried to move, he tightened his grip.

I don’t know whether he knew I was pretending or not. Maybe he really thought I was asleep. That would explain why he didn’t make me touch myself as he usually does. Which, yeah, I’m surprised by. And for reasons I really don’t want to examine, even a little disappointed.

Shaking my head, I abandon my thoughts and focus on Mom again.

“I’m singing at mass on Sunday,” I tell her. “The soprano section’s down two people since June, and you know how he gets about balance.”

I pause, waiting for the laugh that doesn’t come. Mom used to conduct the choir from the pews when she thought Father Joseph wasn’t looking, her hands moving in small, precise gestures that made the other parishioners smile.

She’d catch me watching and press her finger to her lips, her eyes crinkling at the corners. Now her face is still.

I finish the cold coffee and set the cup down. My throat feels tight, the way it always does when the hope I carried through the door thins and the reality of the room settles back in.

Leaning forward, I press my forehead to the back of her hand. Her skin smells like hospital soap and something underneath that’s still her. I close my eyes and breathe it in.

“I have a lot to tell you today,” I murmur against her knuckles. “More than usual.”

I dig Mom’s brush out of my bag—the wide-toothed one she always used to carry in her own bag and take with her everywhere. The handle is worn smooth from years of her grip.

Her hair spreads across the pillow in dark waves shot through with gray. The first stroke catches on a tangle near the crown. I work through it slowly, supporting the strand with my palm the way she taught me when I was little and whining about knots.

The brush moves through her hair with a soft whisper, and something in my chest unclenches by degrees as I settle into our usual ritual. In many ways, that’s all these visits are.

Rituals that keep me going. Like brushing her hair while I talk to her. That’s what she used to do with me when I was younger. Once when I’d taken or done something I wasn’t supposed to, and wouldn’t admit it, she sat me down at night and brushed my hair while telling me why it was wrong.

Now, I brush her hair when I share stories about my life. I brushed it when I told her Dad was selling me, when I told her I was going to marry Paolo, and again when I told her I ended up marrying Domenico.

“Something happened,” I murmur, hating how small my voice sounds. “Three days ago. With Domenico.”

The brush moves through another section. Her hair is fine but thick, the way mine is, and it falls back against the pillow in smooth strands when I’m done with it.

“Do you remember I told you about the red-headed man who scared me? Well, turns out his name is Greg, and he works for Domenico.”

I continue to brush my mom’s hair as I tell her what Domenico did three days ago. When I talk to Mom like this, I never spare any details. Why would I? Apart from occasionally squeezing my fingers, or, even rarer, opening her eyes and seeming to look straight at me, there are almost no signs she knows what’s happening around her.

So I don’t feel judged, which means I never hold back. “He told me he would’ve killed him if I hadn’t accepted Greg’s apology. Just like that. No hesitation. Who even does something like that, Mom? Who looks at another person and decides whether they live or die based on whether I forgive them?”

The question hangs in the air until I have the strength to continue my tale. The next part is somehow harder. Admitting I’ve been avoiding my husband feels like a betrayal to, well, my mom.

She always did her best to teach me how to be a good wife, and avoiding one’s husband wasn’t part of her teachings. Then again, she never taught me what to do when your husband is in the Mafia. When he’s the Don and isn’t fazed by murder.

I hold on to those thoughts as I rush through my behavior. Even though I’m pretty sure Mom would understand, it’s the 0.0000001% chance she’d be disappointed that’s making my throat and eyes burn.

The brush catches on another knot. I work it free gently.

“You already know he scares me. I told you that after the wedding, and nothing’s changed. If anything, it’s worse now because I’ve seen what he can do.”

Pausing, I swallow thickly and grab a water bottle from my bag. It’s lukewarm by now, but it still does the trick.

“But here’s what’s weird, Mom. Domenico held me after the whole thing was over. He pulled me against his chest and apologized to me. Domenico DeLuca apologized for letting me be frightened in my own home.”

I set the brush down again because my hands are starting to shake. I wrap my fingers around Mom’s wrist, feeling the thin, steady pulse beneath the skin.

“Greg did scare me. He really did. And Domenico didn’t dismiss it. He didn’t tell me to get over it or that I was being dramatic. He changed the penthouse access the next day. God, he even started holding more meetings downtown. He meant it when he said it was my home too.”

The frustration builds in my chest, hot and tight. I press the heel of my hand against my sternum as if I can physically push it down.

“And that’s the part I hate, Mom. The part I really, really hate.” I close my eyes. “I felt protected. More than protected. I felt… treasured. Like someone frightening me was unacceptable. Like I mattered enough that my fear was worth violence.”

I open my eyes and look at her face.

“You already know that Dad never made me feel that way. When I was scared, it was my problem, and probably my fault.” I brush a strand of hair from her forehead with my fingertips. “Domenico terrifies me, and yet somehow everything else feels less frightening when he’s around. How does that work? How can the same man make me feel scared and safe at the same time?”

As always, I wait. For a twitch of her finger, a flutter of her eyelids, any sign that she heard me and is fighting her way back to the surface. But there’s still nothing.

I wordlessly finish brushing the last of her hair, making sure every strand is knot and tangle-free. Then I smooth the locks back into place. She looks better now. More like herself when her hair isn’t in disarray.

The woman in the bed could be sleeping, if you didn’t know to look for the machines, the IV, the stillness that goes deeper than sleep.

I set the brush on the side table and lean back in the chair. My shoulders ache. My eyes feel dry. The coffee is long gone, and the caffeine has left a hollow, jittery feeling in its wake.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper. “I don’t know how to feel about him. I don’t know if I should want him to stop being the way he is, because if he stopped, would I still feel the way I felt when he held me after Greg? Would anyone ever make me feel that important again?”

The room offers no answers, which is probably for the best. I don’t know how to feel about Domenico yet. He scares me, but he also makes me feel safe. Somehow, both are true, and pretending one cancels out the other won’t make either disappear.

What I do know is that I don’t want him to become some softer, harmless version of himself just so I can understand him better. Because the same man who had Greg beaten bloody is the one who held me afterward.

Who apologized and did what he said he would: changing access to the penthouse and holding more meetings away from his—our—home for me. I can’t separate those parts of him just because one is easier for me to accept.

I once overheard Father Joseph counseling a couple who needed help because they were so different. He told them to embrace those differences instead of focusing on them. And he warned them never to make changing each other the goal, because once you start doing that, marriage and love become a scoreboard.

Maybe that’s what I’ve been doing without realizing it. Looking at Domenico and mentally sorting him into things that scare me and things that make me feel safe. Things I wish were different and things I’m beginning to…

I stop that thought before I can finish it. God, I’m so screwed. Because I don’t want Domenico to be less dangerous. I just want to know I’ll never be the one he turns that danger on—that I’ll never end up like his ex-wife.

With everything off my chest, the room feels different. Lighter, or maybe I’m just exhausted. I reach for my bag and pull out the laptop that was waiting for me near the elevator this morning. It was still in the packaging, and there was a note attached to it.

Vinny told me you’ve been watching movies on your phone with your mom. -D

Even with all the thoughts running through my head, I can’t help smiling at the thoughtful present. This is so much better than the expensive clothes that turn up almost daily. Apparently Carly’s meant to take me shopping, but she hasn’t been around to do so yet.

So, in typical Domenico fashion, he just buys stuff for me and tells me to wear it. In typical me fashion, I do it without arguing. But while the clothes are nice, really nice, actually, it’s nothing compared to a laptop so Mom and I can better watch our movies and shows.

I know it doesn’t make any sense when I never know if she’s awake or not. Mom isn’t in a coma anymore. She was for the first three months after the accident. Now, she’s in what the medical staff call a minimally conscious state. Also known as MCS.

People online compare MCS to a flickering lightbulb. Mom’s mostly unresponsive, but she does have brief, fleeting moments where she shows real awareness before fading away again.

“Domenico bought this for us,” I tell Mom as I open the laptop on the rolling table the nurses bring in for meals, angling the screen so she can see it if her eyes open.

I find the streaming service and pull up the next episode in the series we’re currently watching. I set the volume low enough that it won’t disturb the other rooms, but still loud enough for us to hear.

The nurses say she might still be able to hear me. I choose to believe that.

The opening credits roll to the tune of soft piano music. The protagonist walks too fast down a sidewalk while the voice-over explains everything wrong with her life. Mom would’ve made a comment about the actress’ haircut by now.

Too severe, she’d say.

I settle into the rhythm of the show. The jokes land where they’re supposed to. There’s a meet-cute that happens in a bookstore, which Mom would’ve approved of. She always said the best relationships start with shared shelves.

Halfway through, my eyes drift to the fake wildflowers on the side table. The plastic stems catch the light from the screen, throwing small, artificial shadows across the table. The flowers are all in Mom’s favorite colors, which means whoever brought them either knows her well or got lucky.

Then it hits me: it has to be Dad. Who else would bother bringing her flowers? The church usually writes cards and gives them to me, so it’s not from them.

As I dig my phone out of my pocket, the screen lights up with no notifications. I open a new message to Dad’s number and type.

Me

Did you bring flowers to Mom’s room? Also, this is my new number. -Kira

I press send and set the phone face-down on the table.

The show continues, and when we’ve watched two episodes, the protagonists are arguing over something stupid in the rain outside a restaurant. The woman’s crying while the man’s yelling.

I watch the raindrops slide down the actress’ face and think about Domenico’s hands and what they’re capable of.

Yes, I’ve been—and maybe I still am—terrified because I’ve seen exactly what those hands can do to someone. But the more I think about it, the harder it becomes to ignore who his violence has actually been aimed at.

Dad and Greg.

Not a single time has it been aimed at me. Which would have been so easy for him to do. After all, if he hadn’t allowed me to return to Saint Benedict’s, who would even know if I was hurt?

And in the beginning, when I practically threw myself at him, he stopped me. He could’ve taken what I was offering without ever questioning why I was offering it. Instead, he held back.

No, he did more than hold back. He gave me pleasure and taught me how to give it to myself. That’s something he could have… I don’t know, used against me. And he didn’t.

And now there’s the laptop as well.

I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t even tell him watching shows with Mom on my phone was inconvenient. Mostly because it actually wasn’t. Even though watching on my old phone was a pain, I still managed.

Yet, all it took was Vinny mentioning it, and Domenico apparently decided I needed a laptop.

None of this makes him harmless, and it doesn’t erase the things he’s done. Domenico is still dangerous. Though it’s possible I’ve been asking myself the wrong question.

It isn’t whether Domenico is safe. He isn’t.

The real question is whether I’m safe with Domenico. And the more evidence I collect, the harder it is to convince myself I’m not. Maybe that’s what scares me most.

Maybe I’m the exception.

Then again… maybe his ex-wife thought the same thing.

As the episode finishes and the credits roll, I close the laptop. The room feels darker without the screen’s glow. A nurse comes in to check vitals, smiling at me with the particular kindness reserved for the family members who stay too long.

“Did you have a good day, honey?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I reply. I always say the same thing because what else can I say?

“That’s good,” she sing-songs.

Then she goes on to give me the daily update about Mom being stable. Which I’ve come to believe is what they say when there are no other updates to give. Mom hasn’t improved or declined. She’s just here, suspended between one state and another.

While I pack up and tidy up after my visit, the nurse checks Mom’s vitals. When she’s done, I wait for her to leave before I lean down and kiss Mom’s forehead, feeling the cool dryness of her skin against my lips.

“I love you,” I whisper. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

As always, Vinny’s waiting for me right outside Mom’s room. While we walk to the car, he asks about the visit, and I ask about the army book he’s reading. I barely pay attention as he tells me it’s a biography about someone who served in the Green Berets.

I do my best to keep him talking during the drive, but that comes to a screeching halt when I ask if the book has any romance.

“Are you serious?” he asks, horror written all over his features when I meet his gaze in the rearview mirror.

I mean, I wasn’t. But he doesn’t need to know that. “Maybe he really loved his gun,” I reply with a shrug.

The rest of the drive is done in silence, and neither of us speaks again until the elevator opens to the penthouse.

“Thank you for today,” I tell him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’m not leaving just yet,” he informs me. “Come on, the boss wants to see you.”

My stomach knots as I follow Vinny to Domenico’s study, and when he knocks on the door, I want to make a run for it.

I’m not ready to face my husband yet.