Page 108 of Masked Don

The familiar, heavy click of Enzo’s shoes against the wood floor sounds behind me, and I turn to see him enter.

He’s moving slower than he wants anyone to notice, a dressing taped over the hole in his side under his shirt.

“You seeing this?” I ask, using my thumb to point over my shoulder toward the window.

“Yeah, I saw.” He comes to my side and looks out.

I open my mouth to speak, but before I can, Michael’s voice comes through the open window. “I killed him.”

I go rigid, and so does Genevieve. I see her back stiffening.

His tone is dry and steady. “I didn’t hold the gun, didn’t pull the trigger. And for years, I told myself that mattered, that I wasn’t the one who actually did the deed. But it doesn’t matter at all. I decided it, I gave the word. And I let you spend years not knowing for certain.”

Genevieve says nothing.

“I’ve had a long time up in that room to consider my sins. And this is the greatest among many.”

“Why?”

“Because you were going to leave. It’s as simple as that. You were going to marry a man I didn’t trust, and you’d be gone forever. You and your brother were the only family I had left. And you’d made it abundantly clear that your marriage would be all but the severing of your connection to this house.”

“So you took that away from me.”

“I’ve never been a man used to not getting what he wants. I had plans for you, Genevieve. I was going to install you as one of the top figures in the family. You were brilliant. Are brilliant. You could’ve done so much for the Accardi name.”

“But that’s not what I wanted.”

“It wasn’t. But I wasn’t thinking about such things back then. And I had no idea what his death would do to you. I’d imagined when he was gone, you’d remember your family and your place. Instead, I killed a man who didn’t deserve it and nearly broke this family apart.”

Gen’s voice is shaking. “Don’t act like you’re sorry and that this is something you can just apologize for. You don’t get to…”

“I know. I don’t get to. I’m not asking to be forgiven. I’m telling you because you deserve not to live in doubt. You deserve to know exactly what happened and why.”

She puts her face into her hands and sobs.

Beside me at the window, Enzo is frozen. “He’s never once in my entire life admitted what he did to her.”

Out in the garden, Genevieve wipes her face with her hands. “I’m not one to talk,” she says. “I suppose whatever moral high ground I had I gave away when I…” She trails off, not even able to finish the words.

“What you did,” he says, “was unforgivable. You could’ve led to the destruction of this family. You very nearly did. A child could’ve died because of you. And not just any child. Your nephew.”

Genevieve lets out a choking sob, as if the reality of what happened, almost happened, is finally hitting her. “I don’t have any excuse,” she says. “There’s nothing I could say that could make it better.”

“You’re right. But I could say the same about myself.”

“Am I out for good?” she asks.

“Tell me what you think should happen next,” Michael says.

“I don’t know. But I did the only thing that made sense. This morning, I called a place upstate, a clinic. And not one of those resort-type places. This is a place where you focus on getting clean above everything else. They don’t coddle you.”

“Go on.”

“Ninety days inpatient. I’m not saying this is my atonement and everything is going to be better after. This is just table stakes. I do this, get clean, come back, and then we can talk about what happens next, if that’s all right with you.”

Michael’s shoulders rise and fall with a deep, slow breath. “Ninety days. Table stakes. I think I’m good with that. We’ll see how the three months go. I’m not even ready to begin thinking about atonement. And I don’t think they are either.” He nods toward the window.

“He knows we are listening,” Enzo says, not surprised at all. “He wanted us to hear.”