Bratinella Series 1: Trixxie, Walang IIbig Sa'yo

The phone rang in the empty office. There was something almost funny about it — the Don of Naples, working as my switchboard.

The line connected.

"Yeah." My father Enzo Ferrante's low voice came through, glasses clinking faintly in the background — somewhere a private club was running a big deal.

"Dad. It's me. Sofia."

The line went dead silent. Then a crash — a table flipped, glass shattering on the floor.

"Baby. Finally. That hick soldier laid hands on you, didn't he? I'll have him gutted before sundown."

"Bring everyone. Porto Scuro, on the bay. Bring your best surgeon. Bring whatever else you need to bring." I stared at the stiletto in my hand. My knuckles had gone white. My voice was flat.

"Someone broke your son-in-law's ribs. They held my mother-in-law down in a barrel of rotting fish."

A sharp intake of breath on the other end. Then a roar of pure rage.

"They've lost their fucking minds. Touching anyone who belongs to Enzo Ferrante. You hold tight. I'll have that miserable little town flattened before sunrise."

Click.

I hung up and kicked the mayor's door off its hinges. Heavy oak, gone in one shot, kicking up a cloud of dust on the way down.

Outside, the sun was blinding. Hot wind off the sea, thick with salt and the smell of fish.

I tucked the stiletto back into my sleeve and walked east, fast, toward the Esposito warehouse.

Three years. Three years I'd packed away the Ferrante temper for Marco. Cotton skirts. Lighting the stove, learning to make a decent plate of pasta. Counting coins like any other fisherman's wife.

I thought stepping back would buy us peace. What it bought was these Porto Scuro snakes thinking they could walk on us.

They really thought Sofia Ferrante was something they could push around.

There was already a crowd outside the Esposito warehouse, nudging each other and pointing. Nobody stepping in. A few of them looked entertained.

I shoved through. My pupils contracted. Something cracked open in my chest.

In the middle of the yard, two women had my mother-in-law Rosa pinned to the ground, half her body shoved down into a barrel of rotting fish guts. Filthy water dripped from her gray hair. Flies circled her head. The old woman was past begging — she could only retch, weakly.

Beside her, my sister-in-law Giulia knelt on the stones. Her forehead was split open. Blood and tears smeared her face. She was sobbing so hard she could barely get the words out.

"Please. Please let her go. Take the warehouse. Take all of it. Just let her go."

Luca Esposito hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat it on the ground. Then he kicked Giulia in the shoulder.

"Spinster bitch. Squatting on my family's warehouse and acting like you've got rights. Sign the transfer today, or I'm gonna make this old hag lick the bottom of that barrel clean before she goes home. You can't even pop out a kid. You don't get to negotiate."

Across the yard, Marco was lying in a pool of blood.

His back, normally straight as a rod, was curled in on itself from the pain. His white shirt had gone red. Bloody foam was bubbling at the corners of his mouth.

Bruno Sacco — the local thug — stood over him in a loud checked shirt, one boot pressed flat on Marco's chest. He was hefting a chunk of broken brick, slick with blood.

"Veteran, my ass. In Porto Scuro, I'm the law. You came to the Esposito yard asking for justice? I'll end you right here. You think your bones are tough? Let's find out — your skull or my brick."

Bruno raised the brick over Marco's head, ready to drive it down.

Something inside me snapped. Every wire in my brain went hot.

"You're dead."

I roared it and went straight at him.

Bruno didn't even have time to turn his head. My foot caught him square in the face.

Crack.

His nose went, clean. He screamed and went over backward, blood pouring out, the brick dropping out of his hand and landing on his own foot. He howled like a stuck pig.

The crowd took a step back as one. A wave of sucked-in breath.

I dropped to my knees and gathered Marco's head in my hands.

His face was the color of paper. Cold sweat had soaked through his hair. Every breath he took whistled through his chest.

"Sofia. Get out of here. Too many of them." Marco grabbed my wrist hard, his eyes already losing focus, still trying to push me away.

My eyes burned. The tears came in fat drops, falling on his face.

Three years married, and he'd never raised his voice at me once. In winter he'd go out fishing in the dead of night, worried I'd be cold, and bring back the best of the catch for my soup. He took every hard chore in the house. He treated me like something precious.

And now he was lying under some thug's boot, his ribs in pieces, one foot in the grave.

I set his head down gently and stood up. My eyes moved slowly across every face in the yard.

Luca Esposito blinked, then snatched up a rusty shovel and pointed it at me.

"Bitch, you hit Bruno? I'll bury all four of you. Nobody walks out of this yard tonight. Nobody."

He swung the shovel at my head. I could hear the air whistle.

I twisted out of the way. Flicked my wrist. The stiletto dropped into my palm from inside my sleeve.

The blade caught the sun.

A wet sound.

The point went into the meat of his thigh, all the way through, and the blood came after.

"AAAAH—"

Luca dropped the shovel and went down clutching his leg, screaming, rolling on the stones.

The two women holding Rosa let go and scrambled backward, eyes huge, staring at me like I was something out of a story.

I walked over and grabbed Esposito's wife by the hair, lifted her clean off the ground.

"Who told you it was safe to lay a finger on a Ferrante."