bookishwench (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bookishwench) wrote2019-01-02 11:34 am
bookishwench) wrote2019-01-02 11:34 am
Fic: L'onore Della Famiglia (Godfather)
Another Yuletide Madness fic, this one for saturni_stellis
No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is made from this fanfic.
L'onore Della Famiglia
Connie stares at Michael, her face a mask of horror as she hears him scream, the notes of his anguish tearing through her like a hail of invisible bullets, each finding their mark. On instinct, she covers her head with her scarf like when she was a little girl in church. This is holy ground. She has seen enough of death to known Mary will never wake again. Her niece had already suffered death of a kind, been put aside into the darkness like all Corleone women, by Vincent, and she had been expected to disappear obligingly into the shadows.
Men never understood how much could be done from the shadows.
Kay knew about Fredo. Even Anthony knew. As Connie carefully filled the syringes with Michael’s insulin, how did it never occur to him that Connie, Fredo’s favorite, must have known too? Her brother handed her weapons to kill him, slowly, without a trace. The nuns from long ago would have said she was suffering grave temptation and should have walked away from it, or better yet, run.
Instead she had silently gloried in it. Everything Corleone women did was silent. Each time the right dose, a feeling of immense moral superiority. Each time just slightly too little, too much, the rush of bringing him to the brink and then letting God decide.
The diabetic coma hadn’t been an accident, of course. She’d had to do something after Altobello botched the ridiculously theatrical helicopter assassination.
She had always known. For decades. In corners and in quiet, while Mama had cautioned her to keep still, Connie had known what it meant to be a Corleone. Even Papa had never guessed how much Mama understood, and it could have been enough to make her nearly as frightening as her husband. But Mama was quiet. She had stayed in shadow, eventually disappearing into nothing.
Connie had told Altobello, someone she had thought had adequate skills, everything he needed to know to kill Michael. It wasn’t direct. She wasn’t the one shooting him, or she told herself. She wasn’t luring him onto a boat to say a Hail Mary and then be dumped in a lake with a bullet hole in his head, nice and precise. Michael was in a dirty meeting filled with men just as dirty as he was. He reeked of family blood. The penalty for that crime was death.
But it didn’t come.
Altobello tried again, hiring Mosca to do the hit. He had apologized to Connie for not killing her brother the first time. His professional honor was hurt. An apology for not killing her brother in a good and timely manner. She didn’t know whether to laugh or throw herself into the ocean in shame. She picked the first one. She laughed, but silently. She knew her place. She waited, in darkness, letting it cover her heart, but every heartbeat screamed for vengeance for the blood of Fredo. It would come. She had watched Altobello’s death in the theatre with calm relish. He had been a fool. That, too, was an unforgivable crime.
Finally, at long last, Mosca shot, a hail of sound, loud, louder than she had ever thought it could be, breaking the damnable quiet like a shattered stained glass window. She waited for Michael to fall, to see him slump to the ground, mortally wounded. And he did, but the bullet wasn’t in him. It was Mary who was covered in blood, who lived just long enough to call for her father, but quietly. So quietly. Then she fell.
Connie pulls the scarf closer around her head, like a veil, then stares at her clenched hands. They are covered in family blood. Invisible. Hidden by shadow. She has committed the one crime for which she herself declared there is no repentance great enough to earn mercy, to sponge away the guilt.
She would bear it in silence and never speak a word of it to any soul.
No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is made from this fanfic.
Connie stares at Michael, her face a mask of horror as she hears him scream, the notes of his anguish tearing through her like a hail of invisible bullets, each finding their mark. On instinct, she covers her head with her scarf like when she was a little girl in church. This is holy ground. She has seen enough of death to known Mary will never wake again. Her niece had already suffered death of a kind, been put aside into the darkness like all Corleone women, by Vincent, and she had been expected to disappear obligingly into the shadows.
Men never understood how much could be done from the shadows.
Kay knew about Fredo. Even Anthony knew. As Connie carefully filled the syringes with Michael’s insulin, how did it never occur to him that Connie, Fredo’s favorite, must have known too? Her brother handed her weapons to kill him, slowly, without a trace. The nuns from long ago would have said she was suffering grave temptation and should have walked away from it, or better yet, run.
Instead she had silently gloried in it. Everything Corleone women did was silent. Each time the right dose, a feeling of immense moral superiority. Each time just slightly too little, too much, the rush of bringing him to the brink and then letting God decide.
The diabetic coma hadn’t been an accident, of course. She’d had to do something after Altobello botched the ridiculously theatrical helicopter assassination.
She had always known. For decades. In corners and in quiet, while Mama had cautioned her to keep still, Connie had known what it meant to be a Corleone. Even Papa had never guessed how much Mama understood, and it could have been enough to make her nearly as frightening as her husband. But Mama was quiet. She had stayed in shadow, eventually disappearing into nothing.
Connie had told Altobello, someone she had thought had adequate skills, everything he needed to know to kill Michael. It wasn’t direct. She wasn’t the one shooting him, or she told herself. She wasn’t luring him onto a boat to say a Hail Mary and then be dumped in a lake with a bullet hole in his head, nice and precise. Michael was in a dirty meeting filled with men just as dirty as he was. He reeked of family blood. The penalty for that crime was death.
But it didn’t come.
Altobello tried again, hiring Mosca to do the hit. He had apologized to Connie for not killing her brother the first time. His professional honor was hurt. An apology for not killing her brother in a good and timely manner. She didn’t know whether to laugh or throw herself into the ocean in shame. She picked the first one. She laughed, but silently. She knew her place. She waited, in darkness, letting it cover her heart, but every heartbeat screamed for vengeance for the blood of Fredo. It would come. She had watched Altobello’s death in the theatre with calm relish. He had been a fool. That, too, was an unforgivable crime.
Finally, at long last, Mosca shot, a hail of sound, loud, louder than she had ever thought it could be, breaking the damnable quiet like a shattered stained glass window. She waited for Michael to fall, to see him slump to the ground, mortally wounded. And he did, but the bullet wasn’t in him. It was Mary who was covered in blood, who lived just long enough to call for her father, but quietly. So quietly. Then she fell.
Connie pulls the scarf closer around her head, like a veil, then stares at her clenched hands. They are covered in family blood. Invisible. Hidden by shadow. She has committed the one crime for which she herself declared there is no repentance great enough to earn mercy, to sponge away the guilt.
She would bear it in silence and never speak a word of it to any soul.