Chapter Twenty-Two West
Chapter Twenty-Two
West
There are a few moments, after Johnny Russo sets off like a sprinter from a starting block, in which those of us he’s left behind—Dr. Alex, my dad, the exes, Dr. Constantini, and, of course, Cam and me—look back and forth to one another as if needing confirmation that we’re not all sharing the same surreal fever dream or drank the same bad batch of limonata.
You’re seeing this, right? And you too? And we all…
? Even if we don’t quite get…? Yeah, this is all really happening?
Then Dr. Alex is the first to give chase.
That sets the rest of us in motion, and soon the whole crew is running after the mysterious-but-clearly-guilty-of-something villa director.
Because it’s still highly unclear what’s going on, what caused him to run, and who—if anyone here—is Cammie’s father.
But we all seem to know Russo has answers.
Fortunately for this group of not particularly experienced runners, Johnny’s run is a sprint, not a marathon. One that goes only far enough for him to reach, of all places, Villa di Bronzo.
He makes it to the bottom of the stairs of the dig site before he begins losing steam.
Cammie can make fun of me all she wants for being an overly cautious person, but if I was on the run from someone—several someones, in this case—I have enough basic self-defense understanding to know that you can’t run into a big hole in the ground and expect you won’t get caught.
Just like bears can climb trees, your human pursuers can follow you into the ditch and will be there waiting when you realize you’ve hit a dead end.
Or so it seems, until I watch Johnny charge straight into one of the tunnels in the yet-unexcavated side of the villa.
I stop short and fight to catch my breath.
What is traveling in a large pack of people good for if not letting others go into the dark scary place to get the bad guy so you don’t have to?
But there isn’t even enough time for anyone but Cammie to notice I’ve stopped my pursuit before Paolo, Luca, and Tony reemerge from where they followed Dr. Alex into the scary ancient cave without hesitation, the three of them dragging along Gianmarco.
He is sullen and exhausted, and appears to have accepted he’s been caught.
Dr. Alex brings up the rear, hands on her hips, her chest rising and falling under her elegant red silk dress. Most remarkably, her high-heeled shoes are still on her feet. I don’t know if Russo is scared of this woman, but I sure am.
“Okay,” Dr. Alex draws out when she’s able to speak, though her breathing is still rapid, “explain yourself, Johnny.”
For a moment, it still looks like he’s going to try to evade or lie, but finally his chin drops to his chest, his shoulders slump inward, and his own heavy breathing turns to the world-weary sigh of someone whose time is up. He doesn’t look at any of us as he begins his story.
“It seems it’s no secret that as a young man, I did have feelings for Alex.”
“You can call me Dr. Lovett,” she interjects, to which Russo presses his lips tightly together and gives a faint nod.
“Dr. Lovett, that is. And my interest was not returned. I do not consider myself a vindictive man—”
I see my dad make a funny you sure about that? face and know he has some stories that must prove otherwise.
“But I struggled to accept this. It was a difficult time in my family, you see, as my grandfather had fallen ill, and the future of our family villa was uncertain, and I personally took a leave of absence from my studies to do some soul-searching in my homeland—”
“Is this relevant?” Luca Goedhart cuts in, voicing what I imagine we’re all thinking.
“Yes, why don’t you get to the point, Johnny?” Constantini agrees.
It’s satisfying to see the prideful man flinch every time someone uses his American name.
“I’m getting there, I am. So when Dr. Lovett made the discovery she did, she was immediately hailed as a hero, rightfully so, and that is when my admiration began.
But as excavations proceeded, it became difficult for me, accepting that this relative outsider to my family, our home, our country”—there are multiple eye rolls from the ones among us who know the guy’s actual background—“had been the one to uncover this incredible find.
That while it was on Russo land, I was not able to feel a part of the Villa di Bronzo revelations.
“My pride suffered, as I had lost my sense of purpose in my own career journey while others thrived for finding what felt like my birthright.” He waves a hand to encompass the site around us, inadvertently drawing attention to the fact that he’s still being gripped on either arm by Paolo and Tony, like a fugitive.
“It suffered further when I faced rejection from a romantic interest, then had to watch her gallivant around with other men. I was hurting. I was also, I realize, young and immature, and did not channel my hurt in an effective or healthy manner.”
He swallows heavily, and my stomach, empty save for a few glasses of fizzy lemonade, roils in anticipation. “In turn, I caused hurt to others, the extent of which I am ashamed to say I did not begin to confront until this summer.”
“What did you do?” Dr. Alex asks through gritted teeth. She is barely tamping down her rising fury. A couple feet from her side, Goedhart looks similarly close to exploding, one fist clenched in front of his mouth, the other tucked against his side as his hard stare remains fixed on Gianmarco.
“I came across a letter that was meant for Dr. Goedhart. Dr. Lovett and he had been involved for a while, which was especially challenging for me, as both worked on the villa team, and therefore I had to see them together daily.”
“John Mark, I cannot tell you how much of a fuck I don’t give about how hard my dating life was on you!” Dr. Alex shouts. “If you don’t fess up in the next thirty seconds, I swear, I know where a lot of sharp objects are located nearby, and—”
“The letter was informing Dr. Goedhart that you were carrying his child,” Gianmarco blurts out in one breath, promptly stealing the rest of ours.
Beside me, Cammie trembles. Her knees buckle, and I instinctively bring my arm around her to keep her upright.
“I found the letter, and in my heartache and wounded pride, I made an impulsive and selfish decision.”
“No,” Dr. Alex whispers, and it reverberates around us like she spoke into a megaphone.
Her voice shakes, her hand doing the same as she brings it up to cover her mouth, before lifting it a couple inches to say, words thick with tears, “You…you told me he left, that it was because he didn’t want… didn’t want us.”
Luca paces a slow circle, his eyes wide and unseeing as he tries to reckon with the information. When he speaks, it’s like he doesn’t even remember the rest of us are here.
“He asked me to meet with him when I got to the villa one morning, then told me,” he says, voice gruff and even deeper than usual, “that you and he were expecting a child together. That…that you didn’t want to break my heart, so he’d offered to deliver the news for you.
Like he was some kind of hero, for you and your—his—family you were starting. ”
“And you believed him?” Dr. Alex cries, turning her anger on Luca.
He shouts back, “You believed I didn’t want you, or my own child!
That I read your letter and just left without a word.
What gives you the right to…I…I can’t fathom how—” He shoves both hands into his hair.
“I was so in love with you, so sure I wanted to spend our lives together. I would have…We could have—”
The sobs that rack both of them fill the night air, and all at once, I feel like an intruder on this highly personal situation unfolding for the Lovetts and Luca.
I look down at Cammie, now noticing that she, too, is shaking in my grasp, but her face is stoic.
No tears, not even a wobble of her chin.
I think she must be in actual shock, and justifiably so.
I feel helpless to do anything for her. The longer I stand here, in a space so heavy with the weight of secrets and lies, pain and heartache, my own shock has time to set in, mingled with the familiar creeping sensation of an anxious episode coming at me full force.
But I can’t fall apart right now. Not when I need to be here for the girl I love on probably the hardest night of her life.
I don’t know when her shaking subsided and mine began, but both happened somehow, mine noticeable enough that while Dr. Alex, Russo, and Luca are still in an emotional maelstrom of shouting and furious tears, Cammie has the presence of mind and thoughtfulness to ask if I’m okay.
She doesn’t deserve this. I don’t think I’ve ever hated my own anxiety more, nor felt less capable of handling it, handling anything. I mumble something about just being stunned, tell her I’m more concerned that she’s okay, because it is the truth, or part of it.
Because for the first time since we reconnected, I’m once again keeping the full extent of my emotions under wraps.
Not because my feelings for Cammie have changed, or I don’t want to be with her anymore, but because I’m suddenly unable to turn off the voice in my head telling me that what I want and what she needs might not align so well after all.
Dad was the one to eventually suggest that we all give the Lovetts and Luca some space and time to talk, or whatever it is that people needed upon being newly reunited after a twenty-year separation that was due entirely to a supervillain’s meddling.
It isn’t exactly a situation any of us are familiar with.
He and stand-in bouncers Paolo and Tony escorted a miserable Johnny Russo back up to his family villa, which we now know he received along with a massive inferiority complex, like a free gift with inheritance. The guy is a bigger piece of work than I ever would have thought possible.