35. Ofelia
Ofelia
“Your brother is out of surgery.” Luca Bellini, Jack’s cousin, is clad in deck shorts, a burgundy silk shirt, handmade Italian loafers, and aviator sunglasses.
He looks more like a model than a mafia don as he comes down the stone steps onto the terrace, where Lourdes and I have been anxiously waiting by the phone for what feels like forever.
We both leap to our feet, Lourdes’s hand gripping mine hard enough to hurt.
“Mickey’s fine,” Luca goes on before we ask.
“The shot he took went straight through his shoulder. His burns will leave some scars, but they’re not serious enough to require skin grafts.
He’ll heal just fine. Jack came here to take you both to the hospital,” he adds.
“But I thought you’d want to wait until your father arrives.
Roman is on his way here from the airport now. ”
Lourdes tenses next to me. I know she’s terrified of my father, even on a good day.
And this is not a good day.
“My father?” I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I asked Luca to let my family know what happened, since none of us have working phones. I probably should have called myself, but the world seems to be happening around me, like I’m stuck in a weird fog that just won’t lift.
Maybe I’d feel differently if Alexei were here.
But he’s not, I think dully. And something tells me he won’t be back anytime soon.
“Roman came on his own plane as soon as I called,” Luca says, watching me. “He was going to head straight to the hospital, but when he heard you were here, he said he’d come to the villa first and collect you.”
I turn to Lourdes. “Why don’t you go down with Jack now,” I say, “and I’ll wait for my family to get here? I know you must be desperate to see Benny.”
She’s already on her feet, her face pale. “Benny,” she echoes hollowly. “Yes.” Her eyes, wide with pain and shock, settle on me. “Will you be alright here on your own?”
“Of course.” I attempt to smile reassuringly. “I’ll feel better knowing that Benny has you with him.”
She hesitates, her eyes darting from side to side as if she’s searching for the right words.
There aren’t any right words for this. There won’t be, not for a long time.
If ever.
Lourdes and Benny never asked for any of this. I can’t expect them to understand it. Or to forgive it.
“Go.” I gently push her toward Jack. “Hug Benny for me. I’ll come find you as soon as Papa and I have seen Mickey. And whenever you’re ready, just say the word, and we’ll organize your flight home.”
“I—thanks.” Lourdes’s voice is quiet. Her eyes settle on my hand, resting on the table. “Unless you want a repeat of the Mickey scene,” she says, trying and failing to smile, “you might want to put that ring somewhere your father won’t see it.”
I stare at the sapphire until it blurs in the sun. Luca diplomatically pretends not to notice when I slide the ring off and put it back into the pendant at my neck.
I don’t want to hide it. From anyone, even my father.
Reality, however, is that after the events of today, that ring is unlikely ever to leave the pendant again.
I might have been able to talk Alexei down off that clifftop, to make him see that Mickey’s accusations were nothing but smoke.
But nothing I can say will ever undo what has happened to Lars, nor the fact that Alexei blames himself for it.
Forever, for Alexei, meant sailing off into a sunset, away from anything that could hurt us. I don’t need to close my eyes and see his blank, dead face to know that particular version of forever ended the moment he saw that bomb go off.
No wonder Lourdes wants to leave, I think tiredly. Sometimes I wish I could walk away from it all too.
I stand on the steps as Lourdes leaves with Jack. She turns to look at me as the car pulls out. Her small smile doesn’t reach her eyes, which are wide and hollow with shock and the aftermath of the day’s horrors.
The car is barely out of sight when another black sedan comes racing up the hill at breakneck speed, closely followed by a stream of other cars. My father opens the door of the lead vehicle before it’s fully come to a halt, his face grim and unsmiling as he pulls me hard against him.
“Thank Christ you’re not hurt.”
I cling to him wordlessly, closing my eyes and allowing myself the luxury of pretending, like the child I once was, that my father can magically make everything alright again.
Except this time he just can’t.
“Roman,” I hear Luca say behind me, “you are welcome in my home.”
“Luca.” Papa shakes his hand behind my back. “Good of you to do this. I think you already know Dimitry?”
“Of course,” says Luca as he shakes the hand of my father’s oldest friend. “Good to see you again, Dimitry. Wish the circumstances were different.”
“Where’s Petrovsky?” I pull back to see Papa looking grimly around. “Mak was on his way here to meet him when we spoke earlier.”
Then you know more than I do. And by the extremely dangerous gleam in my father’s eyes, the farther away Alexei is, the better for everyone.
“I believe they’re meeting elsewhere,” I say carefully. “For security reasons.” I meet Luca’s eyes, and he gives me a small nod that says he has correctly gauged the diplomatic currents at play.
He steps in front of my father, smiling to defuse the tension. “Come in.” He opens his arm in a welcoming gesture.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Papa says, which does nothing to lessen his visible impatience, “but I need to get to the hospital and see my son. Are you ready?” he asks me.
“Yes.” It’s not like I have any belongings. I glance at the horde of watchful men leaning against cars behind us. “I take it security won’t be an issue.”
“Don’t know what we’re walking into,” Papa says curtly. He glances at our host. “Hope you understand, Luca.”
“Completely,” he says with smooth urbanity. “And any help you need, Roman, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Appreciate that.” My father’s face softens marginally. “I won’t forget this.”
The other man nods, and Papa shakes his hand again and ushers me into the lead car.
Dimitry rumples my hair with a smile as I slide into the rear seat. “You doing okay, kid?”
“I guess.” I lift a shoulder, unable to return his smile. “Better than Lars.” Just saying his name makes tears spring into my eyes. The thought of his long, lanky body and loose smile being blown into the air haunts me, like an apparition lurking behind my eyes.
If I can’t stop seeing it, I can only imagine the torture Alexei is putting himself through.
“Tell me what happened,” Papa says as soon as we start driving down toward Palermo. “I only got the bare bones from Bellini. What the hell were you and Petrovsky doing here in the first place?”
“I don’t know much, Papa.” I shake my head tiredly.
“Alexei needed to see Lars about something to do with business, but he didn’t want to risk betraying our location by having Lars come to us.
So we disguised ourselves, wigs and glasses, the whole thing, then took the Bellini chopper to Lars’s yacht so it looked like we were just Italian friends coming to party. ”
“Smart.” Dimitry nods approvingly. “Well, it is,” he says, when Papa gives him a dark look. “Lex covered his tracks, Roman, you can’t argue with that.”
“Hmph.” Papa looks like he’s more than willing to give arguing a good try.
“Alexei had to make a sudden trip ashore.” I avoid my father’s eyes. “I, erm—followed him. We were ashore when the yacht blew up. With security,” I add hastily, “so I was never in danger.”
“A sudden trip ashore.” My father’s eyes pin me like a moth to a board. “After taking all those precautions, that seems like a rather rash decision—even for him.”
I resist a leftover desire from my teenage years to roll my eyes.
“His name is Alexei, Papa. Not Petrovsky or him. And none of this is his fault.”
He snorts. “All of this is his fucking fault, Ofelia. Something your boyfriend clearly understands, since he’s got either enough brains, or not enough balls, to face me.
And don’t give me that bullshit about security concerns,” he adds furiously.
“Between him and Luca Bellini, by now Sicily will be locked down tighter than a Catholic fucking nunnery.”
For a horrible moment my inner teenager is severely tempted to mention that Alexei is in fact my fiancé, not my boyfriend.
But given that I’m not at all sure I still am Alexei’s fiancé, not to mention knowing better than to argue with my father when he’s in this mood, I don’t bother.
I just stare out the window while he and Dimitry talk in low, intense voices, wishing that Darya were here to talk some kind of sense into my father.
Wishing Alexei were here, so I could make sense of any of this.
Papa crashes through the hospital doors with typical presumption, stalking over to the reception desk and demanding to know where his son is.
Equally predictably, the hospital staff quail in equal parts fear and open admiration, before scuttling to do his bidding.
I love my father. But his hot head and furious aggression make me long for Alexei’s lethal, silent precision, the understated presence which achieves the same results without any of the chaos.
Despite my initial passionate relief at hearing Mickey is okay, I nonetheless don’t feel overly inclined to rush to his bedside. Understanding the worry and anger that caused him to say what he did back on the yacht doesn’t lessen the impact his words had on Alexei.
Words that are likely still ringing in his head as his best friend hovers close to death on an operating table.
“I’ll let you and Mickey talk,” I say to Papa. “I want to go and see Benny and Lourdes and find out how Lars is.”
He frowns. “I’m sure your brother will want to see you—”
“You and he will need to talk business anyway.” I attempt a smile to soften my words. “So there’s no point in me being there. And I want to make sure Benny is okay. He and Lars are a couple,” I explain when Papa looks confused.