5. Luca
Ahand landing heavily on my shoulder jars me awake. I didn’t realize I had drifted off to sleep. “Sorry,” Niccolo grunts out, backing away with his hands in the air. “I didn’t know you were asleep.”
“Neither did I.” I sit up straighter on the leather sofa and look around my father’s study. We’re the only two people here. “I thought we were having a meeting.”
My cousin looks up and down. “We are. Have you been waiting here long?”
A glance at my phone tells me I haven’t. It hasn’t been more than a few minutes since I came in and sat. That was all it took for me to fall asleep and start dreaming. What a relief Nico came in when he did because it was a familiar nightmare I would rather not repeat—sprinting down that fluorescent-lit hall, passing one identical door after another before reaching the room where Emilia was left. Sometimes, the hall never ends, and I can’t get her, no matter how hard I run. Other times, I find her, but it’s too late. She’s already gone.
Nico watches me, puzzled and a little concerned. “Tell me you got some sleep last night, man. She’s back, she’s safe.” He drops beside me before trying to stifle a yawn and failing.
“She’s not safe until he’s out of the picture,” I snap.
He groans before scrubbing his hands over his face. “We’re doing everything we can. I know it’s taking too long.”
“Too fucking long. Don’t get me wrong. I know you’re looking under every rock to find that son of a bitch.” I nudge him with my elbow and jerk my chin when he looks my way. “He’s vermin, and vermin know how to hide.”
Shuffling footfalls accompany my father’s appearance. At least one of us looks like he slept last night. He managed to shave, too, unlike me. “I understand everything went according to plan,” Papa begins, not bothering with the formalities of a greeting.
“Everything went fine,” I assure him. “Not so much as a hint of trouble.” Aside from the fact that I can barely touch my woman without her recoiling. Not to mention a night spent fighting the urge to go down to the house and at least sleep on the sofa. Anything, so long as it means being closer to her.
“I understand she’ll stay on her own at the house.” My father eyes me warily as he lowers himself into the chair behind the desk. “She is on the same page as you when it comes to what she can and can’t share with others?”
Dante’s voice rings out behind me before I have a chance to reply. “I don’t think she should have her phone yet,” he reminds us.
“So fucking original, Dante,” I snap, folding my arms and turning to face my brother.
“Careful.” He tucks his phone into his pocket before mimicking my stance.
“What’s this bullshit?” Papa waves a hand back and forth between us. “You were behaving yourselves for a while there. Do me a favor and don’t start with this childish fuckery again. We have business to discuss before we call the cop.” He rarely refers to Craig by his first name. Dirty cop or not, he’s currently our best chance at finding Alessandro and ending his miserable life.
“How are Paul and Rob doing?” I ask my father, referring to two of the men who were critically injured during a shootout with a group of Vitali associates. They crossed paths outside a restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen, and the next thing you know, they landed both families in the past week’s news cycle.
He groans before rubbing his temples. “Dante?”
Dante blows out a sigh. “Paul is still comatose, and the doctors are starting to talk about doing those tests they run to see if a person’s brain is firing anymore.”
“Christ,” Nico mutters.
“But Rob seems like he’ll pull through,” Dante continues. “He lost his spleen, and he’s always going to walk with a limp thanks to a bullet he took to the femur, but he got lucky. Not like Chris and Marco.” There’s regret in his voice, even if the idiots brought it on themselves if it’s true they fired first.
“Stupid, headstrong punks,” Papa mutters. “The hell did they think they were doing? Starting shit out in public, civilians all around, not to mention all the blowback. Like we needed the family’s name in the news for days on end.”
He snaps his fingers, signaling for Dante to pay attention. “I want arrangements sent to the funerals on behalf of the family. And send something to Paul’s mother. She was always a nice lady. Our mamas were good friends. There was a time they imagined making a match with us, joining our families.” He snorts softly, his gaze unfocused before he swivels in his chair to gaze out the window.
Fuck me. I shoot a look at my brother, and for once, he seems to notice what I’ve known for a while. There’s something wrong with Papa. He’s not who he used to be. He wouldn’t trail off in the middle of a meeting and lose track of himself. No fucking way. This, on top of his worsening fatigue and the collapse he suffered one day a few weeks ago, I’m more certain than ever he’s hiding something from us.
Dante clears his throat loudly, and I do the same. Nico coughs behind his clenched fist.
That stirs Papa, who turns around and scowls when he finds the three of us watching him. “Where’s Francesco?” he demands before checking his watch.
Something has to be said. We can’t pretend there’s nothing unusual going on here. “Papa, are you all right?” I ask, sitting in the chair next to Dante’s.
Papa’s head snaps back, and a familiar look of derision twists his mouth. “I had a little difficulty on the toilet this morning… nothing a bit of fiber won’t cure. Would you like the fucking details, son?”
At least that sounds like the man I know. He seems to have gone from weariness straight through to resentment. It reminds me of my grandfather’s decline. I was just a kid, maybe seven or eight years old, but I remember him being angry all the time over the last few months of his life and resentful of anyone who offered to help him. Men like us don’t want to be pitied or worried over.
“As for Francesco, he hasn’t yet come back from combing through one of the Vitali-owned whorehouses out in the Bronx, looking for Alessandro. He checked in with me, though. He’ll be back soon.” Dante checks the time and scowls. “He won’t make the call with Craig, but he doesn’t need to be here. Speaking of which, let’s get it rolling.”
Craig blurts out a question the moment the call connects, his voice filtering through the speaker and filling the room with anxious energy. “How is Emilia?”
Papa frowns, then looks guilty when he meets my gaze. “She’s fine,” he grunts out. He might have warmed up to the idea of her living here, but that doesn’t mean he wants to waste time discussing her condition. There are limits, and we have bigger problems on our hands. I have to accept that.
Dante glances at Papa before speaking. “We need news. What do you have?”
Craig’s heavy sigh tells an entire story before he says a word. “The closest thing I have to intel hints at him hiding out with some woman he supports. He could be in Jersey somewhere,” he reports flatly.
“Pussy,” I mutter.
Imagine that. Hiding behind a woman after leaving another woman for dead. He must have assumed she was, or at least that it wouldn’t take long given her state. Why else would he take the chance of leaving her there?
“You know we’re doing everything we can. He took it way too far.” Craig’s voice breaks a little before he clears his throat. “We’re going to find him.”
“How the fuck did Alessandro know we were in the Hamptons?” I look around the room and am met by equally blank expressions. They don’t know any better than I do, and it’s gone beyond the point of chapping my ass to consider Vitali having the upper hand.
“It could be you were followed out there,” Craig reasons. “Or one of the guys you took with you could’ve been working with the Vitali crew and were killed to keep them silent.”
“No way,” Dante grunts out while the rest of us shake our heads. We know our men. Papa pays them almost too much, all to keep them loyal.
“At any rate, I’m doing everything I can,” Craig tells us. “I would like to come by and see her. Who knows? I might help bring her memory back.”
Papa shakes his head. “Soon, maybe, but not yet. We’ve got these fucking photographers hanging around, watching to see who comes and goes. Once things quiet down, maybe then. We can’t risk a cop being spotted.”
With a resigned sigh, Craig replies, “Understood. I’ll keep you posted.” I’m glad for the opportunity to end the meeting when he ends the call. I’ve already spent too much time away from my reason for living.
“I’m going down to the house to check on her.” Either nobody sees fit to stop me, or they know better than to try. The house might as well be on fire, I’m walking so fast, barely short of jogging.
I need her.
I’m a fish out of water without her, gasping for air.
On my way outside, I cross paths with my cousin, Francesco. He’s bleary-eyed and clearly annoyed. “That motherfucker is a ghost,” he snarls out, gulping from a cardboard cup of what smells like strong coffee. “I need to scrub off my top layer skin after combing through those so-called establishments he runs.”
For the second time this morning, there’s an unspoken apology nestled in an unrequested explanation. “I know you’re doing all you can,” I assure him before moving on. Frankly, I don’t have the time or the patience right now to go through the same song and dance I went through with Nico. Not when she’s down there waiting for me.
Only she isn’t waiting, and I know it. She likely dreads my return. There is no ignoring the fear creasing the corners of her eyes whenever I draw too close. And it isn’t like it was when she first crashed into my life. There’s no excitement in knowing I unnerve her. Because now, I love her and know the thrill of being loved by her.
Like the old song says, the thrill is gone. I refuse to believe it’s gone forever. What we have is too strong and powerful, something neither of us could fight against. Something so strong, even my family couldn’t break it.
I open the door without bothering to knock. The living room and kitchen are exactly as I left them last night, untouched. There isn’t so much as a dent in the throw pillows to tell me she’s strayed from the bedroom since I left.
My heart clenches when I hear an instantly identifiable sound coming from the bathroom. Some sounds are like that. As soon as you hear them, the entire story is clear. In this case, Emilia’s almost violent vomiting hints at the misery she must be going through.
“It’s me,” I call out as I approach the bedroom, then venture close to the partly open bathroom door.
“Don’t come in.” Her weak, pained voice leaves me reaching for the door, anyway. I ease it open far enough to see her kneeling in front of the bowl, her arms wrapped around it, her body trembling pitifully.
“Let me help you.” I don’t know how. Caregiving has never been on my list of skills. Another aspect of myself she’s revealed, whether I like it or not.
“Disgusting…” She gags again, but nothing comes up. I return to the kitchen, grab water from the refrigerator, and open the bottle on my way back to her. She flushes the toilet and lowers the lid before resting her forehead against it.
“Are you strong enough to stand?” She weakly grunts before I drape her arm over my neck and help her to her feet. She swishes a mouthful of water and spits it into the sink before leaning against me, letting me lead her back to bed.
Looking at the nightstand in the light coming in from the bathroom, I ask, “Where are your meds? When was the last time you took one?”
“I haven’t…” She half groans, half whimpers, her head hanging low. The room goes completely dark as soon as I turn off the bathroom light, blackout curtains drawn tight.
“I was there when the doctor talked to you about pain management. You have to be proactive, remember? Before it gets to be too much.” Everything she brought from the hospital is in her bag, which I find at the foot of the bed. The bottle of pills is on top, and I’m almost annoyed with her for leaving it there.
I soften when she whimpers again. “Here,” I murmur more softly this time, holding out one of the tablets. She doesn’t hesitate before taking it, gulping down more water.
“Empty stomach,” she whispers as she eases herself into lying down. She moves so slowly, carefully, like she’s afraid she’ll break otherwise.
“Here’s hoping you can sleep and the nausea won’t bother you too badly.” I’ve done almost all I can, and she’s still in pain. What do I do now? How do I help her? The doctors said this could continue for a while until she finishes healing, and unless a severe headache lasts more than a full day or comes along with slurred speech or loss of coordination, it’s nothing to be alarmed about.
Easy for them to fucking say. They don’t have to stand by and watch their reason for existence suffering the way she is now. She doesn’t deserve this. If only it were as easy as deciding to absorb someone else’s pain. I would take hers in a heartbeat.
She doesn’t react when her phone buzzes on the nightstand. It’s a call from her mother. I pick up the phone, intending to send the call to voicemail so as not to disturb her. When I do, an alert on the screen tells me this is one of five missed calls. I can’t imagine Emilia not checking her phone last night the second she was alone, which means these calls have all come in since then. Otherwise, there would probably be many more listed.
I’m about to return the phone to the table when low and behold, the screen lights up again with another call from Mom. Emilia only groans softly, her back to me. While I’m watching her, what I see in my mind is a belligerent woman raising shit because she can’t get a hold of her daughter. I can’t risk her making noise, going down to Emilia’s old station and demanding somebody put her in touch with a girl who no longer works there anymore.
I don’t want to do it, but it seems like the only viable option. Stepping out of the bedroom, I close the door behind me before answering the call. “This is Emilia’s phone. Emilia is all right,” I quickly add before she gets any ideas. “But she’s too sick to talk. Is this Mrs. Washington?”
There’s a moment of silence before a woman answers. “Yes. Where is my daughter? Who are you? What do you mean, she’s feeling sick? I want to talk to her.” Fear rings out in her voice, more intense with every word.
“She has a bad headache and isn’t in great shape. A migraine, I’m guessing.” A harmless lie. There’s no way I can tell her the truth. I wouldn’t know where to begin. Emilia might only end up hating me worse if I tried.
“And who are you?” she demands.
“I’m…” I almost got her killed. I love her more than life itself, and she doesn’t even know who the fuck I am anymore. “I’m a good friend of hers. I’m sure she’ll get back to you once the headache clears up.” When all I get in return is silence, I add, “I understand we’re all supposed to get together for dinner sometime soon. I’m looking forward to it.”
It’s like a lightbulb finally goes on. “Oh! That kind of friend! Emilia didn’t tell me!” There I was, hoping to prove I know her daughter and only want to take care of her, but she sounds like she wants to start planning the wedding.
“Then let’s pretend I didn’t say anything since she might get annoyed with me for telling you.” Her soft laugh tells me I’m charming enough to disarm her. It’s a farce, beginning to end, yet it’s working. She’s happy to believe me since I sound intelligent, charming, and kind. That’s the kind of man she wants for her daughter.
It’s a relief to end the call and drop the act. Now, as I ask myself what to do next to help Emilia, I have her demanding mother on my mind along with everything else. I can only hope I haven’t complicated the situation further.