Chapter 39 The Meeting
The Meeting
Rocco
It was not customary to turn my back on a meeting. Even more important than my enemies who would sit and challenge me was my father. However, my enemies were still downstairs until it was time to call them upstairs to my office. My father had left the room and was only then returning.
Even if none of the above had been in motion, my eyes would be on my wife, or my heart would not stay in my chest. My father might as well steal it.
I also stood for another reason. A reason that had me on edge.
It was not usually I who pushed my father to his limits, and in a way that walked the line between respect and disrespect.
It was my fratello, Brando Piero Fausti, who did this.
My father and fratello had a different relationship than my father and I had.
Brando was free to make his own choices in life. It had been established since the beginning of my time that I would not. I was born to be a Fausti and all that entailed. I was created to be sacrificed to our rules and to be owned by the blood that ran through my veins.
This was why, on a hospital bed in Venezia, my fratello had stood over me, taking my hand, and in front of our father, had relinquished his right to rule to me.
By the power vested in our grandfather, Marzio Piero Fausti, my father could not stop his decree before death, that my brother, Brando Piero Fausti, was free to make his own decisions in respect to our family.
In this decree, my grandfather had punished my father for all he had put the family through for love.
Was it dramatic?
Sì, my grandfather could respect how fate had played out on the stage of life; however, this punishment had been and still was devastating to Luca Leone Fausti.
It meant my brother made his own decisions regarding the one thing our family valued most, which encompassed God, loyalty, and respect, and together became the family itself.
Love fit into the lines, was every line, if it walked hand in hand with the ruthless blood in our veins.
My fratello never aspired to be king, or even a major figure in our famiglia; however, his story played out in the stage of life and won an award for being one of the most dramatic.
I played an important role in his story.
I, too, was moved by the love he shared with his wife and vowed to protect it with my life.
In turn, their love was the teacher who showed me what love truly was and how sacred it was. It was not as rare as everyone assumed it to be.
However, my story played out as a badly written opera that had stellar performances. Mainly, Rosaria Caffi with her voice made of frozen barbs. Rarely did she even come to my thoughts, but to complete my picture, the first half of my life had to play out.
All this to say, after my wife entered my life, I knew without a doubt I would give up my position in the family if it meant I kept her for the rest of my life.
Perhaps my father sensed this; perhaps he knew all along that I would trade duty for love. However, before, if I had broken a rule by stepping out of line, going to the window out of turn, he would have snarled at me and punished me.
As he watched me in that moment, it was almost satisfaction in his eyes. As if me challenging him was part of his plan.
This did not sit right in the pit of my stomach. I knew our ways down to the smallest of offenses, and I made it my business to know many of our family members, from top to bottom, to know all of Italia and how far and wide our reach spanned—how long our history stretched.
Most of all, I knew the man I called father.
His recent behavior was not the norm.
Could it have been because I would be leading the family soon, and he was watching what type of king I would be?
Perhaps, but it was not.
I knew my father, and according to him, he knew me better than I knew him. He created me.
My wife looked back at me. She was taking a walk with Uncle Tito.
He had not left his home since my aunt’s passing.
I believed one of the reasons he did not ask my father to take his life was because he knew my nephew would challenge my father.
Although Marciano was one of the strongest Fausti men I had ever seen, my father was stronger.
He would not allow Marciano to challenge him and step away with his legs, or his life.
Uncle Tito had a special bond with my nephew, however; so did my aunt. If my uncle thought in any way putting Marciano at odds with the King Lion would have upset my aunt, my uncle would not do it.
This is the power of a woman’s love.
Just then, when I thought of my uncle asking my father to end his life after his wife passed, I turned to my father. His eyes were on mine, and although the news of Margarita’s health had been fair, I wondered if her request of him was still weighing on his mind.
When my great-aunt had passed, my father had held up three fingers, and then brought one down. When Mamma Maria Maria passed, he did the same, except he brought two down.
That left one more.
One more death awaited us.
If he considered what his wife asked of him, usually a request asked on the death bed, as a sign of things to come…
His eyes were still on mine. His face a solid mask. Behind his eyes, however, it almost seemed as if a fire burned.
“It is time,” he said to me, but it was Donato who fixed his suit and left the room to walk Francesco and his family to my office.
I took another look out the window, at my wife smiling at Uncle Tito, and the cold of winter disappeared as if by magic.
Her smile brought me back to the island where we first set eyes on each other, and the feel of her was branded into my palms, as if the heat of the sun beat against them—how she had melted the ice around my heart.
Ermanno pushed the wheelchair. Thandie did not keep as close as Ermanno, but she was closer than her husband and his unit.
I was not sure why she was keeping her distance.
Perhaps Uncle Tito requested it. Amora wanted to personally tell him about our baby and how we would not only honor Amora’s great-aunt with the name Avelina, if our daughter turned out to be a daughter, but also his wife, my great-aunt.
Neither my great-aunt or great-uncle had been blessed with a daughter or a son during their life.
The children of the family became their children.
Bestowing the name Avelina on our daughter would have pleased Aunt Lola, therefore, her husband would be pleased by this decision.
Perhaps he wanted a moment alone with my wife to discuss this.
Ermanno was young enough to be there but not have the same presence as an adult.
My uncle could be private in this way.
I took a drink of whiskey as our eyes held. They held until she turned back to Uncle Tito, and I turned to the meeting. Mac stood beside me on one side. My brothers stood on the other.
Mac nodded to me. Brando nodded to me.
This setting would be completely different from the one in New Orleans when I had defended my wife’s honor.
This setting would be formal, until it was not.
Every beat of my heart pumped hot blood through my veins. I could feel the warring inside of me between the romantic and the ruthless, which fed the lion inside of my chest.
Finally, he was awake and he was roaring, ready for this fight in honor of my love.
I would attend this meeting for my Amora, for my blood, Ricco, and for my wife’s blood, Avelina, both who did not have a chance to see their love story through. Francesco had stolen it from them, just as his namesake would attempt to steal mine from me.
Our usual custom—greeting one another to begin the meeting—did not happen.
None of the men even nodded at one another in acknowledgment.
This was as personal to me as if Francesco attempted to steal the heart from my chest. He knew I clocked his presence in the room, however.
He met my eyes for a moment and then took the seat my father allowed after Francesco’s father, Paolo, greeted my father.
My father was king, and in situations such as these, he was ordered by our laws to be judge, unless it was his wife’s honor at stake.
Being king came with perks. However, the family would question it, and perhaps challenge my father’s ruling, if the family felt he was being more biased than warranted.
For this meeting, my desk had been cleared out, and a table that fit fifty was brought in. Twenty-five men on our side; twenty-five on his. My father and his right-hand man, Donato, did not count.
My father cleared his throat. “We are gathered here today because Francesco Leone Fausti feels his ancestor, Francesco Piero, his grandfather—which would be my uncle, my father’s brother—did not have a fair chance at a love he claimed was his, with one Avelina Simonetti.
My son, Rocco Piero Fausti, is being accused of—” my father glanced at the papers below him “—treasonous behavior toward another member of our famiglia, Francesco Leone Fausti, regarding my son’s wife, Aria Amora Bella Fausti, whose great-aunt, Avelina Simonetti, had an affair with two members of our family, two of my uncles, during the Second World War. ”
My entire body seized at the implication that Avelina had had an affair with both brothers.
Clearly, the letters stated that she had been attracted to Francesco, at first, but it was Ricco who she loved.
The main issue was my great-grandparents and their favoritism of Francesco over Ricco.
This was why my great-grandfather sent Avelina into a dangerous zone.
The Fausti family did not get to be where they are without intelligence—my great-grandfather knew things other people were not privy too.
Perhaps my great-grandfather had first-hand knowledge of when the air-raid would happen.