2. Marisol
2
MARISOL
Dino De Luca.
Having a photographic memory isn’t a bad thing. It’s an inconvenience a lot of the time, sure, but in this situation I’m happy that my mother made me memorize the family trees of every single connected family that she could think of.
Because when I find him on the beach, I know exactly who he is.
And the fact that he doesn’t know who I am?
It makes me feel…
Sexy.
Mysterious.
Like for once, I’m the one in charge, and I’m running my life.
Instead of the exact opposite.
He’s cute.
If he knew that I was Benicio Souza’s daughter, he might… I’m not sure. Run? Ki dnap me?
I’d welcome the kidnapping, honestly. If I didn’t know my dad would burn down the entire world, and everyone in it, to get me back, I’d happily be kidnapped.
I inch closer.
Why is he lying there? Maybe he’s drunk.
Maybe he’s dead.
I wonder…
If I could pay money to stop dreaming about Dino De Luca, I would. Literally. Any of the painstaking savings that I’ve stolen from my father, one piece at a time?
I’d do it if I could just not dream about him.
However, I guess that it’s kind of a moot point at the moment. Because unfortunately, this time I need him.
I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to forget Dino De Luca.
And I’ve spent the past seventy-two hours trying to find him.
My whole body hurts. I blink, my eyes feeling thick and heavy, as I struggle to wake up.
One thought, however, wakes me right up.
The twins.
Angie and Maia. My babies.
“Where are my babies?” I slur.
I’m not even really sure where the question is going. I have no idea where I am. I vaguely remember the sounds of a party, and screaming Dino’s name— but after that—I must have passed out.
“They’re safe,” a familiar voice soothes me. “They’re currently stuffing themselves with pizza and trying to keep Luna from eating an entire chocolate cake by herself.”
“Luna?” I croak.
“My daughter,” a different voice says. While Gia Rossi is all brass and confidence, this voice is softer. Milder.
This must be Caterina.
My eyes are still struggling to focus, but slowly I can see shapes crystalizing into people. It seems like I’m surrounded by so many faces, for a second my brain clicks and whirrs, trying to place all of them.
Then, I do.
Elio Rossi.
Caterina De Luca, now Rossi.
Gia Rossi, who waves at me and smiles.
Sal De Luca, glowering in the back.
And, an old man with a stethoscope.
“This is Doctor Cutrali,” Elio says, his voice heavily accented. Grew up in Italy, I remember from his file. It’s a credit to Gia’s language skills that, while she also grew up with Elio in Italy, her accent is as American as apple pie.
It’s even better than mine, and I worked hard to make sure no one knows my first language is Portuguese .
I look at the older man. Doctor Cutrali. The name clicks with the face, and my memory registers them.
Now, I’ll never forget him.
The doctor smiles. “Hello madam.” His accent is thick too, and also definitely Italian. I wonder if Elio brought him from home… “I have been the Rossi family doctor since these two were just small babies,” he adds.
That explains that. “Thank you,” I whisper.
My throat hurts.
I’m sure I know why, but at the moment, I’d rather not remember.
Because I’m sure it’s bad.
“You’ve had quite a hard time, no?” the doctor leans forward. He nods to my stomach. “Luckily, that knife did not go deeper than your skin. You’ll have a nasty scar across the rib, but you know sometimes a scar is just a chance to tell a good story.”
I bark a small laugh at that. “I don’t want to tell that type of story.”
“A wise woman, then.”
The doctor nods at Elio and stands. “I’ll be back tomorrow. She should rest. She may see her children, and I’d like to make sure they are well.”
“They are,” I say confidently. “They weren’t… there’s no physical damage.”
The mental stress of seeing their grandmother kidnapped, and running from the men who grabbed her in plain sight?
I’m not sure any of us will get over that .
My heart squeezes, but my mom is a tough woman. She’s survived Benicio Souza before. She’s actually the only one of his many wives and mistresses who is still standing, probably because shortly after having me, she moved us to her parents’ horse farm in Florida.
Well, that, and she’s a crack shot. She shot my dad in the chest, once.
I think he kind of liked it.
I thought that the twins and I would be safe with her in Fort Lauderdale. He’s never tried to take the twins back to Brasilia, and they’ve lived there since they were about six months old. I lived with them, and he didn’t care until recently. He only came for me, two years ago, because he remembered that as of yet, I am unmarried.
I don’t want to get married.
I didn’t think that he’d look for me at my mom’s, but I guess he did. Why he decided to kidnap her is probably going to be a huge problem, but I can only assume she’s alive.
I hope she will survive him now.
I shuffle, and the stitches along my ribs twinge. I gasp and Gia shoos Elio out of the way, coming to sit by my side. “That was a nasty cut, girl.”
“Yeah,” I grunt. “It wasn’t really fun for me either.”
Her hand slips into mine. “It’s good to see you again.”
I grin. Gia and I met about a year ago when my father took her hostage too.
Gia doesn’t take kindly to being a hostage. Not even a week in my father’s compound in Brasilia, and she got us both the hell out of there.
I had no idea that she was Dino’s sister-in-law until she told me. Being trapped in my father’s house, I’d missed the Rossi-De Luca nuptials.
Not that I would have been invited.
Being a Souza, I don’t get invited.
Ever.
Because people would rather invite a starving tiger to a wedding than anyone who shares my father’s name.
“What happened?” Gia asks.
I sigh.
I shouldn’t tell them. These people owe me nothing, and I’m the daughter of a man who, for some reason or another, has decided that they need to be wiped from the face of the earth.
They deserve to know, though.
“After we left my father’s house in Brazil, I went to go live with my mother and the twins in Fort Lauderdale. Father has never once tried to bother with my mother, not when she lives in the United States.”
“He’s on the top ten?” the question comes from Sal, and it’s referencing my father’s place on the DEA’s most-wanted list.
I nod. “Yes. He still is. He’s wanted and will be apprehended on sight should he get caught.”
Despite what the movies say, it’s still a pretty formidable barrier to enter the States, especially when your face is an arrest-on-sight mandate. My father is, surprisingly, quite risk- averse for being one of the most brutal cartel leaders in South America.
It’s never been worth the risk.
“So you thought you’d be safe in Florida,” Sal says softly.
Of course I did. “I never would have put my kids at risk, De Luca,” I respond.
The room seems to react to that.
I get the impression, pretty immediately, that everyone in this room would do whatever it takes to keep their kids safe.
“And you’re here because…. Holy shit,” Gia’s eyes widen. “He came for you.”
“He did. He took my mom. The twins and I made it out, and drove north. We made it to Hoboken before he found us.”
“He?”
God, I’m afraid to even say his name. I harden myself. He’s not some kind of spirit; I can’t summon him by speaking the word three times. “Andrei. My father’s… assassin.” For lack of a better word.
I guess you could say he’s a fixer. He’s my father’s go-to guy, and he’s terrifyingly amazing at what he does. Had he been present that day in Brasilia, I have no doubt that Gia and I would not have escaped.
I think at the time, he was in Morocco, but I can’t be sure.
He’s like the Terminator.
We barely managed to escape him, but he’s the one who gave me the epic knife wound on my stomach.
Elio’s face twists. “Andrei Moretti? ”
“I see you’ve heard of him,” I say darkly.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” he responds. Turning, Elio grabs his phone and starts barking orders in Italian.
I hope he’s doubling the guard. Tripling it, even.
Not that it will matter. Andrei is absolutely insane. I’ve seen him walk into a field of government soldiers and come out alive.
Alive, and the only survivor.
“Whatever you’re doing, it won’t matter,” I call to Elio. “He’s after one thing.”
Gia’s face looks pale. “Let me guess… you?”
I nod sharply. “I.. I didn’t know where else to go,” I say honestly. “I knew that I needed to get the twins to safety, and…”
And I knew, in my heart, that their father would look out for them.
Or, if nothing else, their Zia Gia would.
“They’re safe with us,” Gia assures me.
I nod. “They will be. He doesn’t want them. He only wants me. ”
Gia’s eyes widen. “No, Marisol. You can’t…”
“I can,” I whisper. “I have to.”
Surely she understands that.
“As soon as I can, I’m going to go find him. I’m going to let him take me back to my father. I just… I needed to know that the twins were safe.”
The room is dead silent. I shut my eyes. “I’ll go as soon as I can.”
“Like hell you will,” a voice rasps.
My eyes snap open.
In the doorway, there’s a familiar shape.
My heart aches, meeting Dino’s dark green ones for the first time in almost a decade.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he snarls.
Heart thumping in my chest, I hold my head up high.
“You don’t get to say that,” I respond.
“Yes, Marisol. I definitely fucking do.”
The room clears out quite quickly after that.
Gia gives Dino a meaningful glare, while cheerfully informing me that she will happily tase him if she needs to. I give her a grateful squeeze before she files out, the rest of the crew behind her.
Dino shuts the door behind them, but I have no doubt that they’re hovering in the hallway.
It’s weird. Even though Dino is Caterina and Sal’s brother, it’s almost like they’re closer to their respective partners than they are to him.
For a second, I realize that Dino must be …
Incredibly lonely.
I shift, uncomfortable with the realization. I assumed that if he was here, with his people, then he’d be fine.
Welcome, even.
But I don’t know that ‘welcome’ is how I’d describe their relationship with him.
He stares at me.
And I stare back at him.
He looks… different. Obviously, time has passed since we last saw each other. And I know I look different too.
But where time might have softened some of my edges, they’ve hardened his.
He’s wearing a plain white t-shirt and loose shorts, an outfit that I imagine is something he wears when he’s at home or relaxing, but it doesn’t make him look vulnerable. Quite the opposite, it makes him look…
Well, he looks like he just escaped jail and threw on the first thing he could find.
His face is all angles. There’s nothing of the boy that I found on the beach all those years ago.
Even his eyes look different. They’ve always been such a dark green they look almost black, but now, there’s nothing even hinting at the green.
They seem to burn, like something inside of him is on fire.
Beneath the lines of his face, I can see the column of his throat. It’s covered in dark ink, but as he steps closer, I can see something else .
There’s a long, twisted scar running across his neck.
The kind you only get when someone tries to cut your throat.
Oh, Dino.
I don’t know what to say to him. I’ve imagined this moment a thousand times, but right now, all of my carefully rehearsed speeches seem to be completely pointless.
I have a perfect memory. I thought I remembered exactly who Dino was.
I was totally wrong.
Suddenly, I’m self-conscious. I know that we never really knew each other, but…
I kind of knew him.
He was my first, after all. The first and only man that I’ve ever had sex with.
My heart cracks a little with the realization that Dino, the sweet young man who treated me so well that night, might be gone forever.
And I have no clue who this one is.
I’m still wondering what to say when he opens his mouth. “You’re not going anywhere.”
That voice.
Dino had a deep voice before. But now, I can tell that there’s been some damage to his vocal cords. His voice is raspy and low, like every word is an effort. It makes chills break out and race over my skin, and it turns my head so that I’m focused on his lips .
There’s a scar crossing his mouth as well, and I lick my own lips as I look at it.
What happened to you?
I blink up at him, realizing that I never responded. “So now you’re going to hold me hostage too?”
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “I’m absolutely going to do that.”
God, there’s not an ounce of doubt in his voice. He really will try to keep me here.
I can’t let that happen.
I sigh and shake my head. “No, Dino. You can’t. It’s not safe.”
“It’s safer than you walking back out there. Safer than putting yourself at your father’s mercy. Safer than surrendering to fucking Andrei Moretti,” he hisses.
Every word sounds like an effort.
And, with every sentence, he moves a step closer to me until he’s hovering at the edge of the hospital bed.
I can hear the small heart monitor next to me start to kick up.
Oh. That’s my heartbeat.
Dino notices it too. He looks over at the monitor, then back at me.
“Scared, Princess?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“I think your heart says otherwise.”
“You don’t know anything about my heart, Dino De Luca. ”
“I think we both know more about each other than we let on, Marisol Souza.”
My eyes widen, then narrow. “Gia told you.”
“Gia didn’t need to tell me,” he says quietly. “I knew.”
“You… what?”
He extends his hands, placing them against the plastic rail of the hospital bed. He leans forward, until his eyes are so close, I can see the slight ring of forest green around his pupils.
Dark green. I knew it.
The color is somehow comforting to me.
I look down at his knuckles, noticing the tattoos. They cover his hands completely, and then run up his arms. It’s unclear to me what they are. A tumble of words and images, some whole, some bisected by scars.
How many scars does Dino have?
He shifts again, this time leaning forward. I catch the very top of a large letter M, tucked right at the top of his collarbone, before I look up at him.
“I knew, Marisol. I knew about the twins. I knew about you. And I know for sure that now that I have you? I am never, ever fucking letting you go again.”
The words should scare me. This is not my Dino. Not the man I remember.
Instead, however, I bite my lip.
Because I’m not scared of him.
Or, if I am, there’s an even bigger truth.
I like being scared of him.