Chapter 94
Dario
Iwalked wearily down the hall towards my bedroom.
I knew what was coming, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
When I knocked and opened the door, I found Alessandra pacing back and forth. She clutched her rosary in one hand and was rubbing the beads incessantly with her fingers.
I thought I heard her whispering prayers beneath her breath.
“You should be lying down,” I said gently.
She glared at me as she continued to pace. “I’m fine.”
“Alessandra – ”
“That man Niccolo was talking about – why did you kill his father?”
Well, at least we were getting right into it. No dancing around the topic.
“Because he tried to kill Lars and me in prison. He and five of his men, I might add.”
“Why did he try to kill you and Lars?”
“He was Camorra. I’m Cosa Nostra. They hate us.”
“Why?”
“For reasons that go back at least a century.” Then I admitted grudgingly, “Although I’m sure it didn’t help that the Amato family was trying to take over Naples.”
“So you killed the father,” she said angrily, “and now his son is back for revenge.”
“I never did anything to Aristide Caproni until the day he tried to murder me. If he had left me alone, he would still be alive today.”
As Alessandra continued to pace back and forth, the anger in her expression seemed to shift –
Into something like grief and desperation.
“What’s going on?” I asked, unnerved by how emotional she was getting.
“What’s going on is you promised me you’d get out of the family business – ”
“I am! I just – ”
“ – and now some horrible man is trying to kill us!”
I scoffed. “Cesare is just some pissant gangster from Naples – ”
“You killed his father!”
“BECAUSE HIS FATHER TRIED TO KILL ME!” I roared.
I caught myself as Alessandra stopped pacing and stared at me, her eyes welling with tears.
“What would you have had me do?” I asked, keeping my temper in check. “Let him murder me?”
She looked away. “No, of course not… of course not…”
I walked over to her and gently put my hands on her arms. “If I hadn’t done what needed to be done, I wouldn’t be here now. We would have never met and fallen in love. Our daughter wouldn’t be on the way – ”
“But it never ends!” Alessandra cried out, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“What never ends?”
“The violence!” she said, finally looking me in the eyes. “Someone tries to kill you – you kill them – their children come to kill you – you have to kill them – where does it stop?!”
My heart was heavy, but I said, “When I get out. And I swear to you, I will get out. I just need more time.”
“But this man is trying to kill you!”
“He won’t.”
“He’ll try to kill all of us!”
“He won’t,” I insisted.
“So you’ll have to kill him – and the violence will continue – and – ” She stifled a sob. “And maybe Elena will pay the price for it – ”
“She won’t!”
“How do you know that?!” she cried out.
“Because I won’t let that happen.”
Alessandra’s lip trembled, and she whispered, “But what if God punishes Elena for what we’ve done?”
I looked at her in surprise. Our conversation had taken a very dark turn.
I was not religious in the slightest, but my wife was, so I chose my words carefully.
“If God punishes anyone for what they’ve done,” I said, “He will punish me. Not you, not Elena – ”
“But when Bathsheba sinned with King David, God took her baby,” she said in a frantic whisper.
Now I was alarmed. “What?!”
“God killed their baby because of their adultery – and because King David killed Bathsheba’s husband!”
The story sounded vaguely familiar. But the fact that she was bringing it up at all disturbed me in a way not even Cesare Caproni could.
“Alessandra,” I said in a quiet but firm voice, “you have to calm down – ”
“What if God punishes us?”
“He’s NOT going to punish an innocent child.”
“But Bathsheba – ”
“Stop it, Alessandra. This isn’t good for the baby, and it’s not good for you.”
Suddenly she cried out – not a whisper, but a shriek – and her eyes widened in shock.
“What is it?” I asked, uncertain what had just happened.
“Dario!” she screamed as she collapsed to her knees, even as she hung onto my arm.
“Alessandra!” I cried out in panic. “Alessandra, what is it?!”
“The baby,” she wailed, her eyes full of terror as she stared up at me. “Something’s wrong – I can feel it!”
An icy fear clutched at my heart, worse than any I had ever felt in my life –
Except for when the Turk had held a gun to her head.
That was the only time I had ever felt as frightened as I did now.
Alessandra screamed again and went down on all fours like a wounded animal.
The rosary she clutched in her hand hung like a pendulum from her belly.
“NICCOLO!” I roared as I sank to the floor and held my wife. “LARS! SOMEONE, GET IN HERE, NOW!”