Chapter 4 Giovanni
GIOVANNI
“He treated my mom well to begin with. Took her to fancy restaurants, nightclubs, and the theatre. He bought her flowers and jewelry and designer clothes. She seemed happy, well, happier than she was when she was married to my dad, and I told myself that she deserved to be spoiled.”
I let her continue, uninterrupted. Her voice is flat; this is how she handles it, by emotionally detaching herself.
“I didn’t even recognize the shift until it was too late. The way her shine had been dulled. The long silences spent staring into space, the wariness in her eyes. Then she got pregnant with Amber.
“She rarely left the house. She never saw her friends. She would arrange to meet me after school or art class and then she wouldn’t show up. If we made plans for the weekend, she would cancel them last-minute without a reason. She stopped cooking meals, stopped asking about my day, stopped smiling.
“She was six months’ pregnant with Amber the first time he hurt her.”
I clench my fists. What kind of fucking coward hits a pregnant woman?
The sad thing is, I know exactly what kind of man it takes to hurt a vulnerable woman. The kind that hides behind powerful secrets. The kind that hits and runs when they find their next victim.
“She wouldn’t talk about it. My dad had remarried, but he still worried about my mom. He tried persuading her to leave him, but she wouldn’t. I don’t know what hold he had over her, but she seemed so broken, so fragile, like he’d convinced her, somehow, that she’d never survive without him.
“Then, when Amber was born, he didn’t come home for days at a time, and when he did, he was always drunk. His eyes were glazed, you know, like he was there in body, but his mind was elsewhere.”
She peers at me then for the first time since she started talking, and I’m right back there with her, waiting for the bastard to show his face so that I can knock his fucking head off and bury it somewhere it’ll never be found.
“I was still in high school. I didn’t know what to do.
I could’ve gone to live with my dad and my stepmom, but I couldn’t leave Amber and my mom behind.
Then, one day, I got home, and he’d changed the locks.
I couldn’t get in. I called the police, and they convinced him to let me back into the house, but when they questioned him, he made it sound like I was the one causing trouble, and they believed him. They fucking believed him.”
Megan stares out of the window.
We haven’t taken off yet; I’ll signal Ric when she has finished talking.
Right now, she has a lot to get off her chest, and I’ll carry that burden around for her if it means that I get to see her smile.
Really smile. Because I get the feeling that it’s been a long while since she has allowed herself to feel any kind of true joy.
“What happened to your mom, Meggie?”
“I came home one day, and she wasn’t there.
Amber was crying in her cot. She was hungry and her diaper was soiled.
” Her voice is far away, lost in her memories.
“The police got involved. They found traces of my mom’s blood in the kitchen, but her body was never found, and there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him. ”
“Have you been looking after Amber ever since?”
A wistful smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.
“Mom made me promise to take care of Amber if anything happened to her, not that I needed a reason to look after my little sister. My dad helped us disappear for a while. Then we started over, I got a job to pay the rent on a small apartment, and well, here we are…”
Until I went and fucked it up.
She was still a teenager when she lost her mom and had to bring up a baby, and she’s been holding it together for five years without anyone interfering.
Way to go, Gio.
“Are you worried that he’ll come back for Amber one day?”
It all makes perfect sense now. The way she panicked when she realized that the kiss had been filmed. Her deep-rooted mistrust. Her vulnerability.
She’s so busy protecting her little sister that I think she has forgotten how to be Megan Walsh. I think she has forgotten how to dream, how to live, how to be free. And she certainly has no idea how fucking desirable she is.
“I don’t think he ever wanted Amber.” She sucks in a deep breath and releases it with a sigh.
“So, what then? What are you afraid of, Meggie?”
“That he’ll try to take her away just to hurt me the way he hurt my mom.”
“Boss?” Ric’s voice interrupts us, and he reappears with Amber by his side.
The kid is smiling, and I can see the resemblance between the two sisters. I want to make Meggie smile that way. I want to see her face light up with pure abandonment. I want her to forget that Steve fucking Barone ever existed, and there’s only one way to do it.
“Hey, sweetheart.” The pain behind Meggie’s eyes is instantly gone when she looks at Amber. “Did you meet the pilot?”
“He let me speak on the radio.” Amber takes the seat beside her sister, and Meggie leans across to fasten her safety belt. The child’s feet don’t even reach the floor when she sits back. “Are we going to New York now?”
I can’t help smiling. I only met them a few hours ago, but I already know that I’ll protect them with my life if that’s what it takes. No kid deserves what she has been through. What they’ve both been through.
“Yes, we’re going to New York, and we’re going to eat fries and drink milkshakes and visit the zoo in Central Park.”
“There’s a zoo in the park?” Amber’s eyes grow even wider. “We only have swings and a slide in our park.”
It’s afternoon when we land in New York.
Meggie and Amber peer out of the passenger windows of the car as we cross the RFK bridge into the city.
I’ve divided my time between here and Sicily most of my life, but seeing it through their eyes, I feel like a kid again.
It’s busy and noisy and frantic, but it’s also fascinating and fun and strangely addictive.
I haven’t stopped thinking about Meggie’s history, and the more I churn it round and around inside my head, the more determined I am to hunt down the fucker who killed her mom and end his life. I’ll make sure the body is never discovered of course. And there will be zero evidence to link it to me.
Then, she won’t have to worry about him seeing her face on YouTube. She’ll never have to wake up at night in a cold sweat, panicking over him coming back for his daughter. She’ll be able to travel the world if that’s what she wants, without a backward glance over her shoulder.
She’ll be free.
I wear dark sunglasses, and we mingle with the tourists at Times Square, the Empire State Building, and Central Park. The zoo is closed for the night, and I promise to bring Amber back another time. I don’t look at Meggie when I say this, and she doesn’t warn me not to make false promises.
One day, I hope she’ll understand that I keep my promises.
Within moments of climbing back into the car, Amber falls asleep with her head on my shoulder.
I peer down at the wispy strawberry blonde curls clinging to her rosy cheeks.
The weight of her head on my shoulder is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, and the thought of someone hurting her or trying to take her away from her sister makes me want to do bad things to bad people.
It makes me want to crack skulls and spill brains.
It makes me want to never let them go.
I study Meggie’s profile while she isn’t watching. The high cheekbones, plump lips, and wide come-to-bed eyes that make my cock twitch every time she looks at me. How did such perfection come from such hardship and loss? How does she still carry herself with such grace and courage and strength?
My grandmother was the bravest woman I ever met.
She lost her parents in the Second World War; her mother was killed in an explosion during the Allied Invasion of Sicily, and her father was shot whilst trying to protect his little girl.
She was adopted by neighbors and brought up on a farm where she learned to match the strength and skills of her adopted siblings.
All boys. When she met my grandfather, she agreed to marry him on one condition, that he didn’t expect her to mop the floors after him, pick up his laundry, and cook his meals.
He didn’t.
They led the family together, although my grandmother never claimed her share of glory.
She did it for love. When he was killed by a rival mafia leader she got her revenge silently, and in secret, and only then did she allow herself to grieve whilst encouraging her only child—my father—to continue her husband’s legacy.
My grandmother would’ve loved Meggie.
I can picture them strolling through the olive groves together. Deep in conversation. My grandmother sharing childhood stories, and Meggie trying to persuade her that at least some twenty-first-century advancements would make life a little easier.
“Where are we?” Meggie asks when we pull into the private basement lot beneath my hotel and casino resort.
I didn’t even realize that she was watching me.
“I live in the penthouse.” Man, that sounds lame when I’d wager that Meggie’s apartment would probably fit inside my bathroom. “You and Amber can take the guest room for the night, and we’ll fly back to LA in the morning.”
Darkness has seeped into the hazy blue of the day like spilt ink, but now that I’m home, I realize that I don’t want it to end. I would do it all over again, on repeat, like Groundhog Day, if I could watch them both smiling the way they did today.
Her expression is unfathomable, but those green eyes… I could lose myself in them and not even be remotely tempted to find my way out.