Chapter Twenty-Five
TWENTY-FIVE
DARIO
The Cotogna family private jet sits fueled up on a tarmac ready to ferry Dario to America and into the waiting arms of Charlie Moore.
Dario Cotogna sits in the back of the idling town car with cement bricks for feet. He has made no move to exit the vehicle, even as Fabrizio shoots him questioning looks through the rearview mirror.
In his hand, he clutches his phone. On the screen, a text from Charlie reads: I can’t wait to kiss you <3
Earlier, he received a text from his mom: Have a safe trip. Text me when you land. Give my love to Charlie and our soon-to-be family-in-law.
He counts his inhales but every one of them gets caught up in his throat. Every signal his brain sends his muscles to move is counteracted on by a second contradictory signal of DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!
He did everything his therapist told him to. He rehearsed. Every night before bed he meditated on the ideal outcome. He even dry-swallowed one of his as-needed anxiety pills.
He’d run through the same steps to attend the blues festival with Charlie.
Maybe therein lies the issue.
Charlie is not here.
Charlie is waiting on a different continent.
Charlie is going to be disappointed if he doesn’t get his act together.
A cascade of anxiety drenches Dario in the back seat. His mind waterboards him with the worst thoughts it can stream. You’re not brave enough. You’re not good enough. You’re not well enough.
That’s the rub about recovery, it is not linear, and it can boomerang at the worst moments.
Before he fully registers what he is doing, he sends a text to Charlie with a simple I’m sorry.
His hands cramp as sorry slinks through his veins. He’s sorry to Charlie, sorry to his nonno, sorry to Amorina. Most of all, he feels sorry for himself.
Right as he is about to instruct Fabrizio to take him home, a bright red sports car speeds onto the tarmac. It screeches to a halt and the driver steps out.
Squinting against the sun, Dario can just make out the shape of Emilio hurtling toward the car. Is he imagining this? The wrap of Emilio’s knuckle against the window tells him he’s not.
Dario opens the window a crack and asks, “What are you doing here?”
“Saving your ass. Get out of the car,” Emilio says.
His muscles clench. “I—I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” Emilio asks, some of his impatience steaming off.
“I can’t. I just can’t, okay?” Dario whips his head away.
He doesn’t want his brother to see his flaming cheeks or his watery eyes.
It was one thing to talk to his mom and Charlie about his agoraphobia.
It’s another thing to tell Emilio. He wouldn’t understand.
Emilio might even use his diagnosis against him to petition the Amorina board for control on the grounds that Dario is unfit to run the family business.
Emilio lets out an audible huff. “Slide over.”
“What?”
“Slide. Over.”
Begrudgingly, Dario does, even though he does not trust his brother’s intentions in the least. These are the closest quarters he has shared with Emilio in a long while.
When he finally musters the courage to turn back, he hip-checks a designer duffel bag strewn on the seat between them. “What’s that?”
“My stuff,” Emilio says.
“Your stuff for what?” Dario asks.
“For the trip.” Emilio stares at the rising partition that separates Fabrizio from them.
“What trip? You knew I was using the jet today,” Dario says, running defensive as he always does with his brother.
“Oh, cazzo!” Emilio bangs his head back into his seat.
“Can’t you see I’m here to go with you? Fabrizio texted that you’d been sitting out here not moving for over an hour.
The jet crew is ready to go. We’re already screwing the environment by flying private.
Let’s not end up on one of those hit-list social media feeds for billionaire fuckwads that are escalating global warming.
You of all people should care about that! ”
Dario screws up his face in skepticism. “What’s in America for you? Is this some plot to screw me over and get your mitts on Amorina?”
“Don’t make me regret coming here,” Emilio says, a tinge of genuine hurt in his words.
“Why did you come here?” Dario asks. His brain can only supply nefarious reasons.
“Because I figured you were scared! That Mom’s touring and Dad’s gone and Nonno and Nonna are gone and maybe you needed someone!
Our ranks are fucking dwindling, and I don’t know, I thought we could stick together for once but—oddio!
—if you’d rather sit here boiling in this hot car alone all day and let your one chance at happiness and owning Amorina run off, then be my fucking guest,” Emilio says, crossing his arms.
Despite Emilio’s tone and the curse words, Dario is inordinately touched. His breathing slows, and his mind calms. This is almost definitely the most vulnerable his brother has been with him in…a decade?
While he has every reason to be wary of Emilio’s dramatic behavior shift, he can’t deny that Emilio’s right.
If Dario doesn’t board that jet and soon, everything he’s ever strived for—success, love, balance—will be lost for good.
Dario had been wishing for a travel companion, and Emilio’s offer is the best he’s going to get.
Dario doesn’t know what else to say, so all that comes out is, “Andiamo.” Let’s go.
Post-takeoff, sitting across from his brother in the tan leather reclining chairs, Dario gives in to the temptation of real conversation. He grips the armrests and asks, “Did you mean what you said back there about us sticking together?”
Emilio’s gaze stays trained out the window. “Obviously.”
“I didn’t think it fazed you,” Dario confesses as the flight attendant comes by with trays, meals and drinks for them.
“Just because I don’t show it doesn’t mean it doesn’t faze me.” He illustrates the sentiment when he finally meets Dario’s eyes. There is an apathetic calm spread over his face—a stoic, masculine mask—but Dario sees a crack in it now.
Antagonism always seemed easier in the mired face of their differences.
“Mom told me about the…the…the thing you have. The anxiety thing. I don’t remember the name. I called her before I drove over,” Emilio says.
While Dario doesn’t love that his mother shared this without his permission, sometimes, needs must. He gets that. “That was nice of you.”
“I can be nice,” he says. As if to prove his point, he gives Dario first dibs on the plate of bruschetta.
Dario picks a caper off his chicken and says, “What happened with Michelle?”
“We spent some time together and then she flew back to France. She’s really sweet. Talented, too,” Emilio says. Stripped of his usual bravado, he comes across as genuine.
“And Daniella…?” Dario asks, even though it might bungle the easy rhythm they seem to be falling into.
Emilio downs half his chicken in one bite. He chews, clearly stewing over this. “I want a divorce, but Daniella won’t give me one.”
Dario’s head might explode from the news. “Che?”
“I know you and Mom don’t want to hear this because you love her, but she’s been cheating on me since we got married. I realized pretty quickly that she’d married me because she thought Nonno left me a lot in the will,” Emilio says, wearing a pensive expression.
Dario refrains from saying that that doesn’t sound like her because, what does he know? He’s been absent from his brother’s life for a while now. Social media posts and occasional text threads don’t amount to the character of a person.
“That sounds tough,” Dario says.
“It didn’t bother me much at first, telling myself it was slipups because I wasn’t around a lot or because we’d been together a long time and I wasn’t keeping it fresh, but then it continued happening, and I realized that maybe it was always about the money,” he says.
“I’m not stupid. I know our wealth is half the reason some women want to get with me. I didn’t get Dad’s looks like you did.”
“What are you talking about?” Dario asks.
“Vaffanculo!” Emilio says with no bite. He even laughs a little.
“Take the compliment. All I’m saying is that when I realized she was never going to change or be with me the way I want her to be, I told her I wanted a divorce, and she refused.
Anything I inherit from Nonno once everything is cleared can be put in our joint account, which means she gets half if I were to leave her,” Emilio says.
“If I inherit Amorina, that half goes way up, but fuck that.”
“Merda. That’s awful. I’m sorry, Em,” he says, wishing he’d been there for his younger brother earlier. “When you showed up at the villa with Craig, you made it seem like you wanted Amorina.”
“I did that to piss you off. If you haven’t noticed, I’m good at that,” he says with a self-aware laugh.
“I figured if I riled you up enough, you’d kick your ass into gear and get the fuck married.
Saying it now, I know that it was selfish of me but I don’t want to run Amorina.
I’ve never wanted to run Amorina. I just pretended to so Daniella would get off my back and you’d get hitched. ”
“A devious plan but,” Dario says, “I think it kind of worked?”
“I have good ideas every now and again.”
“Coming here was a good idea. Thank you for that. I’m getting better, but I think I tried to rush it by going alone. You saved me back there. I appreciate it,” he says. At over 31,000 feet in the air, having listened to his brother’s woes, his problems down on the ground feel tiny in comparison.
“Don’t mention it. You should probably get some sleep before we land. You look like shit,” Emilio says, slapping his knee. “You need the energy to woo Charlie and his family.”
Dario darts for his phone. “Charlie! Right before you showed up, I texted him. He probably thinks I’m not coming.
He’s probably a wreck.” He frantically drafts a text that won’t send.
Airplane mode. He tries to switch to the Wi-Fi but it won’t work.
The flight attendant informs him that it’s out of service and that they weren’t able to fix it before takeoff.
Dario flops back in his chair. “Damn.”
“Maybe Charlie is a big fan of surprises,” Emilio offers.
Dario prays for that to be true.