Chapter Twelve
Cesare
HE HAD ONLY BEEN IN jail for a few hours when the police was telling him he had his first visitor, and while Cesare was not surprised to see La Strega on the opposite side of the bulletproof window—-
It pained him to see her frailty emphasized, with how her fingers were badly shaking as she reached for the receiver that would allow them to hear each other's voices.
"How bad is it?" Cesare asked calmly.
"The evidence against you is damning." Potenziana felt like she was breaking her own heart as she forced herself to speak to her grandson as La Strega.
Once he was free, and she was assured of his safety, it would only then that she would indulge herself with the luxury of weeping like a grandmother whose little boy was in danger.
But until then, she had to act like the matriarch whose famiglia was under threat.
"Whoever killed her," Potenziana emphasized curtly, "had all of their ducks in a row."
"Fucking ducks again."
Potenziana was stunned to find herself almost smiling.
Next time, she promised herself.
Once Cesare was free, this, too, would be another wonderful story about those fucking ducks that they could laugh about.
But until then—-
"If I were to make a guess, those ducks are the killer's multiple scapegoats, with evidence meticulously prepared against each and every one of them. It just so happened that you were the unlucky one to draw the shorter stick, with your visit to Pilar."
Silence followed, and an inscrutable mask smoothened over the chiseled features of her grandson's face.
"If I end up charged—-"
"No!"
Emotion finally cracked through her voice.
"You are not to think of that. Ever. You will get out of this place, do you understand? And Penelope—-"
Cesare had not allowed himself to think of her at all since coming here, but he also knew the time had come to be a fucking man and do what he had to fucking do.
"What exactly does she know?"
"That you were the one to find her grandmother's body, and that there was enough made-up evidence to have you arrested. She—-"
"I don't need to hear anything more," Cesare said curtly. "And this is the only favor I'd like to ask of you, Nonna ."
Potenziana had a feeling she already knew what her grandson was about to say.
"She's not to come here at any point —- and this will be the last time we'll be talking about her."
His grandmother stared at him, and his jaw clenched.
"You...IDIOT."
That she was choosing to call him that now, after what he had said, was not lost on Cesare.
But he didn't give a damn, and he also made it clear to his grandmother that he was not going to change his mind about this either.
It was over.
He laid back on the cold, hard bed in his cell and stared at the blank ceiling for hours.
His grandmother was not La Strega for nothing. She always had a plan—-and the fact that she had visited him without one spoke volumes. There was a very good chance that he would indeed be charged for Pilar's murder, and that would mean serving years on the minimum. Maybe even a decade at the very least. He would be stuck here indefinitely and that was why this was the only decent and logical decision for him to make.
He had to cut all ties with Penelope...and forget she ever existed.
TO BE JAILED WAS LIKE a rite of passage for every member of famiglia . It made one tough and smart, made one know better to take certain things for granted, once released. But to be jailed outside one's territory?
It was to be avoided at all cost for one reason alone, and that "reason" began on Cesare's first full day behind bars.
Men who were either paid or wanting to be paid with Sorrento money attacked Cesare the first chance they got, and the guards, who were also on Sorrento payroll, waited until he was properly welcomed with a stab wound to his side, before taking Cesare to the clinic.
He was moved to maximum security for the night, and waiting for him in his new cell was a letter from her.
I know you must have a reason for not wanting me to see you. No one wants to tell me anything either, and that's fine, too. It could be the famiglia way, for all I know.
If I truly can't see you, then so be it.
But please just let me know you're okay. Please tell me you know that I trust you above all else. If you tell me you didn't kill my grandmother, I'll believe you. If you tell me you have a reason for killing her, I'll believe you.
I grieve for her because she's my flesh and blood, but it's you I miss, you I dream of, you I need to see. Please, Cesare. Please let me see you.
His family also wrote to him, and the news they shared came as no surprise as well. The Sorrentos had employed a mixture of legal and not-so-legal measures to bar the Marchettis from visiting Cesare, and until their own lawyers were able to put into effect a countermeasure of their own—-there were always hands to be greased that could smuggle in whatever Cesare needed.
His family sent their love to him, and while Cesare believed their words were not a lie—-he could not and would not let himself believe her.
And so he wrote back to Massimo, and asked his brother to inform Penelope that her letters would no longer be delivered.
ANOTHER DAY BEGAN, and it ended with someone managing to sneak up on Cesare from behind and grab his fucking hair so he could slam Cesare's head against the wall.
He suffered a concussion, and members of the press that had been tipped off by the Marchettis were already waiting for Cesare as soon as he was wheeled out of the ambulance and sent straight to a local hospital's lab for brain scans.
His face was all over the news by six in the evening, and it was his famiglia 's turn to cash in favors. Massive public protests in Boston were heavily covered by the press, and with influential politicians lobbying for his release, Cesare's case was ultimately ruled as a medical emergency, and thus recommended for indefinite private confinement.
Come midnight, he was alone in his own suite, a contingency of local FBI agents stationed outside his door for his protection, and with Cesare now having unrestricted access to his phone and laptop, it was then he received a text from an unregistered number.
I saw you in the news, and it killed me to see you...like that. I still don't understand why I can't be with you, but please. Please just talk to me. Please let me help you. Please.
Cesare deleted her message and blocked her fucking number from ever contacting him again.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but it was no use, and he ended up remembering what he didn't want to remember: his mother behind bars, having admitted to a crime she didn't commit, and all in the name of love.
Cesare remembered her crying every time he came to visit, and she would realize that his father hadn't come with him.
He remembered crying himself back at home, but doing his best not to make any noise while he listened to his father rage at his mother on the phone.
'How many times do I have to fucking tell you? We're over, goddammit. It's never going to work between us, so stop fucking using our son to get to me. I didn't ask you to love me, and I didn't fucking ask you to throw your life for me either. You did that all to yourself, and you can't fucking guilt-trip me into wasting mine. It's over between us, Claudia. So fucking deal with it.'
Three months later, his mother had done as his father asked. She had dealt with it by killing herself, and now it was the past poised to happen all over again, with her son behind bars, and Penelope, the bride promised to him—-
FUCK.
Why couldn't she just fucking leave him alone like his father had left his mother? Why did she have to convince herself that things could still work out between them? Why, dammit—-why was she making it so hard for him to forget her, even though he knew they were just fucking doomed like his own parents?
Sooner or later, Penelope would start to tire and get bored of being with a man who had nowhere to go—-and no fucking way would Cesare wait for that to happen.
He had it right the first time, dammit.
Emotions destroyed marriages, and that was why, when his grandmother was suddenly cleared to visit him on the fifth day of his confinement—-
"I've been able to cut a deal." And it was one that could cost her soul and his. "We break the betrothal agreement with the Sorrentos," Potenziana said tightly, "and you get out free."
"But you want me to say no...don't you?"
"I want her for you, but I will never choose anyone else over my own flesh and blood. So this has to be your choice. Do we take the deal?"
"Yes."