5. Salvatore
five
Salvatore
Ten months later October
I don’t know how many times I’ve come back here. I always end up staring at the perfect house, waiting for I don’t know what.
Waiting for answers to the questions I don’t have.
I look at the woman while she tends to her flowers in the garden; I look through her window as she prepares food; I look at her while she talks with a young girl who is her spitting image and they laugh together; I look at the perfect family eating dinner, and each time, my heart breaks for the future I can’t have.
My heart breaks for all the things I lost because of who I am.
It has been months, almost a year since everything I could have had slipped from my fingers.
Months of coming here, sulking like a lost child. Months of being an asshole to everyone. Months of Gabriel beating me in the ring because I need to feel pain from the outside to match the pain I feel inside.
I watch the light go out, and just as I want to drive away, the knock on the window alarms me. My hand reaches for my gun inside my jacket, but I stop when I see those blue eyes that are the same as mine, only warmer.
I exhale in relief and open the window, letting cold air inside my car.
She looks at me with soft eyes filled with pity. “You know, you could just knock and come inside.”
I stare at her, knowing I can’t. How could I taint her perfect family? I shake my head. “I can’t do that. I already told you.”
She narrows her eyes. “So, it’s better for you to watch us? My heart breaks each time I catch you. And lately, you’ve done it a lot, Salvatore.”
I grin sadly. “You noticed?”
“Of course. From that first time I saw you at my door, I knew each time you skulked in the shadows.”
I chuckle darkly. “How could you know? I don’t remember all the times I was here.”
She smiles gently. “Just as I knew all my life I would meet you one day. A mother’s heart always knows, even if her child is away from her.”
I glance at her, and I can see it in her eyes, the same truth I saw years ago when I found out the truth.
Six years ago
I watch as a man and two teenagers exit the house. Her kids and her husband, I guess. Taking one last deep breath, I make my way toward the front door.
There is a feeling deep down in my stomach, a feeling I lost all those years ago. I suppress it and keep moving, letting the ruthless man in me take over.
I knock on the door and wait.
I don’t wait long before a petite woman opens the door.
Her movements falter, and the hand gripping the door flies to her mouth. Her blue eyes, the same eyes as mine, land on mine, filling with tears. Is she going to scream? Cry? I narrow my eyes at her, but before I can say anything, she takes a step forward, almost colliding with me. She looks around and pulls me inside, shutting the door. I thought she might slam the door in my face, but I was wrong. Before I can say a word, she is the one to speak.
“It’s you. I knew you would learn the truth one day and come to find me.” Wringing her hands, she sobs. Was she waiting for me? But how would she know?
“You look confused,” the woman continues. “Do you want to sit down?”
“You know who I am?” I ask, ignoring her question.
“How could I not? I’ve waited for this moment for years.” She dabs under her eyes with her apron.
“You were waiting for me?” I furrow my brows.
“Of course I was. A mother always knows.”
I clear my throat, not wanting to say something I may regret. Eventually, I say, “I’m afraid I will need an explanation.”
“Let’s sit down. It’ll take a while.”
I nod as I follow her into the light-green kitchen and sit on a chair, waiting for her to start talking.
I sit, listening to a story, a different one from what I knew. One that shows the reality of my sick monster of a father.
I knew him well enough not to doubt the story I was told. I saw him with enough women to know his sick ways of treating them, even if just for one night. I stopped counting the times I called our doctor to treat them, the times I was woken in the middle of the night because he killed some of them.
But this story is mine, no matter how disturbing it is. It’s the story of my mother, Angela, and how she was ripped from her home at the age of sixteen after he killed her whole family.
The woman in front of me tells me the story like it’s a movie. Her voice shakes as she tells the story of a girl who, one day, was in school playing and laughing with her friends, and the next day was dragged into my father’s prison.
Now a woman with long, dark hair, blue eyes, and the most beautiful smile I have ever seen; I can only imagine how stunning she was when she was younger.
This woman’s only sin was her beauty, so she could bring me to life. So my father could have his heir.
Her eyes fill with tears as she tells me how I was ripped from her hands the moment I was born; she didn’t even hold me for more than five minutes. But those five minutes were all she needed to remember me.
“Frank, my husband, he was newly inducted. He was just a soldier who was ordered to get rid of me. He used to hear stories about the girl the don took because of her beauty and rumors about the things your father did to me.” She gulps at the memory. “Later, when Frank was ordered to kill me, he couldn’t. Even before he was ordered, he had a plan to run away. He had everything planned, and when they told him to kill me, he took me with him.” She smiles at the memory. “He wanted to take me to hospital and leave me there, but I refused. He nursed me back to life, and I fell for him, and the rest you can see. We have two children together, and when we changed our names, we moved here. I wanted to, if not be near you, at least be able to share the same air as you.”
I blink back tears from the memories of the past and look at the woman standing beside my window. “Come with me. I’ll make you something warm to drink. And you can tell me what has been bothering you.”
I hesitate before I find the courage to get out of my car and follow her.
I’ve been here a couple of times since I met her, after I killed my father and took over. However, I avoid coming here often. Not because I don’t want to, but because I want to protect them. Other than Gabriel, Dante, and Marco, no one in Cosa Nostra knows about them, and I want to keep it that way. For their safety, not mine. My siblings have such a normal life, away from murder and violence, and that’s how it should stay.
As soon as I enter the warm house, the smell of garlic and rosemary fills my nostrils and déjà vu hits. Before I can say anything, a shrill voice fills my ears and I don’t get to turn before the person attacks me, squeezing me like their life depends on it.
“You’re here.” Olivia, my sister. She’s so friendly toward me, like she’s known me whole her life. She doesn’t know how many men I’ve killed, nor does she know the monster that lives inside me.
I’m not complaining; it’s something that hurts me when I think of it. And it hurts because I can’t have her by my side. I can’t tell the world that I have a baby sister I adore. It’s one more reason I’ve stayed away.
“Give your brother some space, please, Olivia. Shouldn’t you already be on your way?” Angela scolds her.
“I forgot the box I came for.”
“You always do that. Now say goodbye to Salvatore and go.”
She pouts and I say nothing. “What’s with the beard?” She observes me. “If underneath your eyes wasn’t black and your face wasn’t sullen, I would say it looks good.”
“Too much work,” I say.
“You should take a break, go on vacation…”
Angela interrupts her. “Olivia, keep your advice to yourself. You are the one who needs to take a break.”
“Oh, I will. Just as soon as this deal we’re working on is done.”
Olivia walks toward Angela and kisses her cheek. “I’ll call you later this week.” As I think she will pass me on her way out, she stops beside me and unexpectedly hugs me. “Please take care. I know you’re big and bad, but you have a family who would really like to know you and be there for you.”
I stare at her. A wave of emotions I haven’t felt before overwhelms me, and the burning inside my chest grows, desperate to explode.
I swallow the lump in my throat. I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.
Olivia lets go and I return her smile with a small grin before she turns and picks up the box she came back for and leaves.
I focus on the empty space she left and fight the chaos of emotions playing inside me.
“She knows who you are.” I turn toward Angela. “She found out a long time ago. Damiano knows too. They know the danger of being connected to you, and they still want to be close to you.”
I shake my head. “They shouldn’t. They should avoid me.” I narrow my eyes at her. “What could I possibly give them other than danger?”
“Brotherly love. Being there for them. Laughing with them.” She smiles. “There are so many things you could give them.”
I say nothing as I stare at her while she pulls the chair out for me to sit. I don’t know how I manage to sit, but I do.
Angela places a cup of hot tea in front of me before she sits down beside me. I stare at the cup. “What’s bothering you, Salvatore? Is this because your wife left you?” My gaze collides with hers, and I search her eyes for how she knows. “I know more about your life than you think.”
“How do you know?” I croak. I don’t even recognize my own voice.
She smiles gently. “I have a friend who can give me the information I want. It wasn’t easy. For years after we came here, I kept going into the circle of Cosa Nostra wives until I made some friends. Being a nurse is one of the benefits I had, especially when one of their sons got hurt. I needed to know about you. There was a piece of me missing until I knew that you were doing well.”
“You looked for me?” I can barely speak. “I thought you would hate me for everything he did to you because of me.”
“Why would I hate you?” Her eyes fill with tears. “You are a piece of me too.”
“What about all the things he did to you so he could have me?”
“Just because he was a monster, that doesn’t make you one. You are a survivor, just as I am.” She takes my hand in hers, gently caressing it. “You saved me. You made me want to live. After all the terrible things I suffered in that room, you were the one who saved me. You saved me with your first kick, and with each movement I felt from you inside me, I lived. I survived because of you.”
I shake my head, my eyes focused on my hand in hers. “But I don’t deserve that. I made him pay, and he will never have his dreams come true. There will be no one to continue his legacy. His name will die with me.”
“Why?”
I look at her, confused. “Why what?”
“Why do you think his name should die with you?”
“Because I will not give him an heir. I promised him that I would kill his legacy.”
“But what about you? That doesn’t sound like something that’s making you happy. On the contrary, it sounds like you’re suffering.”
I laugh. “Well, I guess now you have your answer. I’m not destined to be happy, nor to have a family. I lost that chance and now it’s all over.”
“But don’t you see yourself, Salvatore? He’s winning once again.” I shake my head, not ready to accept that. “He is winning.”
My shoulders slump and I run my hand through my hair. “I will never give him an heir, even if that means I stay unhappy.”
I hear the chair scrape across the floor, and she moves toward me, taking me by my shoulders.
“You deserve to be happy, son.” The moment those words are spoken, I feel a strange sting in my heart and my eyes start to blur. “You are nothing like your father, and it’s up to you to leave that in the past. It is up to you to be happy, and that is the only way you can make him pay. With your happiness, something he never had nor wanted anyone else to have.”
I clench my jaw hard, keeping the sob inside me because I lost everything, and I lost it because I thought I didn’t deserve it.
My mother brushes her finger under my eyes, erasing tears that last fell when I was a child. “You can be happy, son. You just need to forgive yourself first. I never needed your forgiveness. All I need for you to be is happy.”
I don’t know how, but the sob I kept suppressed leaves my body and I fall into my mother’s arms and sob for the first time in my life.