Chapter 42 Bambalina
Bambalina
It feels so good to be back in my old room, no longer engaged, and free. Papa couldn’t believe his eyes when I walked through the door. Tears of joy mingled with disbelief. I couldn’t answer any of his questions, only that Nicolò had come to get me the second he heard the news.
It stills feels so hard to believe. I was only in the Bellucci house for three days but it felt like a year. It will certainly leave a mark on me and I’ll never forget how it feels to be helpless and forced into something I never wanted.
I’ll also never forget what I became within those four oppressive walls.
A woman. A true lover. I became one with Nicolò and the only thing I regret is that my first time had to happen quickly because I’d been promised to an elderly man who was in love with his housekeeper.
And I couldn’t scream my pleasure in case someone heard.
After speaking on the phone to each of my sisters and being inspected for damage and having the life squeezed out of me by Allegra, I collapsed into bed, exhausted, happy and with a head full of questions that could definitely wait until morning.
I don’t know what time it is when a dark movement in my bedroom wakes me. At first I think it might be Nicolò sneaking into my room, and my heart inflates like a balloon. But the shadows move quickly and silently, and I remember with a sinking heart, he left.
A tension in the air makes my spine rigid with fear. I force myself to blink until my vision falls on three tall figures standing over my bed. My heart leaps into my throat, stealing my breath. Then everything moves too fast.
My gasp is silenced by a gloved hand over my mouth, then another grips my throat, narrowing my windpipe.
One of the men binds my legs and arms, while another watches the door.
I’m lifted like a straight pole out of the bed—I can’t lash out or kick or scream, and I feel so terrifyingly vulnerable and cold in my skimpy pajama shorts and top.
As they carry me out of my room with silent precision, my gaze lands on Papa’s bedroom door. I try to cry out but the hand around my throat tightens so hard I almost pass out. And the next thing I know we’re already down the stairs and heading for the yard out back.
My eyes catch on the door as I’m carried out. Entire panes of glass have been removed and left neatly against the back wall. This break-in has all the hallmarks of a professional.
I glance up at the security camera on the back wall and pray the guards at the front of the house can see what’s going on.
Cristiano arranged for only the best to watch our house.
Surely they won’t miss this. But the camera has either been blown upward in the recent storms or has been tampered with.
When quiet words are uttered in a Russian tongue, I know, unequivocally, it’s the latter.
They pass me over the back wall, into the small woodland, and carry me across it to a waiting truck. Then they cover my eyes with a blindfold, my mouth with thick, plastic tape, and drive me away from the home I’ve only just returned to.
I lay on the floor of the van, completely bound and too terror-stricken to cry. Though they are all speaking, more loudly now, in Russian, I strain to hear in case they drop an English word or two. Any breadcrumb I can use.
I just need to know why they’ve come for me. There must be some misunderstanding because I can’t see how I could be of any use to the Russians. Not now that Alessio is dead.
Our union was obviously an arrangement. There was no love lost when it was suddenly terminated—even the Russians must know that.
So, what do they think they can gain from kidnapping me?
They killed Alessio in a heartbeat, so why haven’t they killed me?
Clearly, they want me for some other reason.
For blackmail? But who do they want to blackmail and why?
While the Russians ignore me and talk amongst themselves, I try to memorize the route we’re taking—the right turns, left turns, long stretches of straight road.
But when there are definitive bumps and crevices beneath the tires, I’m lost. We’ve come off the beaten track and we’re heading somewhere unfamiliar and most likely hidden.
After a half hour of bumpy terrain, the van stops and the engine is shut off.
One of the men takes hold of my feet and drags me to the edge of the van.
My hip snags on a ridge in the floor and I cry out through the tape.
Another voice speaks sternly to the man holding my ankles, then I’m lifted with a little more care and carried through the freezing cold outdoors into a building.
Once inside, I’m lowered to a chair. I’m still unable to see but I can feel large, rough hands tying my bound ankles to the legs of the chair and my arms to the back. After several long, freezing minutes, one of the men comes up behind me and releases the blindfold.
The room is dimly lit by a single moldy lightbulb so I will my eyes to adjust quickly.
The three men have removed the balaclavas covering their heads and faces.
One of them is fair-haired, the other two dark.
All of them have distinctive bone structure and military-honed figures.
It’s almost like they’re part of an army.
I watch them move around the room, speaking in a foreign tongue, not even looking at me.
I can only try to interpret the tones in their voices—sometimes darkly humorous, sometimes tense.
The latter usually after a phone call has been taken.
My heart is beating out of my chest, the shock making me acutely aware of everything.
I’m not feeling the cold because my attention is diverted outward, to the threat against my life.
Without any warning, one of them steps up to me, thrusts a phone in my face and takes a picture, then speaks low as he types out a message, looks up at one of the other men who nods, then appears to press ‘send.’
My breaths are short and stuttered, waiting for a response, just like the men.
Nothing comes.
Seconds turn into minutes and the spoken words sharpen, the pacing quickens. Voices rise and phone conversations turn tense.
One of the men faces me, his lips downturned in a sneer and says, in thickly accented English, “Useless little bitch.”
My heartbeat staggers to a limp. Whatever they needed me for, it hasn’t worked.
My thoughts scramble. Who did they send the message to? It wouldn’t have been Papa, surely. He would turn over the world for me. Was it the Bellucci’s? They don’t care about me at all, but surely the Russians know this.
The fair-haired man shakes his head but comes toward me with a blanket, wrapping it around my shoulders. It least it seems they need to keep me alive.
What do the Russians want? I try to recall the conversation the night I was told I was to be married to Alessio.
It was all a blur, the only words that resonated relating to the fact I was getting married and I had to leave the following morning.
All I could think was I had to go through with it for Papa’s sake.
There was no other option. It was a final resort to save the Di Santo’s rule over the New York.
The Russians aren’t after the Bellucci’s—they’re after the Di Santo’s.
The message went to Cristiano.
And Cristiano hasn’t replied.
I feel my spine collapse into the back of the chair.
Of course he hasn’t replied. I was worth so little to my brother-in-law, he was willing to give me away to an elderly man to save his empire.
He’s ruthless and single-minded. He’s not the gentle giant Trilby would have us believe. He’s a don. A murderer.
Suddenly, lots of pieces start falling into place.
I was led to believe Cristiano took the role of don to protect our family and our port, to keep it in our family’s name.
But really, was he protecting his own interests?
Keeping the port in our family name—the family he joined with his upon marriage—served him well.
The cold seeps into my fingers and bare toes, blurring my thoughts around the edges, but I continue down this spiral of revelation.
When Andreas turned up demanding Serafina’s hand in marriage in return for a share of Boston, Cristiano agreed on the spot.
Never mind a substantial number of wedding guests had just been murdered in cold blood, and Sera didn’t want the marriage at all.
She’s okay with it now, but that doesn’t change the fact she was forced into it.
Was it because Cristiano saw dollar signs, not a human being with feelings, wishes and dreams?
With each new question, my heart drops a little further. No one is coming to get me, because I’m not worth a dime. If anything, my dismissal will speak volumes: the Di Santo’s aren’t playing a game. Nothing and no one can compete with their stronghold over New York. No human will be their weakness.
My heart clenches. What about Nicolò? When he finds out about the Russians taking me, he’ll come after me, right? Yes, he’s a Di Santo and unfailingly loyal to his cousin, but I’m important to him too. But the question is, what is of most importance? The vow he took as a made man, or me?
He’s been a Di Santo all his life. He’s been involved with me for a matter of weeks.
My lungs tighten and devastation sets into my bones. No one is coming for me. Not even Nicolò.
Closing my eyes I bring forth an image I don’t summon very often. My mama.
I made Papa the center of my world as soon as she died.
It was the only way I could handle my grief.
While my sisters had each other, I had Papa, and he was everything to me.
I convinced myself I’d never needed Mama that much, but deep down, I’d needed her like I needed oxygen.
That thought was always too enormous to comprehend.
But now, in this moment, when it’s become starkly clear I’m simply not important enough, I allow myself to walk into her open arms.
I’ve lived nearly half my life without her, but in the depths of my despair she knows me and loves me better than anyone.
The thought gives me strength. If no one comes, I still have a place to go. I’ll see my mama again, just a little sooner than I’d expected to.
Minutes turn into hours, but instead of plummeting into a bottomless pit of foreboding, I feel stronger.
The cold doesn’t seep through my skin anymore, even though my extremities have turned blue.
I’m no longer facing a dead end—I’m at a junction.
There are two ways I could go, and though I don’t have a say in which I take, neither of them are half-bad.
As a sense of peace washes over me, the Russian voices recede into the background and my eyelids drift shut. I don’t realize it but the cold has set in. It’s not sleep that beckons, it’s unconsciousness. But I don’t mind.
It’s soft, it’s calm, it’s peaceful.
And I’d rather be there than here.