Chapter 5
Sophie/Cara
“Have Donatello handle this. Fai in fretta.”
“Sì, subito, Boss . ”
My pen halts over my homework as the next man bursts into Papa’s parlor, a panicked storm with destruction on the mind. The door is cracked open, too tempting for me to resist. “Don, you must help. Only you can. The police, non sanno niente, non fanno niente.”
They know nothing, they do nothing.
He’s not exactly wrong. My father has many officers under his thumb, and the ones he doesn’t, won’t mess with something they know they won’t win.
More often than not, they will turn a blind eye, and Papa is glad for it, mainly because it leads these frightened, desperate people to their knees, begging for his favor.
This conversation is routine enough that my father’s features are eased, his smile polite but restrained. “Our friendship’s been long-standing. Of course, I’ll help if I can.”
“I’ve been robbed blind. These men from the Bronx district have been claiming territory left and right. I put a stop to it. I’ve denied them, but I’m paying for it. My shop was ransacked last night, everything stolen. I mean, everything.”
My father glances at his right-hand man. “Their names?”
“Niro and Alex Carbanza. Please, Don. The wife’s terrified they’ll hit the house next.”
Papa stands, taking a seat on the edge of his desk. He grabs this man’s hand, patting it. “I’ll handle it. It’s beyond you now. Don’t worry about this anymore. You’ll make yourself sick.”
“Grazie.” With more than relief, he presses his lips to Papa’s hand, a sign of respect. Loyalty. “Anything, anything you need, you can count on me.”
The door opens, too fast for me to back up.
All of the men in the room lock eyes on me.
Nothing crosses my father’s face, but he clears the room.
The man is ushered out as quickly as he was brought in.
The moment he’s alone, he releases an exhale, revealing the true fear behind resorting to protection from The Mob.
His life will never be the same again. My father will make use of his favor.
“Come in, piccolina.”
His voice radiates honey, but I hesitate to step through those doors, knowing they’ll be closed behind me. I'm not sure when I began to fear him, when our relationship changed.
Apologize immediately. “Papa, I didn’t hear anything. I'm sorry.”
He smiles softly, calling me over and tapping on his lap. “It’s all right. Come.”
My feet are glued to the entrance, my hands clasped in front of me. “I'm going out with Mamma. She’s waiting on me.”
“Where are you going?”
“The salon.”
He stands, not seeing as he rounds the desk that I’ve taken three steps back, my hand flat against the door.
When he’s drunk, one can expect him to voice his displeasure.
When he’s sober, like now, he isn’t so transparent.
He looks kind. When his lips kiss my hair, it’s just as he’s always done.
But then his lips move to my cheek, and my face cuts to the side in fear.
My hands dive for the door, but he clasps the back of my neck, pulling me back.
“My business is not for your ears, Sophia. This is no place for a young woman.”
Tears come freely.
My fingers dig at his hand, desperation rising in my chest.
His chuckle is disbelieving. “You’re going to be a problem for me, aren’t you?”
A problem. I used to be his joy.
“Let me go.”
“No.”
My arm swings, an unusual reaction. When I hear the clap of my palm meeting his face, hard enough to make me wince, something shifts in his eyes. The cool threat escalates until his eyes are almost black.
He is suddenly someone I’ve never seen before.
He returns my insolence tenfold, knocking me off my feet. My eyes widen as I turn my face, seeing him coming. Screaming, I dive for the door. “Stop! Stop!”
Stop.
I wake with a scream, a blood-curdling scream that sends me upright.
My eyes are on my apartment.
Madrid.
You’re in Madrid.
Breathless, I absorb my surroundings, sensing the heaviness of the nightmare lifting as I return to reality.
Eighteen months.
You’ve been here eighteen months.
You aren’t in New York.
At this time of night, the unfurnished space is obscured by total darkness. My back molds to the freshly painted walls, my hands shaking against my knees.
Vito isn’t here .
He can’t touch you.
None of them can.
Too shaken to sleep, afraid I’ll return to that place—that time—I stand, bolting across the room. My laptop drones to life as I pull up a browser. My fingers type a name.
Xavier Marcello
I can’t hit enter.
It’s not fear of what I’ll find, although I feel that. It’s not because he wouldn’t want me to; I already know he wouldn’t. It’s because typing in his name will create a trail. A trail someone could find.
As badly as I need to see his face, I close the laptop, dropping into the chair.
After eighteen months, I thought this would have gotten better. This pain. This worry.
After glancing at the clock, I roam the room in a routine, changing into something warm.
My eyes hone in on the gun resting on my pillow, but knowing where I'm going, I leave it there, only grabbing belongings that matter.
My wallet. My travel papers. I throw open the door, descending the rusty iron steps from the second floor of the building.
The café on the first floor is dark, but the owner—my landlord—is sweeping the terrace, preparing to open for the early morning rush.
“Cara, you’re up early.”
My Spanish is good, decent. Just enough to get through basic conversations.
I jumble through a comment about the rain coming later while I pass by him.
Luckily, Enzo never takes offense to my outlandish behavior.
He hasn’t asked why I never go out, why I have three deadbolts on the door, why I never stop to exchange pleasantries… why I’m always alone.
The metro ride is short to the airport.
This, out of every place in Madrid, I know like the back of my hand.
I’ve been here enough to memorize every square foot.
There is more love in this airport than anywhere else in Madrid.
You have to look hard for it, but it’s there.
I always return, a silent voyeur to the excitement one experiences when they spot their family for the first time in a long time.
The way they bounce with excitement, their bouquets dribbling petals onto the ground when they leap into each other’s arms.
For so long, I’ve waited.
Eighteen months.
I’ve been here for every incoming flight from New York. Every single day, but one. Just the thought of it, and my heart is pounding, my mind remembering.
The blood. The hospital.
You’ve lost the baby.
I stared at that doctor as if she were insane.
I wasn’t pregnant. No, my stomach was flat, my ribcage outlined by pale skin.
I would have known, seen some signs. I didn’t want to hear it, to even think I could’ve brought my waking nightmare with me.
When she told me how, how I wasn’t healthy enough to carry a child to full-term, I felt relief.
Relief to not have anything to remind me of my horrors.
Not even her probing questions regarding the state of my body could break through that kind of remedy.
And then she blew up my world.
She shared the term.
All that respite morphed into unsettled disbelief, horror, a raw, gutting rage as she took her time explaining it to me, inadvertently revealing that I was pregnant before I entered that compound… that prison.
It struck me… what I had truly lost.
The body works in mysterious ways.
You didn’t feel the fetus. It was underdeveloped for ? —
I drowned out the rest.
I’d missed a day. All I could think of was to get back to this seat, this gate, this airport.
He will come , I said .
He has to come.
Those days are long gone now. That hope, I don’t have it anymore. What’s left of my heart hardens as my eyes follow the crowd of travelers rushing through the gate, eagerly greeting their families with excitement. My fists clench in my lap.
No more. He isn’t coming. He can’t. He told you.
This is foolish.
Waiting until the gate clears, the last family strolling off, arms linked as if never to be separated, I stand, leaving this place for the final time. The weight of each step is daunting, a decision I make to relinquish hope, to accept this life for what it is, the decisions we made to get here.
The excruciating pain I’ve lived with for almost two years numbs .
Stepping into a downpour, I venture onto the streets.
At this hour, the only places still open are nightclubs and bars.
Patrons are sprawled out, having indulged in a night of excessive revelry.
Under them, the cement sidewalks pulse with the thumping bass from the music blaring through the speakers.
For the first time since I arrived, I abandon the path I’d carved for myself. Flashing lights blind me as I enter the nightclub, engulfed by a wave of cigarettes and liquor.
Once I sit at the bar, I know exactly why I’m here.
If I look closely enough, if I try hard enough, I can summon my husband in a place like this.
The bartender delivers a glass of bourbon, my husband’s drink of choice.
I let the liquid coat my weary throat, allowing the warmth to spread through my hollow chest. This new numbness feels welcoming. Something I can live with.
I prefer it over pain.
“Want another?”
No. Contradicting my thoughts, my head bobs, throwing caution to the wind.
I lift the glass to my lips, my eyes fixed on a man across the bar.
The crystal lands on the granite countertop as I stare, seeing Xavier Marcello so clearly.
His dark curls, his face crafted like carved stone, a suit clinging to his masculine figure.
He is a dark angel, everything my body yearns for… and then he’s gone.
My eyes close.
You’re losing your mind.
Spinning off of the bar stool, I drift onto the dance floor.
Defiance spurs me to move, to push off the cautious words I tell myself in order to remain safe.
Mixing with the crowd of bodies, I let the darkness take me, surrendering to the deafening music.
I move until my pulse matches the beat of the bass, enjoying how loud it is.
It’s loud enough for me not to be able to think.
A body presses against mine while a hand smoothly glides over my hip. My eyes are still closed, remembering.
My honeymoon. Greece. Xavier held me like this. His lips danced across my shoulder towards my ear. I felt his wanting, the tension he excuded when he wanted me more than his next breath. To feel what I felt then, I smile. I turn, expecting to see my husband.
The man holding me isn’t him.
I stumble backward, my stomach flipping as I slam into other dancers.
“Qué pasa?
I shake my head, tearing my hand free from his grasp when he urges me closer. My feet carry me across the dance floor to the bar. Shoving money next to the untouched drink, I sprint for the door, only able to breathe once I’m outside.
“Estás bien? Are you okay?”
My chest tightens, ignoring the bouncer’s questions.
Just get home.
Running cuts the time to reach the café in half. Enzo isn’t sweeping his terrace anymore. As the sunrise bathes the brick building in warmth, I work on each insufferable lock of my door, hyperventilating while it shuts behind me. I press myself to the hardwood.
You were reckless.
Insane.
Stupid.
But you felt nothing. For once.
Grabbing my wallet, I begin to count its contents: a gun permit I acquired in Madrid from an unlicensed store near my apartment. Euros. Dollars. Flipping the wallet over, I shake it until loose change pours onto the ground.
A flat corner of thick paper emerges from a compartment I never thought to check. My hands freeze as I grasp the edge, captivated by the glossy finish.
It can’t be…
My heart lodges in my throat as I pull on the photograph, revealing a startling glimpse into my former life. It was taken with the Polaroid camera he gifted me on our first day in the apartment.
My husband was the photographer of this snapshot, one I never knew he’d taken.
I was fast asleep on his chest, my arms wound tight around the intimidating width of him, my unclothed back facing the camera.
His smile was disappearing into my wild mane when this picture was taken, his hand supporting the back of my head.
If love needed proof, this photo would be just that.
The stressed lines his face usually carried were eased here, revealing his youth, leaving him with a boyish contentment. His body was twice the size of mine—all muscle, tattoos, and scars.
It was rare for him to tell me how much he adored me. He didn’t need to. His actions always spoke for him. His devotion. His desperation to keep me safe.
I always knew, without a shadow of a doubt, he loved me.
This photograph captures a moment in time that shows me he did. That’s why he put it in here. To remind me… possibly when I needed it most.
I wince, my vision blurring when I turn the Polaroid over and find his hurried handwriting.
It doesn’t matter how long it’s been,
amore mio,
My heart still beats for you
Eighteen months late, his confession strikes me like a freight train, barreling straight into my chest.
I heave, losing my goddamn mind.