Chapter 13 Giovanni #2
“Correct,” I say, watching something flicker across her face—realization, perhaps, or the first genuine understanding of who she’s truly sitting beside.
She blows out a breath, her shoulders dropping slightly as she processes this revelation.
“Wow. OK.” She shifts in her seat, tucking one leg beneath her as she turns to face me more directly.
“Most mobsters start with something like ‘I dressed up like Pennywise and went to school when I was ten and it wasn’t even Halloween.’ Or ‘My first car was a beat-up VW van and came with a bumper sticker that said, “I Heart Hair Bands”.’ You know, the kind of harmless, embarrassing confessions that make you seem more.
.. human. But not you.” She snort laughs.
“No. Giovanni Bavga goes straight for ‘I killed someone as a child.’ That’s.
.. quite the introduction.” She glances up, searching my face. “Was that meant to shock me?”
“I didn’t say I killed someone, Emmaleen. I said I shot someone.”
She exhales. Her eyes widen slightly, and I can practically see the mental recalibration happening behind those pale green irises.
Feeling confused and disjointed, no doubt.
The distinction I’ve made hangs in the air between us—a technicality that somehow makes everything both clearer and murkier at once.
“Details matter. By the way,” I say, reaching for the mode selector on the center console, my fingers sliding over the machined aluminum with practiced precision.
“You drove to my house in Corsa. Race mode.” I turn the dial, feeling the car’s suspension immediately soften as it switches to Strada.
The Aventador responds instantly, its aggressive growl settling into something more civilized.
“This is Strada. Street mode. More comfortable for longer drives.”
The car settles into a smoother rhythm beneath us, the harsh vibrations melting away.
“The Aventador has three main drive modes,” I continue, not entirely sure why I’m explaining this to her.
Perhaps because technical details are safer than the confession still lingering between us.
“Strada for normal driving, Sport for more aggressive handling, and Corsa for track use. In Corsa, everything is optimized for performance, not comfort. The throttle response is more immediate, the suspension is firmer, the steering more direct.”
She shifts in her seat, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear before fixing those observant eyes on me. “Well, that was a let’s-change-the-subject segue if ever there was one,” she says, her voice carrying a hint of wry amusement despite the heaviness of our previous exchange.
“That’s not what I was doing.” The denial comes automatically, perhaps too quickly. “If I didn’t want you to know I shot someone when I was eight, I wouldn’t have told you. I don’t share things accidentally, Emmaleen.”
The confession hangs between us, dense and unavoidable. An ugly truth that should repel her. That would send any rational person running for the exit, screaming for help, begging to be released from this arrangement. The kind of revelation designed to test boundaries, to see what she can tolerate.
If she ever knew the real me, she’d leave so fast...
But she’s still here. Still watching. Still calculating her next move in our little game. Her expression reveals a complex mixture of wariness and curiosity that I find unexpectedly compelling.
“Your turn,” I say, redirecting us back to the game, curious to see what this enigmatic woman will reveal when given the chance to craft her own lies and truths.
She stares out the window, chewing her lower lip. The silence stretches between us—forty-seven seconds pass. Her finger taps against her knee, a chipped pink nail making tiny percussive sounds against the fabric of her skirt.
This shouldn’t interest me. A woman contemplating her next move in a trivial car game isn’t worth my attention. And yet, I find myself watching her peripheral movements as she formulates her strategy.
A slow-moving truck drifts into my lane without signaling. I shift lanes smoothly, accelerating past the hazard without disrupting our conversation. Emmaleen doesn’t notice the maneuver—still lost in whatever mental calculation she’s running. Her absorption is almost... impressive. Almost… cute.
Finally, she straightens in her seat, decision made.
“I once competed in a spelling bee and lost on the word ‘pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.’”
Her pronunciation is flawless—each syllable articulated with precise confidence. Well done.
“I wrote a poem for a chance at a five-thousand-dollar scholarship from a famous coffeehouse and won.”
She delivers this second statement with a hint of embarrassment, as though admitting to some juvenile indiscretion rather than an achievement.
“I hosted a podcast where I translated Shakespeare into modern slang.”
The final option is offered with a theatrical flourish of her hand, her eyes meeting mine briefly before returning to the road ahead.
I consider each option, analyzing not just the content but how she delivered them. The spelling bee statement—too specific, too rehearsed. The podcast—plausible given her obvious comfort with language, but she overplayed it. The poem feels like the truth, hidden between two more flamboyant claims.
“Shakespeare,” I decide, changing lanes again to overtake a minivan moving below the speed limit. “The podcast.”
She laughs—a genuine sound that transforms her face entirely. Her eyes crinkle at the corners, her cheeks flush with color. For a moment, she looks unburdened, younger.
“No! I can’t believe you think I’d do that.” She shakes her head, still smiling. “Though I’m flattered you have such faith in my wordsmithing abilities.”
I raise an eyebrow, reassessing. “The poem, then.”
“Yes!” She nods, seeming pleased that I didn’t immediately guess correctly.
Which, of course, I did.
But it’s a game, after all.
And I’m playing to win.
“I did win a scholarship from this hipster coffee chain that was trying to position itself as the thinking person’s Starbucks. Five thousand dollars for a poem about ‘the intersection of love and consciousness’ or something equally pretentious.”
I keep my expression neutral, but I’m mildly impressed. “And the money?”
“Got me through two semesters at community college.” Her smile fades slightly. “Then I dropped out.”
There’s a story there—something heavy that shifts the atmosphere in the car. I file this information away for later examination. Every revelation is a potential pressure point.
“Recite it,” I say.
“What?”
“The poem. Recite it.”
She laughs again, but it’s different now—nervous, deflective. “God, no. It was years ago. And it was terrible, trust me. All that flowery undergraduate angst about existence and”—she waves a hand vaguely “—true love.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t terrible if it won five thousand dollars.”
“You’d be surprised what passes for profound when you’re seventeen and can string metaphors together.” She shifts in her seat, clearly uncomfortable with the request.
I see an opportunity. “I’ll erase five more demerits if you recite it.”
Her head snaps toward me, eyes narrowing as she calculates this new proposition. The mental math is evident on her face—weighing embarrassment against advantage.
“No.” She shakes her head firmly. “It’s too personal.”
“Seven demerits,” I counter, watching her closely. “That would bring your total down to eight.”
She bites her lip, her resistance visibly crumbling at the revised offer. I can practically see her imagining the victory—fist pumping the air at having negotiated me up from five to seven.
“Fine,” she says after a moment, straightening her spine and clearing her throat. “But you can’t laugh. And you can’t use it against me later.”
I say nothing, which she correctly interprets as neither agreement nor refusal.
She sighs, closes her eyes briefly, and begins to recite from memory:
“I hoard my words like treasures in a chest,
Each syllable a gem of rare design.
Among all riches, language serves me best.
The taste of ‘eloquence’ is sweet as wine,
While ‘melancholy’ settles dark and deep.
These sounds and meanings intertwine
With memories I’ve gathered, mine to keep.
I learned that ‘ephemeral’ feels like snow—
So beautiful, yet never meant to sleep
Upon the earth for long. I’ve come to know
That ‘solitude’ has weight, while ‘joy’ has wings.
Some words cut sharp, while others softly glow
Like ‘luminous’ or ‘hope’—the one that brings
A future into focus, clear and bright.
They mocked me for the comfort language brings,
As if my books were shields against the night.
They never saw how words became my sword,
My armor, and my beacon burning light
In darkness where I couldn’t see the shore.
Each poem a map to guide my trembling hand,
Each stanza teaching me to ask for more
Than silence in a world I didn’t understand.
So let me build cathedrals with my speech,
Construct new worlds from nothing but the grand
And humble letters that our teachers teach.
For in this life of chaos, noise, and strife,
The perfect word is always within reach—
A bridge between your heart and mine, a knife
That cuts away pretense to find what’s true.
With language as my compass through this life,
I’ll find the words that finally lead to you.”
It takes her seventy-six seconds to recite each word with practiced clarity, and I don’t even breathe.
The syllables hang in the air between us, delicate and dangerous as glass figurines. I’m aware of everything—the slight tremor in her voice when she reaches the lines about armor, the way her fingers curl against her thigh on “trembling hand,” the perfect pause before “cathedral.”
Her voice transforms the Aventador’s interior into something sacred.
Hell, no wonder she won. Little Miss Take isn’t just hiding behind words—she’s wielding them like weapons.
Emmaleen shifts, looking very vulnerable. A flush creeps up her neck. Then she sighs. “I told you it was nothing but an onion of existentialism.”
But she’s wrong. That’s not what it was at all. And that’s not what she said, either. She said… undergraduate angst about existence and… true love.
Her true love is for… words. Language. A certain precision of meaning that few people, save for myself—and in a wholly different way—typically appreciate. It was, to be quite honest, brilliant. Something in me needs her to know I understand just exactly what she’s created. What she just admitted.
“Terza rima,” I say.
She looks at me, nose scrunched again in that expression that makes her look both younger and somehow sharper. “What?”
“Your rhyming scheme. It was terza rima. ABA BCB CDC DED EE.” I tap my finger against the table with each letter, marking the pattern.
“How the hell do you know that? I mean, I get it. You’re rich, and cultured, and went to some fancy-schmancy school or whatever. But there’s no way you should know that.”
“My mother…”
Shit. Well, it’s too late to backtrack now. I never talk about Priscilla, not to anyone. Not even to family. But something about Emmaleen’s poem has cracked open a door I usually keep triple-locked.
“My mother was a poet.”