Chapter 14 #2
“Of course, honey. It is both.”
I turned toward him.
“The house in Wisconsin may have been watched,” he said. “I will not move you from prison to prison and call it protection.”
The boat touched the dock. Sal stepped out first, then held out his hand. I took it.
Inside the villa, every door stood open to sea air. White curtains moved in the breeze. There were flowers on the table, bare feet waiting by the entrance, books on shelves, a bowl of limes in the kitchen.
Sal put a ring of keys in my palm.
“Choose any room,” he said. “Change anything you dislike. Swim whenever you want.”
I looked at him.
“Provided you tell me before entering the water,” he added.
“Because?”
“So I know where you are. Not because I am keeping you inside.”
The keys were warm from his hand.
For the first time, a safe house did not feel like a place where I waited for the next attack.
It felt like somewhere I might wake up tomorrow and want breakfast.
Breakfast arrived beneath bougainvillea. This place was so ridiculously beautiful it was almost offensive.
The terrace overlooked a cove. Purple flowers spilled over the stone wall. The sea flashed below us. Sal sat across from me in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, looking far too calm for a man who had smuggled me across an ocean without explaining himself.
“There is fruit,” he said.
“I can see that.”
“Eat some.”
“You brought me to a tropical island to bully me with papaya.”
“I brought you to a tropical island because you are pale and angry.”
“Right. It’s my brand.“.”
His mouth curved. I ate the papaya. It was, annoyingly, delicious.
After breakfast, he led me down a narrow path toward the cove. The beach was private. Soft white sand. Water so clear I could see shadows of small fish moving over the bottom.
I stood at the edge and watched the horizon. One boat far out. A white line of wake. No others.
“It doesn’t feel fair that this is all for us.”
“Why, Little One?”
“I don’t deserve it.”
“Careful,” he said. “That sounded a lot like you’re talking yourself down.”
“But it’s true. I’m . . . nothing. A pakhan’s daughter. I’m a bad person.”
He fixed me with a serious look. “You’re not nothing.
You’re . . . everything. And as for being a bad person.
Bella, you didn’t ask to be born a pakhan’s daughter.
And I’ve seen the way you are. You’re so worried that people might be affected by this nonsense with Giannia that you were trying to turn yourself in.
You helped set up a fund for our employees.
Yes, you were born into an imperfect world.
But you’re perfect, baby. As perfect as anyone. ”
My heart pounded in my chest and I felt tears prick at my eyes. I wanted to believe him, I really did.
“Thank you for saying that,” I said.
He reached out a hand, brushed my cheek. “I told you. I’m an honest man.”
“How deep is it?” I asked. “The water?”
“Near the rocks? Eight feet. Farther out, more.”
“How far to the drop?”
“About thirty yards. Come. Let’s go in. It’ll be warm.”
I nodded.
Sal peeled off his top. I admired his beautiful body, then shrugged my clothes off, leaving only my swimsuit. Sal smiled, then stepped into the water. It reached his knees, then his waist. He turned toward me.
“Come in whenever you want.”
I entered slowly.
The water held heat from the sun. It climbed my legs, my hips, my stomach. I had swum before. Pools in hotels. Indoor clubs where guards watched from every wall. My father’s men shouted instructions if I moved farther than they considered necessary.
This was different.
There were no tiles beneath my feet. No edge. No place I could touch and call solid. I felt the sand between my toes. It was beautiful.
I moved farther out. Sal swam beside me. Not touching. He did not ask whether I was all right every five seconds. He did not explain how water worked as if I were an idiot.
I counted distance from the shore.
Ten strokes.
Fifteen.
Twenty.
My breathing shortened.
Sal noticed. Of course he did.
“Do you want to go back?” he asked.
“No. I like it.”
“Do you want me closer?”
I looked at him.
“Yes, Daddy.”
He moved nearer. Still no touch.
The sea lifted us and lowered us. My body wanted to fight it. To stay upright. To keep every muscle ready.
“Try floating,” Sal said.
“I am floating.”
“It looks like you are conducting a military operation against the ocean.”
“Well look, it’s the one that declared war on me, with all these waves. It’s an offensive action, and I’m allowed to retaliate.”
That made him laugh.
Then he came behind me, close enough that I felt warmth at my back.
“May I support you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
His palm slid beneath my shoulders. Broad. Steady. Nothing else held me. His other hand remained visible in the water beside us.
“Lean back,” he said.
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I could drown.”
“You could. But you won’t. I’m here.”
The blunt truth settled me more than reassurance would have.
I leaned back.
The sky opened above me. Blue without end. Sunlight warmed my face. My ears filled with the soft movement of water.
Sal’s palm remained beneath my shoulders.
“You may let it carry you,” he said.
I breathed in. Then out.
For one frightening, perfect second, I stopped fighting the water.
The sea held me. He held me. Life happened.
Later, we took a small sailboat around the island. Sal let me hold the line, which I did badly on purpose until he stood behind me and corrected my grip with his hands over mine.
“You are enjoying this,” I accused.
“Very much.”
We ate lunch on an empty beach where the sand was pink near the rocks. Bread. Cheese. Cold chicken. Mango. Sal spread a blanket beneath the shade and handed me a slim black notebook.
A firebird was embossed in gold on the cover.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Somewhere to write what you want.”
“I have spreadsheets for that.”
“No plans for surviving.” He touched the cover. “No lists of threats. Just wants.”
I opened it. The first page remained blank for a long time. Then I wrote one sentence.
I want another date.
I turned the notebook toward him.
Sal read it. His face changed in that quiet way he had, as if he kept his biggest feelings behind locked doors and only opened them for me.
“I can arrange that,” he said.
“Good.”
He kissed my temple.
“I have several ideas, in fact.”
Salvatore Scordato could organize an international extraction, bankrupt a man with a single phone call, but apparently he couldn’t fry garlic in oil without burning it.
I sat on the kitchen counter with bare feet swinging above the tile while smoke curled from the pan.
“So is that supposed to be black?” I asked. “It’s a Sicilian delicacy?”
“It is browned.”
“It is charcoal.”
“It has character.”
“It has died.”
Sal gave me a look over his shoulder.
The windows stood open to the darkening sea. Music drifted from a small speaker near the fruit bowl. Something old and Italian. Something slow enough that the breeze seemed to move with it.
Sal wore linen trousers and nothing else. I had put on one of his shirts over my swimsuit after the beach. It hung open at the throat and fell to my thighs.
He scraped the garlic into the bin.
“I hope you appreciate how much humility this requires.”
“I do. I’m documenting it for the historians. Future civilizations will remember you as Sal the Humble.”
“You’re very cruel for someone waiting to be fed.”
“I have been fed repeatedly today. Like a prize pony.”
“You like mango.”
“I do like mango.”
He made pasta after that. It was good. Not because he was brilliant at cooking. Because he watched the pan too hard and tasted the sauce four times and asked whether I liked it as if the answer mattered.
We ate at the kitchen island with our knees touching. Afterward, he washed dishes while I dried them badly. The domesticity made me nervous.
Not in the old way. Not because I expected the softness to turn into a debt.
Because I wanted it. I needed it. I didn’t want to lose it.
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked.
Sal placed a plate in the rack.
“You know why.”
“No. I know the security reason. I mean why now.” I looked toward the sea. “Your family is fighting a war. Mezza Notte burned. Gianni is trying to choke your businesses. And you’re here making mediocre pasta.”
“An outrageous slight,” he said. “That pasta was slightly better than mediocre and you know it.”
“Answer me.”
He dried his hands and leaned against the counter across from me.
“Pietro can command. Serafina can command. Angela has the financial side. Tonio has your brother and an entire ranch to feed him in.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Sal’s eyes held mine.
“I used to think being indispensable was the same as being loyal,” he said. “Rosalia asked me to take a weekend away once. We were engaged. She wanted a train trip. Nothing dramatic.”
I stayed silent.
“I refused,” he continued. “There was a shipping issue. There was always a shipping issue. I told myself she would understand because responsibility mattered.”
His mouth tightened.
“She understood. That was the problem. She understood that there would always be something more urgent than her.”
The kitchen went quiet except for the sea.
“I am sorry,” I said.
“So am I.” He looked down at his hands. “I cannot change what I was then. But I can refuse to repeat it.”
He lifted his gaze again.
“Loving my family does not require abandoning you whenever there is a crisis.”
Something sharp moved behind my ribs.
“Do you see me as another soft thing?” I asked. “Something you might lose if you are not careful enough?”
Sal came around the island. He stood between my knees and put his hands on my thighs.
“No,” he said. “You are not fragile. You are not temporary. You are not a prize I put behind glass.”
His thumbs moved once over my skin.
“I love your mind. I love the way you find the weakness in a ledger before anyone else sees the lie. I love that you cheated at skee-ball and called it strategy.”
“That was strategy.”
“It was criminal.”
His mouth shifted.