38. Matilde
Matilde
“Are you okay?” Nico asks from the driver’s seat.
“I am. Is that terrible?”
“Not to me,” he promises, resting a hand on my thigh. “I was wondering if you might want to go to therapy… to talk over what happened and maybe some about things from your childhood. Your stepmother, your father keeping secrets, what happened to your birth mother."
I'm touched by his offer but feel vulnerable at the thought. "I talk to Maddalena. I've spoken to Frankie. I don't know."
"Okay, you can talk to me, too, but if you ever wanted professional help…"
"Would you seek out help with problems like that?" I ask.
He scowls at the road ahead, giving me my answer. Men in the mafia don't open up to outsiders like that. It would break their oath.
"The trafficking ring is broken,” I say, moving away from the topic. "But I can’t stop thinking of the other girls we did not save.”
“I’ll hunt for them. I’ll do whatever is in my power to free them from wherever they are. For you.”
For you. He's already done so many things for me.
Nico has proven himself a man of his word, so I return to admiring the scenery as he drives. The surroundings are different, and I’ve never seen so much snow, but the farm in DuPage County still gives me a sense of homecoming.
“There are sheep!” I cry excitedly in Italian as we pass a pasture with five of them wearing their woolly winter coats.
“Leone’s grumpy goats must have been lonely for company.”
I laugh, and Nico avidly watches my reactions to every twist and turn in the narrow, private road.
Every mile lifts a bit more of the gloom of that warehouse from my shoulders.
We pass through woods and past various outbuildings, through a steel gate, patrolled by armed guards before the main house comes into view.
It’s a rambling two-story painted yellow with blue shutters, cheerfully at odds with the rifle-bearing men pacing nearby.
“Are there always guards?”
“No, Uncle Leone prefers solitude.”
“Is that why he did not attend our wedding?”
“Partly, but more than that, he’s not friendly with my father.”
“Oh.” Arturo Morelli isn’t a man who inspires much friendliness from what I've seen. “The children will love visiting this place when they are older if he will allow it.”
“Leone may allow it sooner than that.” Nico’s odd phrasing has me turning toward him, but the SUV stops, and he climbs out to open my door.
A man dressed in a flannel shirt and dirty blue jeans steps onto the front porch as we approach.
“You’ve come to invade my privacy, I see,” he says in a surly tone.
Strongly built, he stands tall with his arms crossed over his chest, but laugh lines surround his gray eyes.
The resemblance between him and the other Morelli men is clear.
“I told you I would.”
“Is my asshole eldest brother dead yet?” The youngest of ten children, Leone Morelli is closer in age to his nephews than their father.
“Not yet,” Nico replies, apparently amused by the question.
Leone gives me a quick up and down glance before turning back to Nico. “I thought you said there were six of them, Nikki.”
“Nikki?” I repeat.
Nico ignores that. “There are six, and this is my wife which you know perfectly well.”
“The last girl you brought to me took off in my favorite pickup truck.”
“I didn’t think she’d steal it.” What on earth are they talking about? “Stop trying to break my balls, Leo. It’s freezing cold out here. Matilde, this is my uncle, Leone.”
“Benvenuta, signora.” His greeting reminds me of my first interaction with Nico, though he’s warmer by far. “Sorry you had to marry this sourpuss.”
Working out the word, I grin, and by the time he mentions hot soup by the fire and visiting the farm’s animals, I’m completely won over.
***
“I liked him,” I declare as we’re leaving.
“Good.” Nico's intent on the snowy road conditions.
“I loved the farm.” He gave us a tour, introducing the chickens in their coup and the grumpy goats in their shed before spoiling me with a trip to the sheep barn.
Memories of my farm nearly brought tears to my eyes as Nico made calls to begin moving the girls there.
“I want to visit the girls again. Is tomorrow too soon?”
“I’ll arrange the helicopter to bring you back.”
“I did not know you had a helicopter,” I say, my eyes growing wide. He shrugs as though it’s nothing, but he was raised with wealth. “Can Maddalena come, too?”
“As long as she gets her schoolwork done. You can visit as much as you like, but Leone will make sure the women are safe and want for nothing.”
“But Leone is unmarried.”
“He won’t bother them that way if you're concerned.”
“How can you-”
“Because he’s gay.”
“Oh, I did not realize.”
“He's open about it, but it’s not like he wears a sign.”
I roll my eyes at his sarcasm which only serves to make him smirk. “There are no openly gay men in the Cosa Nostra. Too many tiny brains.”
He chuckles under his breath. “Not in the Trio either. My grandfather and father wouldn’t allow Leone to take the oath which is part of why he manages the farm.”
“Would you let him take the oath?”
“If he wanted to? Sure. But Leone enjoys living out here, unbothered and without those tiny brains, as you put it, judging him for his preference.”
“Okay. I'm glad he likes it here.”
I’m enjoying the passing scenery as Nico grasps my hand, pulling it up for a kiss. “I was impressed by your bravery again today, Matilde. I know it can’t have been easy going to that warehouse.”
“It was not, but I feel like that door can close now. Does that make sense?”
“It does.” He kisses my hand again, and the warmth in his expression makes me wish we were in a limo on the way back to Chicago. We could pass the time very happily, I’m sure.
“Could I see the cascades?” I’d like for him to show it to me. I feel like it would be another way to deepen our bond.
He shakes his head. “Another time when the weather is better. It’s a bit of a hike, and it will already be late when we get home.”
“The children will be in bed. What would you like to do?” I ask, resting my hand on his knee. His eyebrows raise as he meets my intense stare, so I slide my hand up his thigh, imagining the many things I’d like to do with him at home or in this car or anywhere at all.
“I didn’t expect you would enjoy our sex life this much. A very pleasant surprise.”
“Ersilia reminded me earlier that I am a teenager.”
“A horny teenager,” he clarifies, chuckling when I nod. “I’m afraid I have an important virtual meeting scheduled with an overseas supplier when we return home.”
Disappointment fills me at his clipped dismissal… until he swerves suddenly, driving the SUV down a dirt trail in the woods. “Cosa fai?!”
“What my horny little wife wants. Get in the backseat, Matilde.” He jerks his chin over his shoulder, shrugging out of his coat. Grinning widely, I scramble into the backseat, happy to comply.