Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Dante
‘ T hank fuck!’ I turned off the engine.
After placing both arms onto the steering wheel, I rested my head against them, and I released a long exhale. I knew I’d only have a couple of minutes tops before someone pulled open my car door, so in the relative peace I allowed myself to breathe.
The youngster had had a lucky escape, and I prayed silently that my little sister would receive the same outcome.
What should have taken me twenty minutes or more to drive, had taken just over the ten I’d told Alessio. Several times, I’d felt my expertly designed Ferrari overly respond to the hammering I’d given it, yet only once had I retracted my foot from the pedal. Anger had been blocking any sense of reasoning. As I’d reached the small village of Palizzi and sped through the single lane, main road of the village, my vision had been clouded with not only my resentment, but also from the dust my car was stirring up. Suddenly, a young boy of about eight years of age had appeared in my path. He had carelessly run out from behind the relative safety of the dilapidated wire fencing that surrounded his family’s house, as he followed the path of his football.
And in that split nanosecond, I’d rapidly realised I was in control of the thing that just might kill him.
In slow motion, he’d picked up his prized possession and turned his head towards me. His small frame had frozen, and his eyes opened wide at his impending fate. Somewhere I heard a woman screaming.
Her scream, filled with torture and the impotence she felt, reached me.
Mia?
Like watching a film, I saw Mia bloodied and bruised at the hands of her kidnapper, as she fought to protect herself from the faceless bastard.
Then I saw the young boy’s dark brown eyes as they connected with mine and I came hurtling back to the present. Through the dust covered windscreen I saw his protective mama launch herself to attempt to save him.
As my foot lifted and slammed against the brake beneath it, I turned the wheel fast to the right. My car crashed through their makeshift fencing, causing the suspension to react to each lump and bump the tyres travelled over. Not being able to see either of them, I made a pact with the devil himself as I pleaded with him in my head that what I could feel beneath me wasn’t the two of them.
Finally, the car came to a shuddering stop, jolting me forward and making the steering wheel in my white knuckled grip meet my ribcage. The engine died leaving my ears focussed on the sobs of the child I’d nearly wiped off the face of the earth and the mama who was repeating over and over again ‘No, non il mio bambino.’
Thank fuck for that.
‘Stai bene?” I asked her if they were okay as I flung open my door.
Not answering my question, she began to swear at me in Griko as she pulled herself and her son up to their feet. I looked on as she swept her hand over his face to remove his errant hair. She took all of him in. Then, realising he was dirty with tears streaking down his face, but unscathed, her swearing at me turned to praising God.
Until, once again, her fearful and angry eyes met mine.
‘Maniaco,’ she repeated over and over with her voice intensifying. Her left hand peeled reluctantly away from the child in her arms as she flung her hand at me to make sure I could feel the strength behind the accusation.
‘Are you both okay?’ I repeated, as I saw several people appearing to see what all the noise and commotion was. In my peripheral, I saw a gun being pointed in my direction. But the gun didn’t concern me. Standing there in the small village I understood it wasn’t the gun I feared but the pain I’d caused them both.
‘I’m sorry, I was driving too fast.’ I held up my empty hands in surrender to the mama. Then I put them inside my trouser pockets. Whatever my destiny might be at the hands of the villagers who looked like they only just managed to scrape a living together, I wouldn’t go like a squealing pig, who begged for his life when they ended me.
‘Giordano?’ I heard a man question my ancestry to the side of me.
‘Si,’ I replied, nodding at him.
I watched as his understanding grew and then as he closed the distance between himself and what could only be his wife and child. He spoke to her quickly in Griko, holding her tightly when at first she fought with him. Then he held her face between his hands as he forced her to look at him as he tried to reason with her.
‘Per favore accetta le mie scuse?’ I’d asked her to accept my apologies.
She pulled her husband’s hands from her face and turned to look at me, once again. I saw the hate in her eyes for me as she struggled with the war inside her. On one hand she wanted me to suffer for what I’d nearly done to her child, and on the other she knew she had to accept my apologies because of my family name.
I walked closer to the man and his family, while pulling out my wallet to recompense her for my selfishness.
I started to hand over a few hundred Euros, pulling my hand back when the husband tried to pocket my guilt money as his own.
Once again, as I looked at the young woman in front of me, I repeated, ‘Accetta le mie scuse?’
‘Si.’ She nodded and I handed over the notes. She stuffed them quickly down the front of a tired, faded looking shirt she was wearing. And with the broken buttons of her shirt straining, down further into the voluminous cavern between her breasts.
‘Grazie.’ I nodded at her and went back to my car.
Never before had I been ashamed of my roots.
I drove away. Just as soon as I’d cleared the village, I once again put my foot to the floor needing to get back home to help to find my baby sister.
Two things bothered me in those final few minutes of driving, as I contemplated my life. One, was how I’d nearly ripped away the life of a small, innocent boy, but it was okay because I was a Giordano and had money. The other, was how much I was beginning to resent how our way of life caused so much continual pain to those I loved.
My thoughts were disconcerting. But the bigger problem was what the hell I was going to do about it.
Finally, I pulled off the tarmac road and was waved onto the start of our family’s land by one of the many soldiers standing guard. Creating a huge amount of dust behind me I sped up the driveway negotiating my way through the many oleanders my mum had planted. Then, turning the wheel sharply, I braked and felt the back end of the car move to the right. As I killed the engine, and in turn heard the suction release as my car door opened, I turned and faced the agonised expression of my elder brother and returned to what needed doing.
Mia.
‘What do you need from me, brother?’ I grabbed hold of his proffered hand and emerged from the car.