Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Dante
‘ H ow much?’ Salvatore questioned. I’d just informed him that although our profits were up, we were not banking what was expected.
I listened to his tone, trying to read something… anything… into his intonation. But I got nothing.
‘All in, I reckon looking at what we predicted as projected sales forecasts, ninety to ninety-five grand, over the past one to two months.’
‘Fancolo!’ He swore and then exhaled loudly.
This was exactly why I would have preferred a video call, at least then I could have tried to read his expressions and body language. Whereas, I hadn’t a clue what he was thinking, apart from him being very obviously pissed off.
But I understood why our scheduled meeting was this way. He was travelling to pick up Serafina from our local hospital. The previous night, I’d become an uncle for the umpteenth time when Mia had given birth to her and Gabriel De Luca’s first son. Serafina, although pregnant again by the man on the phone, had been present at the birth due to complications Mia had suffered with earlier pregnancies. So, however inconvenient it was for me, with the news I’d had, I still understood just why it was so.
Normally, this was the time of the month I usually looked forward to. A chance to rub his nose in the fact I was succeeding, when he’d made it as clear as glass that he hoped I’d fail in my duty to him and my family. It had to be said, I revelled in the fact that since I’d swept into Malta and done my Don’s bidding by clearing out the trash, we had made the country a stronghold that had been providing an increased profit with each month that passed. I enjoyed giving him the details of just how well were doing and twisting in the knife in. And with every monthly report I gave him, I counted one more month down until I would at last be able to say I’d done what he’d demanded of me as my penance. Knowing that the same countdown was also decreasing my time here, and reducing the months before I could at last begin to live my life again. Far away from Italy, De Luca, and far enough away from her that I could start to move on with my life.
‘I want every man you’ve got on this,’ he demanded.
‘That’s already a given.’
‘And?’
‘I’ve already got some information. But the jigsaw isn’t complete yet and you’re not going to enjoy hearing what I’ve found out so far.’
‘I’m sure I won’t…’ he agreed and then, in that way of his, he changed the subject. ‘Do you know they’ve named him after you, Dante. Did you hear?’
‘I did. Dante De Luca.’ I spoke his name out loud, hating the way my name was now mixed up with his. ‘One day I hope to back home, where I can take an active part in my nephews and nieces’ upbringing.’
He let my words hang in the air for a few seconds before replying.
‘Your time is nearly up.’ I wasn’t sure if he said it as a fact or as a threat. But I’d long ago stopped trying to second guess De Luca.
Not nearly enough. I swallowed down the feeling once again that something was going on around us, and that whatever it was could undermine the whole future I was trying to plan.
‘If this is something I’m not going to be happy with, make sure you have all the evidence before you present it to me,’ he carried on.
‘Thanks for the heads up.’ I knew what he was implying. Fuck this up… get this wrong and I’ll take you down for it… You know I’ve been waiting.
Salvatore and I had history, a hate filled history. But we worked, however much I despised the fact, and I knew he understood that as well as I did. I was also convinced the working relationship between us gave him absolutely no pleasure either and from that I took a small amount of satisfaction. It would have been much easier for him had I fucked up or disobeyed his orders over the past few years, because he would have had an excuse to use the knife that he always carried with him. What was the saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer? He and I fitted that bill. Because, at the back of it all, our two families were now so intertwined, the generation that would come after us was made from a mixture of both of our blood.
I thought quickly back to a day on the beach when we’d been just kids. Salvatore had cut the hands of my brother Alessio and his brother Romeo, after finding them fighting. He’d joined their blood covered palms together and he’d declared them blood brothers—we truly were bound by blood. His children and our shared nephews and nieces were all under seven years old. They were our families’ future, and I knew I would do anything needed to protect them all, and without question so would he.
‘I’m going to ask this once. I will not lower myself to ask this again, because if I find out this has anything to do with you, I will kill you with my bare hands.’
‘If you need to ask, then maybe you should have killed me years ago.’
‘Maybe I should have.’ Salvatore laughed and I heard as he revved the car he was driving, encouraging it to go faster at his acknowledgement. ‘Do you have anything to do with this, Dante?’
I laughed out loud at his question, before replying. ‘No.’ I shook my head as the smile evaporated from my face. ‘Believe me, there’s been many times I’ve wanted to take a piss up your leg, Salvatore, but this isn’t down to me.’ I flicked my cigarette packet over and over with the tip of my finger, before flicking it open with my forefinger and lifting a cigarette to just in front of my mouth. ‘I have ten months left here. Do you honestly think I’d bring down my house of cards now?’
‘There is no love lost between us, Dante… but no, I don’t,’ he offered.
‘And now I’m asking the same of you, De Luca. Is this your way of getting rid of me, after all your previous attempts have come to nothing?’
‘You know, as your Don, I could have you killed for even questioning me?’ I could imagine the expression on his face when he answered me. It would be disdainful, with indignancy cascading from each pore.
‘You could, but as Serafina’s husband, you won’t.’
I heard a laugh leave him.
‘Dante, Dane, Dante…’ he reprimanded. ‘Over the years there have been many ways I could have wiped you off the face of this earth.’ I knew what he was saying was true. As I listened, I fidgeted with my silver pen, tapping one end on my desk and then turning it again to tap the other. ‘I could have had you shot on exercise… a friendly-fire mistake, of course. A car accident, which would have been so very sad, but you know what those Maltese roads are like. Or found at one of the clubs, with a concoction of drugs and alcohol found in your body, all put down of course to your growing addiction… Many, many ways.’
‘But where would the satisfaction be in any of those, De Luca?’
‘True…. So, you live… and much to my disgust you prove your worth time and time again. Whatever is happening, does not have my name on it.’ I closed my eyes and blew out a long, but silent exhale at his answer. The man had never proven himself a liar, whatever else he was. ‘But the longer I sit here thinking about it, I’m concerned that this could be the start of another attack on our family.’
‘By whom?’ I questioned, ‘The Ricolletis and Lombardis?’
‘Possibly. But it won’t be the two of them conjoined. They’ve gone their separate ways. I have it on good authority that there is now bad blood between them.’
‘Yeah, bad blood, huh?’ I questioned, with a smile on my face. ‘Because of their defeat to us?’
‘That and something to do with a child of the now under boss of the Ricolletis, being discovered as an adult within the Lombardis, having been brought up by them. The said child, no longer thinks of the Ricolletis as family and refused an offer to go back to Sicily to take up his rightful place. There is no trust left between them and, as you know, without trust there is nothing.’
‘Wow.’
‘The child was taken about thirty years ago; we think as payment from last time they were at war with each other. But, who knows?’’
‘Do we know who it is?’ I questioned.
‘Don Inzerillo failed to mention that,’ he answered sarcastically. ‘But rest assured, I will be asking him again.’
‘Right.’ I raised my eyebrows at his explanation.
‘Enough. Back to what’s going on in Malta… Who else knows?’ He took charge of the conversation and took us off the dangerous path we’d so nearly fallen onto.
‘Marco, only Marco.’
‘Marco is a loyal soldier, but you should never trust anyone one hundred percent, especially if it could cost you your life.’ I nodded rather than answer, as having been in the military I had a slightly different view. Marco had been a good friend to me since we were boys. He had even joined the army at the same time as me after De Luca demanded it as part of my penance for taking Giovanna.
‘I trust Marco,’ I finally voiced.
‘I think I understand, but you and I are very different.’
‘That we are,’ I agreed.
‘I knew a long time ago, Giordano, that you and I would walk life’s path together. However different we appear to be,’ he carried on. ‘As brutal enemies or as comrades in arms.’
‘You thought we would stand side by side?’
‘Yes. Even when we first met, and again when I saw the angry teenager who hated me for marrying his sister. If you look closely, that’s exactly what’s happening now. Time has passed, and you have done your Don’s bidding. She is engaged to be married very soon.’ I gripped the pen I was holding tighter at his statement, knowing exactly who she was. Finally, I released the pen from my hand and threw it across my vast office. It hit the wall like a dart, marking the plaster, before clattering to the floor. ‘For the sake of our combined families, we will stand and fight together. We will fight to keep them safe, even if it means our own deaths.’
‘ That, I don’t disagree with.’ I stopped myself from carrying on.
‘How long do you need to piece together this jigsaw?’
‘Give me this week.’
‘Agreed. But you will make no move against them until I give the order,’ he spoke, and in the background I heard his engine die as he arrived at his destination.
‘Give our family my congratulations and tell them I’ll be home soon.’
‘I’ll give them your congratulations.’
Even I had to laugh at the way our call ended.
I took a couple of long drags from the poison between my fingers and tried to clear the thoughts inside my head of Giovanna. The thoughts that any phone call back to Italy or London produced, let alone the ones that reminded me she was be married to someone else. But I couldn’t shake them, and nor could I fight the need in me that was building, so I conceded and called her again.
‘So soon, Dante?’ I shook my head as I reprimanded myself, but continued to press the relevant digits. After placing the mobile to my ear, I stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette and dropped it in the ashtray alongside the countless others.
Outside, one of the cruise ships was leaving and I listened as it began to play a fanfare, before my attention was once again taken by the ringtone sounding in my left ear. It was different to normal, which told me she was no longer in Italy.
Where the hell was she? And why the fuck did it rile me so much that I didn’t know?
I knew the answer. When I phoned her, I always visualised her walking over the sand at our beach, stopping every now and again to pick up the shells it always seemed to home. The wind would be in her hair, sending it flying around her. Her beauty would be evident as she laughed while brushing the errant strands away from her face, and then I would see her hazel eyes sparkle as she answered the phone.
But this time she wasn’t there.
‘What the fuck?’ I whispered, just as the ring tone abruptly stopped and she answered.
‘Ciao.’ The air was stolen from my body as soon as I heard her breathless tone. ‘Hello. Please say something.’ Like I’d trained myself to do so long ago, I stilled from breathing so I could fully concentrate on the few seconds of contact I had with her. Closing my eyes, I prepared myself to end the call as normal, but then I heard the same fanfare the cruise ship was blaring out travel through the phone.
She can’t be.
Then I heard it again, mirroring what I was hearing from the nearby harbour.
She was here.
‘Hello,’ she tried again.
The realisation that she was very close, sent me onto high alert. Standing suddenly, I pushed the chair I’d been sitting on away from me so fast it crashed into the wall behind me, but I paid it no attention. Instead, I made my way to the open window and looked down to the ground below me as though I’d find her standing outside and looking back up at me if I looked hard enough.
‘Where are you?’ I spoke my first words to her in all the years we’d been apart, as I watched the people going about their business.
‘Dante?’ I heard the emotion trapped in her voice.
‘I asked you a question.’
‘I’m… well, I don’t know exactly where I am. But I’m in the old town, in Malta, on a walking tour.’
‘Why?’ My voice sounded harder than I wanted it to. But I refused to correct it. With the way my body felt just knowing she was nearby and the hurt she’d left me with all those years before, the way I was speaking to her seemed to be the only form of defence I had.
‘I’m here to see you… please.’
‘Who’s with you?’
‘My stepfather’s security detail are a way behind.’
‘Your stepfather?’ I questioned and frowned as I tried to recall something. In the back of my head, I remembered her mama remarrying into a Greek shipping family .
Aritis. His family name came back to me. I’d seen the luxury boat coming in to moor on the same pier as my own, only the previous day.
Fuck! She must have been on it as I watched it come into the harbour.
‘Peter Ariti,’ she confirmed, unaware of my struggle.
‘And who else?’
‘I’m with no one else.’
Salvatore, it looks like you’ve lost your touch. The thought made the corners of my mouth twitch with the beginnings of a smirk.
‘Can they see you?’
She paused to check.
‘Yes.’
‘Do they know me?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Carry on walking. I’ll find you. Expect me.’
‘I’m wearing…’ she began to explain as I disconnected the call. Struggling with the surge of emotion just hearing her voice had conjured up, I turned myself around. Then I rested my arse on the window ledge behind me, to take a few minutes to compose myself.
‘No, need to tell me, love,’ I spoke out loud to my empty office. ‘I’d be able to find you in amongst a thousand other women. I see you when I’m awake, when I’m asleep and even in my daydreams, but after today, I’m going to make myself a promise to never see you again.’
She’s here.
Maybe now, I could get the answers I needed and close the door on her forever.