by Sienna Mynx
“I think we can.”
“But what will happen to her now?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does matter. She’s a young girl who didn’t have a chance in hell of surviving this. If we can help her, let’s try. I know Giovanni would want us too.”
“The Generale is being praised and accredited with the big arrests and the fall of the Camorristi. I’m hearing that the Parliament is not happy with the Carabinieri accepting women into the forces. Whatever her fate is, at the end of it they very well may cut her loose.”
“I promised Arielle that I would protect her. You have to bring her out of this. Plus, I have to tell Carlo about her,” she said. She stopped before a closed door.
“Understood.”
Mirabella sighed. Tacchini put a hand to her shoulder. Leo was with him. He observed. “It’s going to be okay.” She nodded. She opened the door. Two of his men were already present and Leo followed them inside. They found Giovanni as she left him. Tacchini watched as Mirabella went to her husband and kissed his lips and brow. He saw what she did. He wasn’t feeble or gaunt. He looked as if he were asleep. Physically, his body had recovered miraculously from the shooting. Why hadn’t the doctors found a way to wake him? Tacchini’s eyes swept the room. He expected to see breathing machines and tubes running out of him like a Frankenstein monster. There was nothing. And maybe that was the issue. Maybe he did need care in a facility, better care than she could provide.
“Sweetheart, you have a visitor. Piero is here. We have great news.”
She glanced over to him and smiled. “Tell him.”
He explained the raids in Naples and Sicily. Gave the rundown of how their enemies are being crushed. He even vowed to get revenge against Lorenzo for hurting him. He should have won an award for the performance. Not that any of it was untrue, but the conviction in his voice to avenge Giovanni was a performance solely for her. The entire time he watched her as she held Giovanni’s hand and smiled at her husband.
“You heard that, caro? We did good. Like I told you. Now all you have to do is wake up. Squeeze my hand. Like last night?”
“He squeezed your hand?” Tacchini asked.
She ignored him. “Giovanni, I’m pregnant.”
Tacchini’s eyes stretched. He wasn’t sure he heard her correctly.
“Please, help me. Wake up. Please!”
Tacchini took a step toward her. Leo moved behind him to stop him. So he paused. And then to all of their surprise, she turned and went to Tacchini. He opened his arms and he held her. “I don’t know what to do. They want to take him away. Should I, Piero? Should I let him go to this place, to get better?” she wept. “Should I do it?”
Tacchini folded his arms around her. Was he so far gone that he would be jealous of a comatose man and his unborn child. He stroked her back. He let her cry against his chest with her curves crushed against his. The men in the room observed in silence. He could feel the transference of power, and so could they. He kissed her, and part of her allowed it. Now she didn’t care who saw her cling to him for comfort. If she was reaching out to a man like him, and their boss was unable to move or defend himself, they could do nothing either.
Pregnant or not, it was soon becoming a reality that Mirabella would be his. And as Tacchini lifted his gaze from the top of her head to the bed, the smile on his face froze. Giovanni lay there staring at them both.
Tacchini’s hold on Mirabella weakened. She felt his embrace soften and pulled back. She looked up at Tacchini confused, but she must have read the shock on his face. Her head turned, and she too saw what he saw.
Giovanni was awake.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Awakening
Sorrento, Italy
“Dio mio! Oh my God! Oh my God! Giovanni!” She rushed the bed. She hugged him. He didn’t move or respond. She grabbed his face but could not capture his attention. Giovanni was staring at Tacchini.
“Sweetheart? You’re awake.”
His gaze slowly shifted to her. She hadn’t looked into his violet-blue eyes in so long. To look into them now seized her heart. She heard the excitement of her men as one ran from the room yelling for the doctors. Giovanni didn’t speak or respond verbally. His eyes said it all. And after looking at her with love, they once again turned to Tacchini. She kissed his lips so hard. The tears from her face wet his. He lifted his arm weakly and touched her.
“I love you. I love you so much. You scared me so bad. I love you!”
He didn’t speak, but he did nod.
“Signora, please step aside,” Dr. Singh asked. She didn’t want to let him go, but she did as he asked. Both doctors were present today, as if waiting for this moment. She stepped back as they checked him and asked him to do several movements with his hands and feet.
“How did this happen?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I looked up and he was awake,” Tacchini said.
She glanced over to him. “You were right. I did everything and then you come upstairs and he wakes up,” she half-laughed. “Piero! We did it!”
He smiled at her. “I think I should go.”
“Grazie,” she extended her hand. He took it and kissed it. She glanced to Giovanni, and he was staring at them both. She removed her hand from his and stepped aside. Dominic rushed inside the room. He paused at the sight of Tacchini and frowned. But he soon turned his attention to Giovanni.
“You’re awake?”
Mirabella went to Dominic and grabbed his hand. “It’s a miracle,” she said. She glanced back once more as Tacchini left. He gave her a wink of encouragement and was gone.
They said he was awake. That was the first word to penetrate his foggy mind. And it made no sense. He still felt submerged. When he was a little boy, his father commanded him to jump from a cliff into the sea below. It’s how he felt. The desperate swim with all his might to the surface. Feeling the dark tide wrap around his ankles and drag him deeper. And of course, losing the battle, as he felt his body drain of strength.
The very first thought that entered his mind when he opened his eyes was that his beautiful Mirabella was alive. He’d thought she’d blown up in America because of a bomb planted by his enemies. He’d taken his revenge on Flavio for sending her away. He’d taken to the bottle to drink away his sorrow. And then there she was. She was with Piero Tacchini?
Tacchini? Tacchini? Why was he there?
Where was he?
An invisible hand pressed the fast forward button on his mind. And he was skipped ahead in time to the moment when they told him that she would bleed to death. The moment he was left with two premature babies, and a wife hemorrhaging on the operating table. The moment he realized that he could lose her all over again.
But she was standing before him. And she was in Tacchini’s arms.
Giovanni’s mind pushed further, while doctors poked and prodded him for answers on how he felt, while his wife grinned in his face. Her voice was muffled, barely recognizable over the ringing in his ears. And he remembered the dark place he found her. Unconscious on a bed, kidnapped, poisoned, dying. He carried her in his arms and vowed to carve up the China man for violating her. But in his heart he knew it was his curse that had taken her from him. The curse had doomed her to a life of violence, and marked his children as well.
That memory didn’t explain the reality. She was in a room with him. In another man’s arms.
Tacchini looked up and their eyes met. He knew men, he knew his enemies, and he knew his allies. He had too. Knowing the intentions of men had saved his life more than once. And this man held his wife the way he would hold her. This man desired his wife the way no man but him should. He saw it in Tacchini’s eyes. And his memory recovered. He remembered the shooting. He remembered Lorenzo’s betrayal. He remembered the bitch Isabella, and him sentencing her to a poisonous death like the sentence she passed on his wife.
There was too much commotion about him. And he couldn’t speak. But he could see fine.
And what he saw turned the blood in his veins cold. Giovanni felt his legs again. At first he didn’t. But the doctor had bent one leg at the knee and then the other. He felt his hands. And he felt pain that covered the entire region of his back and centered in his chest.
Lorenzo.
Where was Lorenzo?
He was facing his gun. And then?
Wait.
There was someone else... wasn’t there?
In his deepest and darkest moments, he suffered in the void, and forced his memory to seize on the moment before he pulled the trigger and murdered his cousin. Flashes of other memories surfaced. Mirabella crying and pleading for him to wake up. He remembered singing. His little girl reading a book to him, or telling him a story, and her singing to him. Her voice was distant, but he was certain it was Eve. And there were other shadowy memories. Most of them were of his Bella. Though he couldn’t move, he felt her body next to his, warm and soft. He felt her hand on his chest. He remembered the touch. Was he hallucinating? Did any of that happen?
Everything was dark from that point forward. Giovanni looked past the doctors to his wife. She wept. She smiled for him again. He wanted her in his arms. He’d figure the rest out later.
“What happened just before he woke?” One of the doctors asked Mirabella. His hearing worked fine. Should he try to speak? Could he talk now? Giovanni held back on his questions. He wanted to hear the answer.
What happened, Bella? Why were you in this room hugging Piero?
“I... I invited a friend of the family to the room. To give Giovanni some good news.”
What good fucking news, Bella? How could there be good news if I was shot? Wait? When was I shot? And why am I not in a hospital? Why am I in... Is this my room?
She looked at Giovanni. To his horror he saw guilt and shame in his wife’s eyes. What are you guilty of Bella? The muscles in his gut clenched.
“I was upset, I asked Giovanni to wake up. I shook him a little bit, not hard. And then... he opened his eyes.” She smiled with tears on her cheeks. “Baby, I’ve missed you so much!”
I’ve missed you too, Bella... but that is not the fucking truth. You weren’t shaking me. You were hugging fucking Piero Tacchini in front of me!
“What does it mean, Doctor?” Dominic asked. “Is he now recovered? He hasn’t said a word.”
The doctors looked to Giovanni. They all stared at him as if he were some kind of circus freak.
“Well first of all, shaking him wasn’t what woke him. I’m not sure what woke him. Maybe it was just time. I need to run more tests. It would be better if we could do it in the hospital. But I think we can manage,” Dr. Singh said. “This is a good sign. A really good one.”
“Hear that, sweetheart? You’re better. You’re going to be okay.”
Giovanni licked his lips and fought against the parchment.
“Bella...” he rasped. Mirabella’s face lit with so much happiness he tried again.
“Ti amo,” he said.
“I love you too, Gio! So much!” she returned to him and hugged him. He lifted his head and kissed her cheek. He lifted his arms and held her close to him. That was enough to exhaust him. Make him want to go back to sleep. But he refused to close his eyes. He’d never close his eyes again.
Gunshots rang out. Minnie nearly jumped out of her skin. Her daughter Belinda rushed into the parlor soon after with one of the twin boys on her hip. She looked on terrified as she made it over to the window.
“Get away from that window, girl. Is you stupid?”
She nodded and came over to sit with the boy. Several men were firing high-powered weapons in the sky. Others were doing daredevil tricks on their motorbikes, racing back and forth. Minnie didn’t need to stand by no window and catch a stray bullet to confirm the reason or cause. The place was crazy and filled with violence. This must be more of the same.
“What do you think it is, Mama?” Belinda asked.
“I think they celebrating, or trying to kill each other. Who knows!”
“The boss is awake! The boss is awake!” a man yelled as he ran past the parlor. Belinda looked to her mother. They both were rendered speechless. The little curly headed boy on Belinda’s knee sucked his pacifier and clapped his hands. Neither of them, since they arrived, had seen Giovanni. Mirabella wouldn’t allow it. His being in a coma didn’t seem real to them at first. But his being awake felt like cause for celebrating.
“I have to see Marietta,” Minnie said.
“Ma! No! They are shooting guns outside maybe inside too. Don’t go out there!”
“Belinda, hush. If Giovanni is awake, then we can get Mirabella to let Marietta go to the hospital. I have to tell her. Prepare her.”
“Wait, Ma. Wait.” Belinda stood and situated the toddler on her hip. “I know you want to help. But I’ve heard things. I’ve heard bad things about Marietta. I don’t think you should get between the sisters. It aint our business.”
“Where you heard these things? People here don’t even speak English.” Minnie demanded.
“Some people do. That woman that takes care of the kids. She does. She’s been nice to me. And Leo’s my friend. We talk sometimes.”
“You do?” Minnie narrowed her eyes on her daughter. She’d seen Belinda sit next to the strange looking man with the scarred face when the family ate. She also saw them laughing on the terrace and talking just the other day. But she’s had her hands full with Marietta and Mirabella. Now she knew that was a mistake.
“Nothing Ma, we just...”
“You stay away from him. I should have never let you leave here with him in the first place. Do you want your daddy to know that you making friends with these people?”
“These people? Ma? How you sound? These people are our people.”
“They are not! We don’t belong here. These precious babies don’t belong here. And that is really clear to me now.”
“You never listen Ma, never, you just judge us all.”
“God is the only authority in my life and yours. And he sent me here for a purpose. It sure isn’t for you to get into trouble again. You hear me!”
Belinda looked stricken. Minnie regretted her words the moment they came from her mouth. She had sworn to forgive and forget her babygirl’s mistakes but it was hard. Before she could apologize Belinda walked away.
Minnie walked out. She should have made the trip alone. Belinda didn’t belong in this foreign place.
“Where we going, Mommy?” Eve asked.
“A surprise, a big surprise!” Mirabella said as she pulled Eve’s hand. Her daughter kept glancing back at the men cheering and running through the house shouting: “Lunga Giovanni dal vio!”
“Why are they saying long live Papa?” Eve asked.
Mirabella hoped she could get Eve upstairs before the surprise was revealed. But the place was a mad house now. And she loved it. This was a time to celebrate. She picked her girl up and carried her the rest of the way. She knew at her stage in her pregnancy she needed to be careful. But she was running on pure adrenaline.
When they reached the door to his room Eve looked at her father with her curious pout. “Papa?”
“Yes, Papa,” Mirabella said and brought her in.
“Papa!” Eve said and immediately began to cry.
Giovanni was able to sit up now. He couldn’t stand, and his speech was a bit slurred, but he could sit up. Eve fought her way out of Mirabella’s arms and ran to the bed.
“Lucciola,” he managed to say.
Mirabella barely caught her in time. Her little girl was quick. She climbed on top of the bed and reached Giovanni before Mirabella could bring her back.
He hugged her and let her sit on his lap.
“Easy, Gio. You can’t overdo it.”
“I missed you so much! I did everything,” Eve said between deep gasps and tears. “Everything. And you never wake up. You never say anything. Never,” Eve said. Mirabella stepped back a bit surprised by the pain in her daughter’s voice
. “Mama, she had bad dreams. And the twins won’t listen to me. I do everything, Papa. And I missed you. I wanted you to wake up. Mama cries too. It was hard Papa. So hard. Mama not here, she not here and when she here she cry.”
“Eve, honey... calm down,” Mirabella said.
“I love you, Papa. Please. Please stay awake. Promise me. Don’t go to sleep no more.”
Giovanni looked to Mirabella who couldn’t mask her own guilt and regret. She knew her daughter was stressed. That psychiatrist she brought into her home had given her updates on the children and warned her about the troubles her daughter faced in coping. But she was too caught up in her own nightmare to heal her.
Giovanni cupped Eve’s face and made her look at him. “No more tears? Okay?”
She nodded.
Giovanni kissed her brow and held her again. Mirabella decided to let them have their moment. She found the chair in the room and she sat in it. Eve poured her heart out. She told him everything she could remember. Some of her stories Mirabella was hearing for the first time. Giovanni listened with patience. He only glanced Mirabella’s way a few times. But his gaze never lingered on Mirabella too long. At first she barely noticed. Then it became unbearable how they excluded her from the reunion. It hurt her deeply. And in her heart she felt so much guilt and relief she couldn’t bring herself to intrude. When Eve had exhausted him and herself Mirabella took her out of the room and returned as soon as she could.
“So much has happened, Gio. I don’t know where to begin.”
“Start with Piero,” he said.
“Tacchini?”
Giovanni didn’t blink.
“Why were you hugging him?”
“I was upset,” she sighed.
“Why did you have him in my room?”
“I thought... maybe we both could talk to you. Make a difference. Nothing else I did with me and the kids worked. And look, you are awake.”
“How long have I been...”
“In a coma? Fifty-nine days. A lot has happened in fifty-nine days.”
