by Emma Nichols
She spotted Patrina bowed in prayer and slid into the seat next to her. She knelt, clasped her hands, and rested her elbows on the back of the pew in front of her. She lowered her head to her hands and whispered across the short space that separated them. “Alessandro has more lives than a black cat, Patrina.”
Patrina leaned closer and whispered, “I have a plan that will eradicate the problem.”
Maria squeezed her hands tightly. She didn’t want any involvement with a hit on Alessandro, but in the heat of the moment, and for reasons she couldn’t fathom, she had agreed to help Patrina. Acid burned in her throat.
“I need to think about…”
“We don’t have the luxury of time, Maria.”
Maria clenched her teeth. “You’re talking about your world, Patrina, not mine. The Italian’s are chasing you for money, not me. Remember?”
She felt the heat from Patrina’s piercing stare and lips that curled into a half-smile. Maria had seen that expression a thousand times. It said, I know something you don’t. I have power over you. Ice crawled up her spine.
Patrina stared at Maria. “You haven’t heard?”
“What?”
“Roberto was just picked up by the DIA.”
Maria couldn’t decide whether she saw contempt in Patrina’s eyes.
What did sincerity look like in a woman scorned by life? Had she been
stupid to trust Patrina?
“Honestly, I had nothing to do with it.” Patrina turned to face the front of the church and returned her tone to a low whisper that could only be heard by Maria. “He was caught carrying a kilo of cocaine.”
Maria kept her head down, her eyelids slowly bringing the darkness that would still the fire behind her eyes and quell her distaste for this world.
“Alessandro knows Roberto’s running for you.”
Maria felt the skewered lamb become a single solid mass in her gut.
She opened her eyes and stared at the stone floor and the small firm cushion beneath her knees. What if Simone found out? No, when Simone found out, she would be furious. Beyond furious, she would feel betrayed. Shit.
Patrina breathed out a long sigh, mumbled something that ended in amen, and then turned to face Maria. “Simone will find out that you employ her brother. I have no control over that. Lovers always find out the truth, bedda. That’s just the way it is.” She looked to the front of the church. “You know how hard Simone fought against him working in this business? I considered training him myself in the early days. He was gullible, hungry, and needy. Alessandro didn’t think he had it in him, and I felt a sense of duty to Simone after what had happened. You have trained him well, bedda.”
Maria blinked then locked her attention onto the priest at the front of the church, feeling small and insignificant. She watched him light a candle and pick up a chalice. Patrina’s words echoed in her mind, and Simone’s image came to her in the form of her own broken heart, bleeding life from her. She continued to stare, reality entombing her in emptiness.
“You have a shipment arriving in ten days. Alessandro is under the impression that it has our property on it. I have told him we need your assistance for us to reclaim that property before the ship docks at the port.”
Maria continued to stare at the priest. “What assistance?”
“I told him we need you with us when we intercept the ship, bedda, in case there are problems with the crew. They will listen to you.
Alessandro needs the reassurance of your presence. We will take our boat for the pick-up, of course.” She shrugged. “Obviously, if we don’t intercept the goods, he thinks they will be discovered when authorities do their rigorous inspection at the port, and you will go to prison. He would rather intercept the drugs than lose them at the port.”
Maria cast her eyes down. The gnawing in her gut told her Alessandro wouldn’t think twice about wasting her if the opportunity presented itself. “And what will stop Alessandro taking me out?”
“Me, bedda. You can trust me. I will take care of him.”
There was fondness in the softness in her tone and the slowness in her speech that Maria had known in the tender moments they had shared before. Maria looked at Patrina, pursed her lips.
Patrina stood then stopped and stooped over Maria. “By the way, the pizza boy and the waitress are all yours now.”
And there it was…the harsh and vindictive person that Patrina had become was never too far away.
“The Amato’s debt to them has been paid in full. I have also seen to it that there will be no more deliveries to your restaurants.”
Maria stood. “What did you find out about the car?”
Patrina looked away. “Nothing, yet. Someone covered their tracks well.”
“Rocca?”
Patrina shook her head. “I doubt it. She’s too loyal to you, bedda.
You have that effect on women, didn’t you know?”
Maria’s focus didn’t shift from Patrina. The comment washed over her. She would get to the truth. “There is one more thing.”
Patrina slowly turned and looked into Maria’s eyes. “What is that?”
“I want you to hand back the casino site.”
“So you can build the tech park?”
“You know it makes good business sense for the city, Patrina.”
Patrina’s lips thinned, and her eyes wandered around the church.
“The casino would be better for us.”
“For you personally, maybe.” Maria’s stare hardened. “But I promise you, I’ll make sure you are implicated in the death of my father, Patrina, and then your empire will fall. You will spend the rest of your days in a cell.”
Patrina’s chin rose as she inhaled deeply and her eyelids fluttered.
Maria noted weariness in her sigh, and the heaviness in her eyelids as they closed briefly.
Patrina swallowed and inhaled another deep breath through her nose. “I will get the paperwork drawn up.”
“It needs to be on my desk before we intercept the shipment.”
Patrina nodded. “I will see to it, bedda.”
“One last thing.”
Patrina waited.
“I need you to deal with Chico. I won’t be working with him, so either you pay him and he continues to work with you, or you implicate him and he goes down for the hit. You decide.”
Patrina’s lips curled upwards and her eyes narrowed. “I need money.”
“I’ll fund you, but I want him off my back.” Maria cursed the need to pay Patrina but with Alessandro out of the equation, she needed Chico distracted one way or another. Patrina nodded. Maria waited until Patrina disappeared from the church. She sat back down. Her head spun at the inevitability of Simone walking away from her. She closed her eyes, and the squeezing sensation in her heart intensified. She clenched her hands firmly into tightly balled fists and cursed under her breath. The feeling became leaden and all-consuming. She bolted from the church and stood on the cobbled plaza and gasped for breath.
Slowly, her focus sharpened and her pulse resumed its normal rhythm, and she noted the Roman architecture, the cobbled stones around the cathedral, people milling around, and cars making their way along the main road. Everything was as it had been when she entered the cathedral.
She checked her phone as she headed back to the Maserati. The text she hadn’t long received from Giovanni told her what she already knew. She shifted the car into gear and drove to the DIA. Capitano Rocca would be expecting her.
“Donna Maria, I am so sorry.”
Maria saw genuine concern in Rocca’s dark eyes. “Capitano Massina, I understand there was a situation.”
Rocca glanced around the reception room and cleared her throat.
“Please, follow me. I have some paperwork I need you to complete.”
Maria followed her into a small office and stood next to the table.
Rocca reached into a cabinet, placed two sheets of paper on the table, and pushed them towards Maria. She
took a pen from her jacket breast pocket and slid it across the table.
“One of my colleagues arrested Roberto Di Salvo this afternoon. He was carrying a kilo of cocaine. This is a very serious offence, Donna Maria.
I have taken the case from my colleague, and I will do what I can to help you.”
Maria pushed the paperwork away. “I’m not signing anything.
Roberto would not have been carrying drugs, I can assure you of that. I want him released and these bogus charges dropped.”
Rocca swallowed. “I understand, Donna Maria. But there is also the issue of the substantial sum of money he was carrying, and…”
Maria locked eyes across the table. “I’m sure there was no cash in his possession, Rocca.” She smiled. “Who is this colleague?”
Rocca blinked and lowered her head. She moved the paperwork to another spot on the table for no apparent reason.
“Tommaso Vitale. He received a tip off and, in my absence, took the initiative to deal with the situation. I would have stopped this happening had I been aware of it.”
Vitale was working for Alessandro. “Rocca, who dealt with the evidence for my father’s case?”
Rocca looked up and then looked away. “Umm, I did most of the work, Donna Maria. Why?”
Rocca seemed anxious, but she appeared too sincere to be disbelieved. Still, Maria couldn’t dismiss the evidence that said otherwise.
“Did Vitale have any contact with the investigation? Any of the paperwork?”
“Yes, Donna Maria. He helped me.”
Maria looked for incongruence in Rocca’s body language as she asked, “Did you know there was a bullet hole in the front passenger tyre?”
Rocca’s head snapped towards Maria, and she stared at her with wide eyes, shaking her head. “No, Donna Maria. Of course, I did not know this. I would have told you if I’d known.”
Maria nodded, satisfied she was telling the truth. “Can I take Roberto home now?”
Rocca stood. “I will have him brought to you, right away. I am so sorry, Donna Maria.” She stood, pulled her jacket down, and walked out of the room.
Maria waited.
At the click of the handle, Maria stood and when the door opened, she stepped through it and past Roberto before he could enter the room. By the time they exited the building, he trailed a pace behind her. They walked
across the car park at the front of the DIA and got into the car. “Are you okay?”
He lowered his head. “I am sorry, Donna Maria… It was a setup, Donna Maria. Alessandro.”
She looked into eyes filled with rage, his jaw square and strong. She placed a hand on his sleeve. “I know, Roberto.”
His nose flared. He rocked his jaw from side to side and squeezed his words through clenched teeth. “What can I do?”
“You can go home.”
He turned his head and looked through the passenger window.
“Your bike has been released from the compound and taken to your house.”
He continued to stare.
An image of Vitale, Rocca’s partner, came to mind, and she began to formulate a way to deal with him too. “I will have a job for you later, but now you need to rest.” She glanced at him and felt the warmth that came with affection. She smiled. “Roberto.”
He turned to her.
“You need to be careful.”
His troubled expression didn’t change. Maria drove in silence. The air was heavy with the unspoken they both knew needed addressing. She needed to be honest with him. “I don’t know how to handle this with Simone.”
“She’s going to be angry with me.”
Maria nodded. Simone was going to be furious with her too.
He sighed. “She vowed after our family was killed that I should never be involved in this business. She sacrificed herself to the Amatos, working for them so that I could be protected, you know?”
Maria felt the pain that had crippled her earlier in the church resurrect in her chest.
“She doesn’t know I have made my own way. I have worked jobs, independently, but she doesn’t know about them at all. I kept it from her, because she worries about me. I have learned skills. I’ve been fixing cars since I was thirteen, Donna Maria. The pizza delivery is a good cover job, but I’m ambitious. Simone will be angry with me, but I want to work for you. I’m good at what I do, Donna Maria.”
“Simone will be angry with us both, Roberto,” Maria said softly, barely above a whisper. She hoped that he didn’t sense the helplessness she felt. “I have become close to your sister.”
He looked down at his hands. “Yes, she has changed too. She is close to you.”
Maria didn’t hesitate in clarifying the truth. “We are lovers.”
He lifted his head slowly and turned to her. “She is happy and safe with you. That’s all that matters.”
“When she finds out that you’re working for me, she’ll be angry.
She’ll walk away.”
His eyes widened. “I will talk to her and explain.”
Maria shook her head. “Not now. Not yet. We have work to do.
Then I will talk to her.” She swallowed. “Capisci?”
“Sì, Donna Maria, whatever you think is best.”
Maria turned the car into Benitos Street and parked outside Simone’s house. It reminded her of the night of the explosions at the port, and the supper they had shared at her uncle’s restaurant, and the first night they had made love… She had the sense of falling downwards, and the emptiness inside her became dense and dragged her deeper. She blinked to chase the sensation away and focused on the steady rise and fall of her chest. But the hollowness lodged there and expanded.
She opened her eyes slowly, turned off the engine, and reached up and squeezed Roberto’s shoulder. “You are a good man, Roberto. A strong leader. I have plans for you. There are only two people you can trust; Giovanni and Angelo. If you can’t speak to me, you speak to one of them.
Anything of interest you see, you let them know.”
“Capisci. Thank you, Donna Maria.”
Roberto entered the house. Maria leaned back in the seat, took a deep breath, and released it slowly. Her eyes stung as she held back the tears, and the tension in her head worked its way from her shoulders to her gut. This was going to bite her on the arse. She buried the scream that had built inside her. She had to be honest with Simone, but how? Simone would feel cheated, violated in the way Patrina had made Maria feel. She slapped the steering wheel hard and pain shot through her arm. Such a fucking mess.
She closed her eyes and waited for the anger to pass. I need to explain to Simone before it’s too late.
32.
Maria cruised slowly up the drive and parked the Maserati outside the villa. Noting the Romeo that looked as though it had been abandoned in haste on the driveway, her chest expanded freely, and she smiled at her thoughts. Simone would be cooking or preparing food, her skin darkened from the heat of the day, her eyes bright as they had been when they had parted at the café. Simone would be feeling good after her day of freedom, even though Maria had spent the best part of the afternoon containing her reservations and dealing with Alessandro’s crap.
She would make sure Vitale went down for his part in her father’s death. She would prefer to see him rot in prison where he would be used to satisfy the men’s carnal needs. Death would be too clean and easy for him.
She stepped out of the car and breathed in the salty, warm air. The absence of music stirred her and as she entered the villa, she was met with an eerie silence that made her heart pound. Simone’s eyes had a stillness about them, and a chill trickled down Maria’s spine. It wasn’t the swollen red rings around her eyes or the damp puffy cheeks that stopped Maria in her tracks and had her heart dropping like a stone, it was the packed travel bag at Simone’s feet and the keys to the Romeo on top of an envelope on the breakfast bar. Pesto, in the corner of Maria’s eye, lifted himself from his bed and stretched. Maria clicked her fingers
, and he settled down in his basket.
She took a step towards Simone. “Simone.” She held out her hands, palms up, pleading to her as she stepped closer. “What’s happened?”
Simone took a pace back and brushed a tear from her cheek. She shook her head and tears streamed onto her cheeks. “How dare you?”
Maria tried to maintain a calm exterior, her stomach spiralling, and her heart thundering. Simone knew. Fuck. The constriction in her throat stopped her swallowing, and her lips were dry and unyielding. “What is it?”
She saw disgust flash across Simone’s eyes. It was everything Maria deserved. But the pain and the betrayal that emanated from Simone, Simone had done nothing to deserve that. Maria had failed her in the worst way possible, a breach of trust. She could never come back from a breach of trust. This is over.
“I saw you.”
Maria took a deep breath and looked into Simone’s eyes as she released it slowly. “Where?”
“Outside the DIA with Roberto. I drove past you, Maria.”
Maria heard, “Don’t you dare fucking lie to me,” in Simone’s tone and read the same in her eyes. She bit down on her lip. “I’m sorry. I need to explain.”
Simone thrust her hands downwards and grew in stature. “Explain?”
Maria had never heard Simone shout before, and the ferocity in her tone ripped through her heart.
“Explain what? That my brother was talking to the DIA? That you were talking to the DIA with my brother? That my brother had a keen interest in what was going on in the square earlier today. That my brother is fucking working for you. What is there to explain, Maria? Tell me. What is there to explain that the woman I love has been fucking with me all this time? If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t have done this. Or is it just Roberto you’re interested in to further your business interests?”
Simone threw a double quote gesture, and her eyes looked wild with rage. Maria looked away, every word resonating in the stabbing sensations that penetrated her chest. Hopelessness dragged her down, and the bottom of the pit fast approached. “I should’ve said something sooner.”
