“Good.”
“Will you be okay in Calabria?” I have to ask because cartel guys are a whole other territory.
“I have to be. I’m gonna get Dante and Gio over there. This has to be handled by people we trust.”
I agree. Dante and Gio are capos to Claudius just like Alex. Together they’re called The Four. They’re the people you call when things get out of control and trust is called into question. I know Alex can handle Calabria but the fact that he’s bringing in the boys means he doesn’t trust anybody here.
“I’ll stay here with you,” Gibbs offers and looks in my direction.
“Thanks, man. I appreciate the help. I’ll set up a meeting with Amadeo tomorrow,” I state, and Alex nods.
“Amadeo isn’t going to like having his alliance terminated,” Gibbs says.
“No, but we could have been well and truly fucked because of him.”
Allegations like human trafficking bring in a whole investigation of everybody. I’ve seen it happen, and on this occasion, the feds would have had a real good head start if they’d gotten more evidence or even a lead.
“Okay, boys. Let’s do this,” Alex says, leaning forward. “Looks like trouble came after all.”
It always does. Never fails. There’s always something lurking around the corner, like a shadow against the night waiting to steal away anything that resembles a normal life.
My life has been anything but normal since I was twelve.
This is the second time today that I’ve thought of my mother and the way she died. Enemies came to kill her. It was a message to my father. They made me watch while they did it. Held me down and made me watch them kill her so I could tell him what happened.
I guess I’m thinking of her again because of Willow.
This shit today is another reason why I should leave her alone.
I play with the little crystal bracelet in my pocket. I’ll take it and keep it as something to remember her by.
Chapter Five
Willow
I look at the canvas before me with the half-done painting of the beach.
It’s taking shape, and I guess it would be something to be proud of if I were an average artist.
I’ve managed to capture the depths and hues of the mingle of turquoise and green that enrich the Mediterranean Sea, and I like how I’ve done the jagged rock formations.
Gazing out ahead, I confirm it. The depiction in my painting is striking and similar, but just like every other painting I’ve done this year, it’s missing something.
Dad always said that a true artist always leaves their signature style in their work. It could be some little thing. Anything from the technique in the brushstrokes to the actual objects in the painting itself.
For me it’s emotion. The way I paint shows emotion. I don’t use light colors for happiness, or darker colors for sadness. It wasn’t as simple as that at all. It was more the case of stirring emotion.
People can mimic and copy. I’ve felt like I’ve been doing that. When you paint with emotion, it’s different. It comes out in the work you’re doing, and others feel it.
I’ve just been a blank slate. A void.
Today, I’m doing what I’m doing to try to take my mind off last night and a man I can’t have.
I got back a little while ago. Since Lurlene wasn’t here, I went to my room, got out my painting equipment, and grabbed a canvas. I came out to the back garden, where I decided to get lost in my work.
I need it now because it’s a new day and I have the same old problems from yesterday looming over me.
Things are not okay. They’re far from it, and I don’t know what to do.
I know I can’t just stay in Italy either. It wouldn’t be right. I’d just be draining Lurlene, and I’m sure she likes her privacy even though she seems to enjoy having me here. The last thing I want to be is a burden on anyone.
Honestly, this was perhaps the worst time to go on vacation, even for an escape break. The adult thing to do was to stay and sort out the shit. I just didn’t know William would strike and hit me harder.
The adult thing to do is to fly back to LA and get my stuff sorted out. I have over two hundred paintings in that gallery. Some on display, others in storage I use for my shows. There were some with orders in them for sale and all sorts of equipment I had stored away so I could have everything in one place. Most of all, my personal space/ studio there is like my little sanctuary where all my ideas were born.
William basically clipped my wings. That’s why everything I’m doing lacks emotion.
Of course, that’s everything except last night.
My damn cheeks burn again from the memory, and I reach for the glass of ice water I brought out here. Most of the ice has melted in the heat, but it still does the job of cooling me down.
Being sensible is the key thing to remember here. I have to be sensible and push aside anything that can drag me further into the hole I’m already in. The goal is to get out of the hole, not make it deeper and fall further in. So far in I can’t crawl back out.
So, in regard to Donny, I just have to forget. That’s all I have to do. Last night was hot like hell and off-the-charts sexy and amazing, but then there was the gun. No good thoughts have ever come from the sight of a gun. It signifies danger. A dangerous man.
That should be enough to repel me. It’s my raw desperation that’s getting the better of me, and admittedly, it was nice having the attention from a man like that.
I haven’t dated since William, and Donny is the first man I’ve been with in five and a half years who wasn’t William. It’s probably understandable that I’m needy, and since I’m on the brink of insanity, I think that might be a factor too.
I turn when footsteps sound behind me on the pavement.
Lurlene walks toward me with a tray of cookies and fresh lemonade. She’s smiling, but there’s worry in her eyes. She’s dressed up like she’s going out again on one of her dates, and the flick in her hair is a tell that she probably spent the morning at the salon.
“Hi, sugar,” she says.
I’m always comforted by her southern accent. Mom hates it and tries her best to speak in even tones so she can check herself, although she has a little bit of a twang when she argues. It all comes out then.
“Hi,” I reply and shuffle around on my seat to face her.
She pulls up one of the little chairs and sits next to me, setting the tray down on the wicker garden table.
“Thought you might like these,” she says, waving her hand over the assortment of pastries. “I stopped by the restaurant and picked them up. I’m hoping they’ll cheer you up in some small way.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it a lot.” I nod and pick up a croissant.
She made all these herself. Her restaurant is one of the best on the beach, and she’s just picked up an award for it.
“I know you do.”
“You going out?” I ask, looking her over with a little smile.
She chuckles. “You know I am. It’s Sunday. Lunch date day.”
I laugh. She has lunch dates with the guys she might be serious about on Sundays. That’s often date number two or three. She says it’s a more of a get-to-know-you date. It’s then that her potential suitors get to know she was Miss USA 1999, and about La Rosa, her restaurant.
“What about you?” she adds. “How are you after yesterday?”
The laughter fades away in my throat, and I raise my shoulders into a shrug. “I don’t know what to say, Lurlene. I got two bombs dropped on me in one.”
She draws in a breath and reaches for a lock of her hair, allowing the ends to curl around her thumb.
“Sweetie, you know I never liked William. I could have died when he walked out on you at the wedding. I could have killed him for being such an ass. Even the worst of the assholes I know, know not to do that, and then to hear he was fucking around behind your back too… rubs me the wrong way.”
I bite back a smile at
her words. Mom and Lurlene are so different from each other. The same as I am from Jade and Varity, my sisters. They are duplicates of Mom, whereas I’m like Lurlene. I took to her more when I was younger and loved her rebellious ways. I liked that she didn’t bend over backwards to conform just because she was being told what to do. I wish I could be like that.
If I’d truly embraced her ways, most of the shit that’s happened to me would never have happened.
“I know. Now this. He’s taken everything from me. Everything and all that I treasure.”
“I know, sweet girl. We’re all worried about you. Your mother called last night too.”
I groan inwardly. Mom is the last person I want to talk to. “What did she want?”
Lurlene chuckles. “Willow, please. She’s worried.”
“I doubt that.”
“For the love of the good Lord, please don’t make my sister hate me. She already thinks I’m a bad influence on you. You should have heard her last night with that fake Valley girl accent.”
I burst out laughing. I could be at my worst, and Lurlene would know exactly what to say to make me laugh.
“Oh my God, what? Is that how you think she sounds?”
“My ears to God, Willow. I felt like I could have been on the set of Clueless.”
I shake my head. I guess she’s not exactly wrong. Mom really goes to town when she’s talking to people. Especially Lurlene.
“If it’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s fake people,” Lurlene adds. “Your mother is that. Such a shame because your father is such a sweet man. He doesn’t allow his status to get to his head.”
I nod, agreeing. When Dad stopped teaching at UCLA and started selling his paintings, he was the same quirky guy everybody always knew. Even when he came into wealth and we moved into the mansion in Bel Air. Mom decided she could suddenly act like the First Lady, but he stayed the same.
Dad certainly did the opposite to what Mom did to me when William walked away. The memory of her cruel words makes the backs of my eyes sting, and a tear runs down my cheek. Lurlene notices and hands me a tissue from the side of the tray.
“Willow, talk to me. I know you have a lot going on,” she says.
“I don’t really want to talk to Mom. Not now. She can go tend to Jade or Varity with their perfect husbands and babies. If she calls again, just tell her I’ll speak to her another time.”
“My God, child, did something else happen between you two? It’s not like you to say such a thing. That’s more my thing. Sometimes I wonder if by some crazy miracle you could be the daughter I never had.” She offers me a kind smile.
“I wish I were. You would never have told me that it was my fault that my husband-to-be left me at the altar, and if I thought the man was cheating, it must have been my fault too.” More tears come, and I feel like a pathetic mess.
Lurlene’s mouth drops wide open, and she shakes her head at me. “Your mother said that?” She gasps, her bright blue eyes wide with shock as it suffuses her face.
“Yeah. She did. William’s a lawyer. Senior partner in his firm, Lurlene. To her, he’s hot shit, and it had to be my fault things didn’t work out. Know what she’ll say when she finds out his secretary is nigh on giving birth and my cheating suspicions are confirmed? My fault.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, that’s real fucked up. At least I know that part. I know it wasn’t my fault. How can it be? Lurlene, I was good to him. I did everything he wanted me to do, and I was everything he wanted me to be. It just wasn’t enough. I wish to God I’d left him when I started to have that suffocated feeling.”
She nods. “Yeah. I know the feeling. I guess that’s why I’ve been married three times. I dare say that husband number one was probably the closest to perfect I’ll ever get. My Eddie. But the Lord called him home too early. Maybe he was more fitting to an angel.”
I remember her with Eddie even though I was really young when they were together. He was Italian and the source of Lurlene’s obsession with Italy. I was fifteen when he died. He was a professional bodyguard and he got shot while he was on a job protecting some high profile clients.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” She reaches forward and takes my hand into hers. “Don’t be. I was just saying. I think that sometimes you just have to follow your heart.”
“Yeah. I should.”
“How about this… I’ve been thinking you needed a break anyway. You’re here. Why don’t you just stay as long as you want?” she suggests.
Awe fills me, and I’m grateful for the comfort in knowing that I have somewhere to go. She’s been in Italy for the last eight years and I’ve visited every chance I got. This was supposed to be a visit like the ones of the past but I was so messed up when I left LA. I never even bought a return ticket home.
“Thank you. I’m grateful, but I don’t want to impose.”
“Are you kidding? Besides, you’re my kid niece. You’re supposed to impose. Having you around doesn’t make me feel so old.”
“You are not old.” She’s forty-five. There’s no way she thinks she’s old.
“I know. That’s what I’m saying. I don’t want to feel old. We can go shopping together and talk about men all day.” She perks up. “Speaking of which Missy… where did you go last night?” She eyes me with narrowed slits.
At the mention of last night, I think of the man I’m supposed to be trying to forget.
“Out to the beach,” I lie.
She quirks a brow. “I was worried sick, Willow. Don’t you do that again. It’s not safe to go out like that in a country where you don’t even speak the language. And no phone either? Girl, that was not good. I get that you didn’t want to talk to anybody, but that bordered on dangerous.”
“I know. I just flipped and freaked out. I needed a drink.”
“A drink? Thought you said you went to the beach. But you wouldn’t have stayed at the beach all night… would you?” She looks at me like she’s piecing things together.
I can almost see her mind working. My cheeks burn as I watch her try to figure out what I might have gotten up to last night. It doesn’t take much for my aunt to figure me out. She always could. She always knew when I was lying, or trying to cover up something. I lost my virginity when I was twenty-one. I hadn’t seen her for months, yet she took one look at me and knew straightaway that there was something different about me.
She’s doing the same thing now.
“Oh my God, Willow, did you spend the night with a man?” she gasps.
Christ… I don’t have the heart to lie, and I’m not sure I should tell the truth either. I’m almost not ready to confirm it out loud that I absolutely did, and the guy wasn’t any old guy either.
“Um… well,” I stutter.
Lurlene’s eyes widen even more, and a smile fills her face. “Oh my God, you little minx. You weren’t even going to tell me. What’s he like?”
“Gorgeous,” I answer and tuck a lock of my hair behind my ear.
“Was he from here?”
I nod. “Yes, but he lives in Chicago too.”
“Wow, this is too juicy. Tell me more. Are you going to see him again?”
“No… I can’t.” I shake my head.
The smile falls from her face. “Why not?”
I look at her deadpan. She’s always serial dating and doing her one-nighters. She shouldn’t ask me that question.
“It was just a one-night thing. I won’t see him again.” I definitely won’t be going to the club anytime soon either, or anywhere near it. I did what I was supposed to do. Leave quietly and get on with life.
“Well, it’s good you’re getting back on your horse. But I suppose you’ll have your pick while you’re here. Italian men are just divine. I can’t get enough.” She stands and tosses her hair over her shoulder in true beauty queen style. Lurlene will always and ever be just that. She looks perfect in her little top and tight jeans. She barely looks a day over thirty, and she knows it.
“I’d better go, darling. My stallion awaits. If today goes well, I might not be back until Thursday, so the place is yours.”
“Lurlene, today’s Sunday.” I chuckle.
“I know, honey, but Lorenzo has a vineyard, and he’s adamant that I haven’t seen a real Italian sunrise until I watch it from aboard his yacht, so I’m gonna see what this man is talking about. Unlike you, I’m taking my phone, and if you need me, I’ll be hurrying back, hunkety buck.” I laugh, and she bends down to plant a kiss on my forehead. “Don’t worry, my dear niece. Things have a way of working out.”
“Thank you.”
“Call me if you need me. And eat something. Italian men love to have hips to hold on to.”
My damn skin heats up again, but I push her words out of my mind.
She saunters away with a smile, and I watch her go.
I love how she is. So carefree. It must be nice. I am like her because although we’ve both been burned by love, we still hope.
I’m the woman who’s the hopeless romantic. I still want the dream. I still want the guy. That perfect guy who’s supposed to sweep me off my feet and make me his forever.
What a shame that Donny set the bar high for this elusive guy I need to find.
I know I’m completely bat shit crazy for thinking that and shooting myself in the foot. But is it so wrong to want a man who looked at me like I was the most important thing in the world to him, or a man who touched me like I would always be enough?
That’s how Donny was with me.
Maybe that’s why I’m finding it so hard to forget him.
I don’t want to.
Chapter Six
Donny
“Motherfucker!” I snarl into the phone. I grip it hard so I don’t lose my shit and throw it into the fucking sea.
I seethe, baring my teeth, and the soles of my shoes echo against the floorboards when I kick the leg of the table.
The Sting of Love: USA Today Bestselling Author Page 5
