Barresi: Emily Trilogy: A New Orleans Mafia Romance

by Lux Miller

  I hear the tumblers on the door disengage and Dante tenses. He presses the gun harder against his father’s head, dragging it to one side where it indents against the softer tissue of Matteo’s temple. Dante grimaces as he slides his trigger finger onto the trigger, his eyes flashing to the door as Luca steps inside and quickly locks it behind him.

  Luca looks frenzied, his eyes wide as they flash back and forth, between me and the scene in front of us. He makes a garbled sound and takes several steps towards Dante. Dante growls and roars, “Stay where you are! I’m acting on orders…”

  Luca growls, “Stand the fuck down, Dante! This is a big mistake… you can’t come back from this.”

  Dante shakes his head. “I can’t do that, brother. Orders are an oath of intent, and I have accepted my orders.”

  Luca sucks air in through his teeth, his face going pale. “From who? What traitor would demand this of you? Who do you answer to that would move your hand like this besides the devil himself?”

  Dante winces as beads of sweat trickle down his face, and from my vantage point, I can see the terror and determination that are waging war in Dante’s eyes that stay transfixed on his father’s face.

  Matteo closes his eyes and whispers loud enough to be heard, “Dante, please…”

  Dante closes his eyes and pulls the trigger, a soft blast emanating from the front of the gun as a splatter of blood sprays across the desk from the other side of Matteo’s head. The proud man slumps in the chair as Dante drops the gun onto the desk, his entire body shaking.

  Luca dives across the room, jumping over the desk and shoving Dante out of the way as he snatches his father’s form up harshly, shouting, “No!”

  Dante stumbles back away from the desk, his back colliding with the wall as he looks on in horror. Despite Luca’s attempts to hold him upright as he checks for any signs of life, Matteo’s body hunches over the desk, his forehead coming to rest on the stack of papers he was perusing moments ago, a small pool of blood forming around his head.

  Luca whirls around to face Dante, yanking his own gun out and pointing it at his brother. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t fucking shoot you right now…”

  Dante swallows and raises his gaze to meet his brother’s, tears cutting streaks down his otherwise stoic face. My heart thunders in my chest as Dante crosses his right arm over his chest, his newly repaired wrist resting against his heart. He drops to one knee slowly as Luca’s breath hitches in his throat, his head whipping back and forth wildly as he mutters, “No.”

  Dante and Luca lock gazes as Dante utters words that, even though I can’t understand, break my heart. “Attraverso la morte, mi alzerò. Il tuo comando è il mio dovere...”

  Luca shakes his head wildly, “No, no, no… I can’t accept your oath. I am not—”

  Dante nods, his piercing stare never leaving Luca’s face as he remains on his knee in a gesture of fealty. He switches his words to English, but the tone of finality in them would be understandable in any language. “You are now. I have made my bones… Boss.”

  TEN

  Losing my sparse lunch of lukewarm hospital food was not on my agenda for today. Of course, neither was bearing witness to a murder. Again. Yet, here I am… retching on the floor of the well-appointed office while Luca and Dante argue loudly in Italian.

  Luca still has his personal gun pointed at Dante as Dante remains kneeling on the floor in a show of loyalty that has me believing Dante’s story from earlier in the hospital. Dante said he had to kill someone to join the mafia. But none of this makes sense… did Dante really just murder his father to fulfill some twisted mafia rite of passage?

  Luca’s snarling voice pulls me out of my vomit-scented haze as I hear him growl at Dante, “Whose orders?” Dante looks up at Luca from the floor, sadness overwhelming his classically handsome features. Though all of this has happened in mere seconds, it feels like hours as I stand there woozily trying to keep my balance.

  I don’t know if it’s the rush of hormones to my body that has me upchucking the contents of my stomach or what I just saw happen. It’s probably a combination of the two and the uneasiness that hovers in the air around us.

  Keeping his eyes and gun focused on Dante, Luca approaches Matteo and lifts him into a sitting position. His hands shake slightly as he checks Matteo over. He averts his gaze for a few seconds and presses his fingers to the side of Matteo’s neck. His face falls almost instantly.

  His voice is pained as he looks at Dante again, gritting his teeth as he demands answers. “He’s dead. Answer me, Dante… who ordered the hit?”

  Dante stands, keeping his head bowed. With Matteo no longer slumped over the papers, he pulls one out and hands it to Luca. Luca reads it over, then makes a strangled noise. He shakes his head quickly, a look of disbelief on his face.

  “Did you do this too?”

  Dante shakes his head. “No, but father wanted everyone to think I did. The orders… they…” Luca slams the paper down on the desk, his gaze focused on the ashen face of the man who once struck fear into any living creature. Now, the emptiness of the hollow expression on his face just makes me feel heavy.

  Luca glances at me then snaps his gaze back to Dante. “That doesn’t make sense! Why would he order a hit on himself?”

  Dante sighs. “His secrets are not mine to tell, brother. But, he wanted to assure I made my bones, with or without your assistance. And since all you’ve offered on the journey so far is interference, he ordered me into a hit he knew you couldn’t stop…”

  Luca stomps around the side of the desk, his back to Dante as he rubs the barrel of his gun along the side of his head. His emotions are splayed out raw on his face and if I could move my leaden legs, I’d try to offer him some sort of comfort, though I’m not sure what I could do to help.

  “What makes you think he thought I wouldn’t try to stop this?”

  Dante sighs, averting his gaze back to the floor. “Because he knows you never loved him. He knew you’d never shoot someone you love…”

  Luca’s face twists in agony as Dante’s word crash over him like a tsunami. “I… that’s not… it’s just…”

  Dante shakes his head. “You respected him. You feared him. You revered him. Sometimes you even liked him. But you didn’t love him. Not since you were a kid. In fact, I’d be willing to say you hated him with every fiber of your being, because he was never the father you needed.”

  Luca’s face is frozen like a statue in a snarl. At this moment, he looks like a feral beast about to pounce on its lunch. But just under the surface of the agony is pain. Deep, raw pain that has cut deep. And a glimmer of truth, I realize with a gasp.

  Dante knows it, Luca knows it… and even as an outsider, I know it. There was no love lost between Luca and his father, but Luca is fiercely protective of Dante for the exact opposite reason.

  Luca gasps as panic washes over his face. “Shit… we’ve been in here too long, Paul and Marco will start to wonder what’s up. If they check the cameras… you’re toast for treason.”

  Dante’s entire body is stiff, his movements jerky as he approaches his brother cautiously. “Put your gun away, Luca. We both know you’re not going to shoot me. You and I both know now this is what Father wanted.”

  My body tenses yet again as Dante’s pleading eyes land on me. “Help us stage the scene…”

  The frog that’s been taking up residence in my throat finally leaps free as I croak, “What? Stage? To look like what? There’s nobody else here…”

  Dante nods, sighing softly. Luca turns to look at me. He puts his own gun away, shoving it back into the front of his pants and walks over to me, gathering my face in his hands. “It has to look like suicide, Emily... my Father left a note he intended to be the official record. It’s the only way that someone doesn’t go down in a conspiracy to commit murder…”

  Gasping, I put my the back of my hand over my mouth and shake my head, pointing at the ground as I pray that I won’t puke on Luca.
Despite my negative response to him, I nod. My words are muffled against my skin as I reply, “Just tell me what to do…”

  Luca nods slowly, then exhales. “Say as little as possible, but if you’re asked a question, lie your ass off. He shot himself, and that’s all you know.”

  I’m sure my eyes are full of tears as my heart breaks for this man who now has to choose between the immediate grief of watching his father die in front of him or protecting his brother. While I have no experience with the latter because I was an only child, I completely understand the former. My father was dead to me years before he died. He was a ghost of his former self, too self-absorbed in his gambling sprees and debts to notice the brokenhearted teenager he was supposed to be raising.

  I also understand that losing someone who’s been dead to you for years hurts in a different way than losing someone you’re not ready to let go of… and right now, I get the feeling that Luca is hovering between the two extremes. He will grieve his father, but right now, his focus is on saving the family he still has.

  I watch in silence as I drop down to my knees, my arms wrapped around my belly in discomfort.

  Luca and Dante move Matteo, placing the gun in his own hand. I don’t know what they’re doing, but they fiddle with the gun for a moment, then fire it into the desk with Matteo holding it. There’s a small flash at the end of the gun, but from what I can tell, nothing was actually fired.

  Luca nudges his brother out of the way and they both step back away from the desk. I have no clue what else they’ve done to stage the scene, but the speed with which they flip things makes me think this isn’t the first time they’ve staged a suicide.

  That thought should turn my stomach, but I knew the kind of bed I was crawling into the first time I slept with Luca and when I let myself have feelings for the man made of stone. Now it’s mine to lie in, no matter what kind of atrocious acts he commits.

  I have no clue what they’re doing, but the less I know, the better. Once everything seems to be in place, Luca lets out a bloodcurdling scream and whips out his phone as he presses his back against the wall. I don’t know who or what he’s texting, but the sudden crash against the barricaded door gives me the idea that he’s texted Mike or one of the men who stood guard outside.

  A thunderous bang snaps my attention to the door as the frame splinters and it swings open wide. Three enormous men pour into the room with guns drawn and wild expressions on their faces. I feel fear wrench my belly as they survey the room.

  Dante has returned to his knees, his head in his hands as his body visibly shakes. Luca is pacing back and forth nervously, his hands going in and out of his pockets as he mutters in Italian.

  The man named Marco rushes over to where Matteo is slumped over the desk, lifeless. The one named Paul goes straight to Luca, interrogating him like it’s the inquisition. Mike takes one look at me as I clasp both hands over my mouth in an attempt to prevent another spray of vomit. I shake my head quickly, my eyes haunted as I point at Dante.

  I can’t make out any of the words that are flying around me in a mix of Italian and English. I can feel my head getting lighter as the gravity of the situation closes in on me and encases me in a heavy sense of dread. I blink my eyes quickly, trying to clear the fuzzy blackness that creeps in on the edge of my vision, but it proves to be pointless. The last thing I remember hearing is distant sirens as the darkness rises up to meet me as I fall.

  ***

  Less than two weeks after Christmas, I find myself once again standing in the shadows of Saint Louis Cathedral. When the Barresi family last gathered here, it was to celebrate the joyous occasion of the birth of the Lord and Savior. It was a beautiful observance of Catholic tradition, even if I felt like an outsider looking in.

  Today, the mood is somber as the family prepares to say goodbye to its patriarch. I can feel the heaviness in Luca’s demeanor, especially in the last few days as the New Orleans Police Department released their initial findings into Matteo’s death. His death has been initially classified as a suicide, pending further investigation, which the family has declined. Though foul play has been ruled out in Matteo’s death, the family had moved to have him buried in haste.

  Despite the circumstances surrounding his death, the Catholic church has graciously allowed for Matteo to be buried on hallowed ground, so the family wasted no time in making arrangements. I still feel like an outsider, but it was Bianca who put her foot down and demanded I attend the service. I certainly wasn’t going to disobey her. She may be small, but she’s fierce and I’m not about to tempt fate by making her mad.

  Luca made it clear that nobody was to object to my being here. There have been mutterings behind my back, but nobody has dared to speak up in my presence and in turn - his. Luca has kept at least a hand on me since we left the car that brought us here, and I know that it’s as much for his own comfort as it is for mine.

  He’s kept his posture stoically straight and a blankness to his face that doesn’t betray what he’s feeling, but he can’t hide everything. Despite his declaration that he hated his father, I think that deep down, he still loved him, even if all he loved were the memories.

  I know how it feels to love a memory versus the shell of a man that stands before you. I did it for years before my father was murdered, and even though there was no love lost between my father and I in his final years, I still cherish the memories of happier times that survived my teenage angst. I just hope that one day Luca will be able to recall something about his father that will make him smile.

  Right now, I am sandwiched between Luca and Dante, and neither have spoken to the other since the day Matteo died. They live under the same roof, yet their lives have diverged to the point that they no longer cross paths. I suspect much of that is planned.

  Though both men are too proud to admit their grief, I feel like neither of them are coping well with it. Both carry hollow expressions on their faces. For men who keep a lot of secrets, both of them could stand to work on their poker face. For the last several days, they’ve simply gone through the motions of living. If I wasn’t living with them, I doubt they’d even eat on some days.

  Yet, despite the chasm between them, they need each other now more than ever. Even if Dante pulled the trigger, I’ve seen enough of this family to know that he wasn’t the one pulling the strings. Surely Luca realizes this too?

  I don’t remember much of that day now. I’ve tried to block out the horrifying memory as best I can. After seeing a hardened criminal like Matteo slump over the desk like a rag doll, I’d lost my lunch and my dignity. When I’d come around after passing out, the place was abuzz with police officers and medical personnel trying to revive Matteo.

  I squeeze my eyes shut to try to stop the little drummer boy from throwing a party inside of my head as the priest reads the short, but simple eulogy to memorialize the man. As a moment of silence is called to reflect on the eulogy, I bite down on my bottom lip and slide my hand into Luca’s. I gasp softly when he grips my hand, keeping my eyes averted away from him so that I don’t have to answer the questions that I know will be on his face as soon as he realizes what I’ve tucked into it.

  Swallowing down the bile that threatens to bubble up into my mouth, I squeeze his hand gently and pull mine away, leaving behind the folded up note that Dante passed to me this morning before the services. I have no clue what the contents of the letter are, but Dante stressed how important it was that I get it to Luca before the end of the ceremonies.

  I know I’m cutting it close as the services begin to wind down, but it’s taken a lot of soul-searching to find the guts to give it to him. I keep my head tucked away from him, but peek out of the corner of my eye to see him open the handwritten letter. He’s holding his breath as he reads it, and his shoulders slump as he crumples the note in his fist.

  Several heartbeats pass before Luca grabs my hand and tugs it to his mouth. I whip my head around and my eyes meet his as he pulls my body against his. He leans his mout
h down to my ear and whispers, “Thank you.” Then he plants a kiss on top of my head and presses my hand gently over his chest, murmuring, “Sei la mia grazia, mi hai salvato.”

  When I stare at him blindly, he chuckles softly, then leans his forehead against mine and whispers, “You are my grace, you saved me.” He squeezes my hand against his chest, then releases me, peering around me and nodding his head at Dante, who’s seated on my other side.

  When the priest makes the call for pallbearers to come forward, I gasp as both Dante and Luca make their way out of the pews and walk to the front. Alongside them are Mike, the man named Marco, the man named Paul and several other men that I don’t recognize.