by Sienna Mynx
Mirabella looked up from her finishing touches on Adara’s veil. “Are you thinking this baby will change Carlo for the better?”
“I’m hoping. I don’t want Carlo to change, I know what he is. But I’m hoping that he can trust me not to feel that he has to be someone different.”
“I see,” Mirabella said.
“I’m sorry if my question is too personal.”
“Oh, it’s not. Fatherhood and changing behavior is the initial reaction. When Giovanni first met Eve, it affected him. He talked about legitimizing the family a lot.”
“Leaving the Camorra? He did? And?” Adara asked.
“He had his sons, he had our family and things changed. Men don’t. Even if their hearts want them to. Who they are is always buried underneath.”
“Carlo has issues with trust. Sometimes I think Carlo pretends for me. I think he wants his Pink Lady,”
Mirabella glanced at her with concern.
Adar quickly masked her statement with a smile. “I want our marriage and our baby to free him. To give him peace not pain. He’s had enough pain.”
“He loves you. I can see it. Change can come in many forms. It does for me and Giovanni. We’ve become.... who our children need us to be. That’s what you should rely on,” Mirabella said.
“I suppose. I guess I can say it with you. Since you’ve been so helpful with me.”
“The Pink Lady?”
“Yes. Carlo has issues of trust because of that woman. He broke up with her before he met me. It hasn’t been that long since they parted. Did you know her?”
“The Pink Lady’s name is Shae?” Mirabella asked.
“Yes. Did you know her?”
“For a brief time I knew her,” Mirabella mumbled.
“She hurt him. And I think... I just feel like a part of him still loves her.”
Mirabella walked over to Adara and presented her veil. “Shae was a woman that Carlo needed at a time. That time is over. Trust me. Carlo is his own man. Baby or no baby, he would not walk into a church and commit before God if you were not the woman for him. You’re the lady he wants now.”
“Grazie.”
Mirabella raised the tiara covered in crystals that held the veil and crowned Adara. She stepped back and admired her beauty and youth. Her wedding day was one of the happiest in her life. She wished that same happiness for Carlo and his young bride.
“Perfecto.”
The young woman eyes stretched in admiration. She touched the tiara and then the veil that flowed behind her shoulders. “It’s so delicate. It’s amazing. Bennisima!”
“How about we finish your makeup?”
“May I help?”
Mirabella and Adara glanced behind them. Arielle walked inside. Neither had heard the door open. Adara moved fast for a pregnant woman in a fishtail bridal gown. She went straight to her surrogate mother with so much happiness.
“Do you believe it? I can’t. I wanted this, I prayed about it. But I didn’t think... I didn’t think it could happen,” Adara gushed.
“I do believe it.” Arielle took her face and held it. “Let me get a good look at you. Oh my! This dress, it’s splendid. And you are the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen.”
Mirabella observed the women in respectful silence. Arielle, with her deep olive tan and trim figure wore a Chanel pink single breasted dress-suit that complimented her shapely hips and womanly figure. Mirabella felt the sting of jealousy painfully aware of her own disappearing figure. Giovanni’s sexual desire for her was now often spoken rather than shown due to her late stage in her pregnancy. It made her hormonal, her confidence ebbed and flowed around beautiful women.
“Grazie, Donna Mirabella. È meraviglioso, non credi anche tu? So beautiful for mia piccolina.” Arielle addressed Mirabella directly.
“I’ll leave you two, to get her ready. A little touch up on her makeup and she should be fine.”
“No!” Adara said. “Please stay. I want you both here. If that’s okay?”
Mirabella glanced to Arielle.
“It’s fine with me,” Arielle said with a formal smile. It took strength but Mirabella pushed down her dislike for the woman and nodded that she’d remain. It wasn’t only the fact Giovanni had a business relationship with a woman outside of their marriage that bothered her. It was knowing that Arielle was in love with her husband that made her uncomfortable. As the women pretended at pleasantries while taking on the duty of fixing Adara’s hair, veil and makeup, Mirabella kept recalling the rage and vengeance in Giovanni over Tacchini. She didn’t feel the same level of hatred, but a darker part of her soul understood jealousy and agreed with it.
CARLO RUBBED HIS SWEATY palms and focused on the doors to the sanctuary. He’d never been experienced with nervousness. The feeling was an occupational habit. But he sweated like a pig in the church and kept glancing to the door expecting the devil to come through to drag him away from his second chance at happiness. He remembered Abedi’s warning. She told him his future and it was nothing like the one he had before him now. Was he being selfish by pursuing happiness with Adara? Should he tell her to run from him and keep their baby safe? Should he tell her his curse?
“Relax!” Renaldo grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. “You look like a trapped goat getting ready for the slaughter.”
Carlo smiled.
“If you want to run I got a car outback with the keys in the ignition.”
“Very funny,” Carlo said.
“Proves me right. You’re ready.” Renaldo affirmed.
“Is she late?” Carlo asked.
Renaldo checked his watch. “It’ll start soon.”
Carlo nodded and blew out a long steady deep breath. The others gathered sat patiently in the church rows. A few smiled. In the sanctuary was his mother and sister who had travelled in from Sicily. And his nieces and nephew that he hadn’t seen in months. So were the boys who scattered to the wind when he disappeared to Africa. The Battaglia family and enforcers were present. This was family.
Where was she?
Don Giovanni waited in the vestibule as Mirabella, Arielle and Adara approached from the other end of the hall. He looked up at his wife first then to Arielle, and then to her. Even after everything she knew of his role in the death of her family part of her felt grateful for her future thanks to him. He was dressed nicely in a tailored dark suit with a golden diamond tie-pin.
“You look beautiful sweetheart. Congratulations,” Mirabella pressed her cheek to Adara’s and gave her a squeeze of love.
“Grazie Donna.”
“Call me Mirabella. Remember what I said. We’re family now.” Mirabella walked over to Giovanni and he kissed her cheek. Arielle noticed but pretended not too. She busied herself by giving Adara a parting hug.
“This is it. I’m so happy for you, cara, be happy.” Arielle said.
“I am. Grazie.”
Arielle stepped aside, and the Don approached. He stared down at Adara for a moment then gave her a smile.
“I have a wedding present for you.”
One of his men left out the front door and then returned. Adara couldn’t see behind Giovanni but she heard the door to the chapel open and close. The Don moved and her brother emerged with Dominic Battaglia. She hadn’t seen him in four long years.
“Luca?” Adara asked.
He had changed. He was seventeen now. He looked older than his age with a little facial hair.
“Luca!”
Her brother walked over to her and she fought back her tears as she hugged him. She wasn’t sure what name they gave him when they were separated. She had no contact with him when she joined the agency. And only recently discovered through Arielle that Giovanni had put him in Sicily with the Mancini’s a year ago. Now he was in her arms.
“Are you okay? Are you well? Say something!”
“They tell me you’re getting married?” Luca asked. He looked down at her pregnant belly. He looked up at her with concern. “To a Battaglia?”
>
“It’s a long story. I’m so happy you’re here. I prayed... I just didn’t believe in my heart it would happen. That I’d live to see you again.”
Luca Calderone hugged her once more.
“It’s time,” Arielle said. The siblings parted, and both were reluctant to let go. Adara wished for Luca to walk her down the aisle. But that wasn’t how it was done. And they both knew it.
“I’m happy,” Luca said with a final parting kiss to her cheek and then he was escorted into the sanctuary.
“You will be just fine. I’m so happy for you, cara. This is the future I prayed for you, the one I promised you,” Arielle said. Adara nodded that she remembered. She kissed her surrogate mother and let her go. Arielle walked over to Giovanni. She gave him a nod of respect and then went into the sanctuary.
“Grazie Don Giovanni. Thank you for keeping my brother, my family safe.”
Giovanni extended his arm. In a perfect world, the arm extended to her would be of her father Angelo Calderone. In a perfect world, the man she was about to marry wouldn’t be known as the cruelest and most feared enforcer in all of the Campania. But there was no perfect world. Adara and her baby would live in this world. It was the world she belonged too. The Calderone’s were dead. After today she would never speak their name again.
She accepted Giovanni’s arm.
The door opened once more. Mirabella walked down the aisle followed by a young man Carlo didn’t know and then Arielle. The women both smiled at Carlo before finding a seat at the front of the church. The organist played and everyone in the church stood.
“No escaping now,” Renaldo whispered.
“I never run from anyone.” Carlo gave him a sly smile. Renaldo chuckled and shook his head.
He didn’t need an escape. He wanted her. The only woman brave enough to give him a chance.
Giovanni appeared with Adara’s arm locked around his. His bride’s veil did not cover her face. Her tiara glistened like a thousand diamonds crowning her head. She was beautiful in every way. He was frozen stiff by the love and happiness he witnessed in her eyes. His blood ran cold. He tried to shake it. To push the Sukuma witch words from his thoughts. But he couldn’t. Her words strangled his thoughts.
“There is no redemption for you Carlo. You are one of the damned. You rot from here,” she touched his chest. “This is where your soul used to be. Understand? When the roots of a tree are nothing but decay its rot spreads death to its branches. The rot inside of you will live on for generations. Beware Carlo. Happiness is an illusion. Death will always come with a smile on his face, and that face will look like your own.” Abedi whispered as she pushed the opium pipe to his lips.
Carlo closed his eyes and mentally flushed away the African prophecy away with his doubts. It was supposed to happen for him this way. A real destiny not the curse his life had become. It was what Shae tried to tell him when she left him behind. Why they could never be. Adara was the happiness he deserved, the one he earned. And he wouldn’t let his demons convince him otherwise. In Adara he saw his redemption and he believed he could have a future.
“Ti amo,” he said to her in front of everyone for the very first time.
“I love you too,” Adara whispered back to him, her bottom lip quivered and her face flushed pale-pink with happiness. Carlo accepted her hand and Giovanni answered the priest when asked if he gave permission for them to wed. He then stepped back and away. It took a little effort but during their matrimonial rites Carlo was able to help Adara kneel on a cushion provided for her before the altar. He said his vows with anxiousness and forced himself to not grin when she said hers in return. The wedding happened fast. All of it was a blur until he could say to her and the world that she was truly his. It felt like eternity before their vows were exchanged.
He was married.
Houston, Texas
“MS. DORIS, I’M SO SCARED,” Jilly said with tears in her eyes.
“Sit down, come here.”
“Is she going to be okay?” Jilly asked.
Doris rubbed her hand down Jilly’s arm and glanced at the medical staff passing outside of the waiting room. Shae was fine at breakfast. They were laughing with the girls and planning the day. And then she stood. From nowhere blood dripped between her legs. By the time they arrived at the hospital both Shae and the baby were in distress. That’s all they told her. Doris had to call someone to watch the girls before she followed. Jilly would not be left behind. Now she regretted bringing the young girl. If something happened to Shae or the baby it would scar Jilly forever.
“Let me see if I can get some news.”
“No! Don’t leave me,” Jilly wept. “Oh God, please don’t go. Just don’t leave me.”
“It’s okay, she’s okay. Stay here and—”
“Are you the family of Shannon Dennis.” A doctor approached them fast.
Doris and Jilly stood for the dreaded news.
“We are her family!” Jilly announced to loudly for the quiet corridor.
“Yes, doctor. How is she?” Doris asked.
“She made it through surgery.”
“Surgery?” Jilly gasped.
“We delivered her daughter. Both mother and baby are doing fine.”
“What surgery?” Doris asked.
“Placenta previa, it’s an opening of the womb in preparation of labor. It happens with particular cases. Shannon had a high-risk pregnancy. But she arrived in time for us to deliver the baby. We did so by C-section to be cautious. And she’s recovering.”
“Thank God!” Doris smiled. “Can we see the baby? Is it possible?”
The doctor looked at them both. He nodded. “It’s a girl, she’s six pounds three ounces.”
“I knew it would be okay. I always did!” Jilly laughed. She hugged Doris. “I knew it! I told you!”
“Let me take you to see the nursery,” the doctor said.
The doctor led the way. Doris had to keep pulling Jilly’s hand to keep her from running ahead. The girl’s excitement had Doris sprinting ahead of the doctor as if they knew the way. When they arrived at the nursery they saw many adorable babies wrapped in pink and blue blankets with snug little caps.
“Which one is she?” Jilly put her nose to the glass. “Which one is my baby girl?”
The doctor went inside and spoke to a nurse. The nurse nodded and walked over to the far left. She wheeled a cart with a baby swaddled in pink, sleeping.
“That’s her Jilly,” Doris said and rubbed the young girls back.
“We are going to name her Jewel. Like a treasure. I came up with it. Shae said yes. Her name is Jewel.” Jilly grinned. “Hi, Jewel. I’m your auntie. Auntie Jilly.”
Doris stared at the little girl. She was a creamy peach colored with puffy cheeks. She knew how much Shae loved the idea of being a mother. This was the greatest gift of all to her friend.
“I can’t wait!” Jilly said. “Ah, um, can I go to the bathroom?”
“Huh?” Doris frowned.
“I got to pee.”
“Now?”
“Yes, yes, now.” Jilly said and squirmed a bit.
Doris looked down the hall. She saw no one with them, just a few doors. “Well I can...”
“I’ll find it. You wait here. Watch Jewel. Don’t let no one take her!” Jilly said and ran down the hall.
“Jilly, wait!”
Jilly didn’t wait. She had it all planned out. She knew exactly what to do. She darted down the hall and then to another. She looked around and saw patient rooms. Her heart raced, and her breathing became labored. She was even sweating. She didn’t have much time. If she got caught Ms. Doris would be angry with her and make her go home. But she had to do it. She just had to.
Jilly turned another corner. To her relief she spotted a doctor coming out of a room.
He frowned at her hurried approach. “Is there something wrong young lady?” he asked.
“Yes, I ah, my mother just had our baby.”
The doctor listen
ed intently. “Okay?”
“My father is in the service. He’s in Italy now. I must call him. Is there any way the hospital will let me? Anyway, please sir.”
The doctor smiled. “Come with me. I think I can help.”
Jilly swallowed her smile and excitement. She needed to appear helpless and kid like. White people responded better to a young black teenage girl that way. At least that had been her experience when she ran with her gang and hustled them from the parking lot for their pocket money. Any story of homelessness did the trick.
The doctor took her into his office. “Do you know the number?”
Jilly removed her backpack. She carried it everywhere. She unzipped the side pocket and removed the number she wrote down after discovering it in Shae’s room. Jilly had once been a very skilled thief. It was hard for her not to steal. She’d stolen from everyone in the house, even the girls she was friends with. She did so for a rainy day. When she snooped in Shae’s room to lift some money or jewelry she found Shae’s planner and the phone numbers in it. After the bad trip Shae took to Italy Jilly swiped the number to the Battaglias. She knew it would come in handy.
“Here, this is the number.”
The doctor looked at it. He nodded and placed the call. He then handed her the phone. She accepted it. The doctor watched.
The phone rang twice before someone answered.
“Hi, uh, can I speak to Mirabella Battaglia?”
The person spoke Italian.
“Mirabella Battaglia!” Jilly shouted at the person.
The doctor frowned. The person again spoke in Italian. She glanced up to the doctor. “Do you speak Italian?”
He nodded.
Jilly didn’t believe in God. How could she after all she’d seen and been through with no unquestionable evidence of him in her life? But in that moment, she did believe. God had sent her this doctor to help Shae and Jewel. “Can you translate?”
The doctor took the phone and spoke. Jilly waited.
He glanced up at her. “Mirabella Battaglia is not home.”
“Okay, tell the person that it is very important that we get a message to Mirabella. It’s for Carlo.”
