“Stefano is out of solitary confinement,” she said. “So we can go see him again. Isn’t that great?”
I nodded my head. “Great,” I said, without enthusiasm. I couldn’t take my mind off of Lucca. Every time I saw him go into the bedroom with Izzy, my heart sunk. We all agreed that Lucca and Izzy would have to share a bed, simply because we could never be sure if there was surveillance in the apartment. Lucca had the place swept periodically, but he didn’t want to be too careful, so he slept in the same bed as my sister. And that fact broke my heart.
“It is great,” she said, clapping her hands together. “We haven’t seen him for so long. I know that he misses us. I know that I miss him too.”
“Well, then, let’s go and see him. This week. Okay?”
“Yay!” She got up and danced around the room in her bare feet. “I can’t wait to see him. I miss him so much.”
I nodded my head as I took one of the purses and held it up to her. “There,” I said, looking with some satisfaction at the bag, which looked like it was definitely her color. The bag was bright red, and we had glued on various gold and silver stones and beads. “That’s kinda glamorous, isn’t it?”
“It is,” she said. “That’s one of the prettier ones. Now, we have to take pictures of all these things and put them up on the Etsy store and hopefully the money will just pour in.”
I didn’t know if the money was going to pour in or not. It seemed like an awful lot of time, effort and financial outlays for what Izzy was going to get out of what she was making. I estimated that we spent a good $20 on this bag, and it was poorly made, so I didn’t know how Izzy was going to be able to ask for much more than that.
I wanted to humor her, however. That was, I gave her as much time as I could, in between looking for a job and looking for a new roommate. Those two things took up most of my time. I was glad that I had something to take my mind off of Lucca, though. I found him taking up far too much real estate in my head, and anything that I did to get my mind off of him was welcome to me.
That Saturday, Izzy and I went to see my brother, who was serving time at Rikers. I was looking forward to seeing him, yet dreading it at the same time. I somehow knew that Lucca wasn’t going to want to see him as well, so I didn’t even ask him to go with me. I didn’t even bother to tell him. This was a family matter, as far as I was concerned, so Lucca didn’t have an interest in going there with us.
I was looking forward to seeing him, yet dreading it at the same time. Every time I saw him, it seemed that he was thinner than the time before. I knew that he wasn’t eating right in prison and that worried me. It also worried me that he always looked like he was getting more and more depressed. I never knew Stefano to be depressed. He was always the one that I looked up to the most in my life. Well, him and Nico. Now I only had Nico to look up to, and that made me sad.
“You know,” Izzy was saying in the car. “I’m really having fun with you in the house. I hope that you don’t leave anytime soon.”
“Well, you know that I can’t stay forever. You and Lucca…” I was going to tell her that she and Lucca deserved a shot at a real marriage, but I just couldn’t bring myself to say that. I swallowed hard.
“Me and Lucca what?” Izzy asked, looking at me quizzically. “What were you going to say?”
“Nothing.” I took a deep breath as we drove to the penitentiary. It was located on an island in the East River, between Queens and the Bronx. I was happy to be seeing Stefano again, but I always hated coming out the complex. It was just so depressing. I knew that my father probably was the one who really belonged on this island, not Stefano. After all, my father had people killed all the time. Stefano really did nothing wrong, at least nothing that compared to what my father did on a daily basis. Yet he was the one who was serving life in prison, while my father was still out and about, doing his thing. It certainly didn’t seem fair to me.
“Oh, okay,” she said. “Listen, I need your advice. Lucca and I have been married for about a month now, and, well…” She shook her head. “You know. I’ve tried to tempt him with little negligees and things like that, and he won’t, you know.” She blushed. “That’s not normal for a newlywed couple, is it?”
I suddenly felt the need to really lay into her. I wanted to strangle her, as irrational as that was. She was asking me how to seduce the man that I was in love with, and that rankled, to say the very least. “No, it’s not normal, but Izzy, you…”
“It was an arranged marriage, I know, I know. Still, even so, I think that it’s time that we live up to our vows. I’d like for you to tell me how to do that.”
I wanted to tell her the truth about Lucca and me. About how he had cornered me the last time that Izzy wasn’t in the apartment, and Lucca and I were all alone, and he fucked me in my bed and made me come again and again. I wanted to tell her about the time we were together at her wedding to him, and the time we were together when he came to help me pack. I wanted to tell her how I dreamed about Lucca every single night, and woke up looking for him in my bed. I wanted to tell her how his kisses burned my flesh and how, when I so much as caught a whiff of his cologne, my pussy would start to tingle.
I wanted to tell her that Lucca and I were in love.
Instead, I just decided to ignore her questions about how she was going to get Lucca into bed and I just changed the subject. “How do you think that Stefano is going to look today? I hope that he’s gained some weight. He worries me so much.”
Izzy crossed her arms in front of her and pouted. “Okay, Bianca, I guess you’re not going to tell me how I should seduce my own husband.” She looked out the window and I wondered how it was that she never knew how Lucca and I felt about one another. She lived under the same roof as us – how could she not feel the heat between us?
“It’s not my business,” I said weakly. “What happens between you and Lucca isn’t my affair.” I bit my tongue, cursing my unfortunate use of words in saying that it wasn’t my affair. That was exactly what it was – an affair. Lucca and Izzy might have taken vows that were sanctioned by a priest, but I knew that neither of them meant it, so…
No. I was rationalizing. I had to stop that. Yes, they had a marriage of convenience, but I was the one who was stopping them from making it a real marriage. Maybe if I was out of the way, they could make it work.
If only I could stay away from him…
Izzy and I arrived at the island, and informed the armed guards who we were. We drove through the gates and got to the area where we gave another guard our IDs, in exchange for a badge, and were ushered into another area where there were telephones and inmates behind the glass.
I sighed. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When Stefano was caught dealing drugs to the minor, he was sent to a minimum security prison – a regular club fed. He was supposed to already have been out of prison. Then, when he killed that guy in the lunch hall, he was sent here. I hated this place, and I hated that Stefano was around these hardened criminals.
Stefano told everybody that he didn’t kill that guy. He said that it was only a fight – a fist fight. Guys got into fist fights all the time. He punched the guy in the jaw, and the guy crumpled to the ground and died. There wasn’t an autopsy done, which probably would have showed that the guy who died had some kind of heart condition that killed him. And my father didn’t help Stefano out. He didn’t hire a lawyer to try to make sure that things were done correctly, such as making sure that an autopsy was done. He didn’t hire a lawyer to represent Stefano at all in his trial for murder. He basically let Stefano hang, and I still hated my father for that. Stefano had a public defender who was overworked and underpaid, and Stefano had to take his lumps.
Stefano appeared behind the glass. He looked skinnier than ever – his prison uniform was hanging off of him and his cheeks were sunken. I touched the glass as I picked up the phone. I wanted to touch him, but I had to settle for touching the barrier between us.
He smiled when he saw me, a
lthough his eyes looked dead. “Hey baby girl,” he said, addressing me. “And you, butterfly,” he said, looking at Izzy. “Butterfly” was always his nickname for Izzy because he saw her as a free spirit, like a butterfly. The rest of us saw Izzy as being a flake, but Stefano always saw the good in our sister.
He bowed his head as I put my hand up to the window, desperately wanting to make contact with him. “Stefano, you look like you need a decent meal.” I remembered how he used to look – he was as strong and muscular as Lucca. He always kept in shape. Now, he was just a shadow of himself. He looked beaten down and defeated, and this shook me to my core.
“Well, they don’t exactly feed you well in solitary. Now that I’m out of that place, maybe I can start working out again. I can look like the brother you always knew, huh?” He winked at me, trying to make me feel better. It didn’t work, of course. I felt his despair in my bones.
“I’d like that.” I fought back tears. I looked over at Izzy, and saw that this entire visit wasn’t affecting her mood that much. She was smiling at Stefano and she didn’t at all look like she was upset. For some odd reason, that made me want to smack her.
“Stefano,” she chirped in her sing-song voice. “I haven’t seen you in a long time. Wait until you find out what’s been going on.” Her eyes got wide and she stood up.
“What’s up with you, butterfly?” he softly asked.
“Well, I have a bun in the oven and I’m married.” She waved her left hand at him so that he could see her ring. “What do you think about that?”
He nodded. “Who’s the lucky fella?” He didn’t seem particularly surprised, nor particularly happy. Nor particularly unhappy for that matter. He just seemed like he couldn’t really care either way, and that made me sad too. His emotions were muted, too muted, and I knew that was because he was so beaten down.
“Lucca Azzarra.”
At the mention of Lucca’s name, Stefano suddenly stood up and paced around. He looked like a tiger in a cage, pacing back and forth, back and forth.
Izzy and I looked at each other and we both shrugged our shoulders. For some odd reason, the mere mention of Lucca’s name made Stefano extremely agitated, and that astounded both of us.
He finally sat down. “Lucca Azzarra,” he said slowly. “Goddammit.” He looked directly at me. “How can you let this happen?”
I opened my mouth and shut it again. His reaction to Izzy’s marriage brought no emotion to his face, but the mention of who she was married to brought this reaction. It was too weird.
“What do you mean, how can I let this happen?”
“Lucca is a bad dude. You know this, Bianca. Listen, I…” He looked at Izzy. “Izzy, why don’t you go and get Bianca a coke or something from the vending machine, huh? Would you please, my little butterfly?”
Izzy gave me a look, and I gave her one back. Her look said what the fuck is his problem? My look said hell if I know. “Sure, Lucca. Bianca, what would you like?”
“A Coke and some Pop Chips,” I said. I was feeling kinda hungry.
“A Coke and some Pop Chips coming up,” she said, giving me one more final look.
When she was gone, I turned back to Lucca. “What was that all about?”
Lucca took a deep breath. “You promised me that you would protect her,” he said. “A fine job you’re doing there.”
“What do you mean?” I asked him. “Listen, Izzy got knocked up by some guy named Robert, who ditched her, and Lucca agreed to step in to legitimize her baby. He’s a good guy for doing that.”
“A good guy? A good guy? The guy’s a thug. He’s a fucking Don, and he used to be a soldier. I’m sorry, I don’t think that a guy who has killed people is right for Izzy.”
“Oh, you’re a fine one to talk, aren’t you? You were a soldier, too, you know.”
“I was, but I never killed anybody. That wasn’t my role, and you know it. I beat the shit out of people, but I never killed a soul. That Lucca guy is cold-blooded, and I don’t think that he’s right for Izzy.”
“Well, if you didn’t kill anybody, it was because our father never gave you those jobs. Lucca worked for a family in Sicily where he didn’t have a choice on the jobs he took. You were privileged, and he wasn’t.”
“That’s how you justify it?” Stefano looked like a vein was about to pop out of his forehead. He looked around, as if he just realized that there were guards around him, watching. “Well, how about I tell you the main reason why I think that guy’s a fucking sleazeball who shouldn’t be within 50 feet of you or Izzy? How about that?”
“What are you talking about?” I crossed my arms in front of me, not wanting to hear any more shit about my Lucca. “Out with it, Stefano.”
“Lucca Azzarra is the reason why I am here.”
Nineteen
“What are you talking about?” I asked him. “You’re here because…”
“Forget it. Forget I ever said anything to you.” He shook his head. “I can’t say anything to you, not when there are these goons around here watching and listening to everything I say. But you talk to Lucca. You ask him about me, and you see what happens. See how he tries to dance. Do that, Bianca, and then come back here and tell me that he belongs with our sister. You do that, Bianca. You do that.”
I suddenly felt a cold pit in my stomach. “Why? What does he have to do with you and why you’re here?”
“Ask him. Ask him.” At that, he hung up his phone and walked away.
“Stefano, Stefano, Stefano,” I cried into my phone. “Come back.”
But Stefano had his back turned and he was being led by a guard out of the room.
On the way home with Izzy, I couldn’t keep my mind off of what Stefano was saying to me. What did his imprisonment have to do with Lucca? I had no idea what he was talking about. No clue. Maybe he knew something that I didn’t. I didn’t want to think about that.
Izzy was sitting next to me, chatting away about…something. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I was tuning her out, because my mind was filled with thoughts. Thoughts that were clouding my mind.
“Isn’t that right, Bianca?”
I looked at her, realizing that I had no idea what she just asked me. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Stefano looked pretty good, didn’t he? I mean, he’s gained some weight, I think.”
I shook my head, seeing the old Stefano in my head. No, he was a shadow of himself, and that depressed me. But, still, I was going to humor Izzy and go along with the narrative that she was obviously telling herself. “He looked great.”
“I think so. He didn’t say too much about my being married, though. Or the fact that I’m having a baby. What did he talk to you about when I left? He seemed to want to get rid of me for some reason.”
I sighed. “I have no clue. Really.” And I didn’t have a clue. I only knew that Stefano had it in for Lucca. “He seems to have it in for Lucca, for whatever reason.”
“What do you mean, he has it in for Lucca? Why would he have it in for my husband?”
I cringed when she said the words “my husband.” I wondered if I would ever stop cringing when she said that. “I don’t know, Izzy,” I said, well-aware that I had an irritated tone to my voice. “Why are you asking me? Why don’t you go back and ask Stefano that question? He’s the one who seems to have information that we don’t. And he’s the one who is totally leaving us hanging.”
We drove along, and I suddenly felt a sense of dread about seeing Lucca. I didn’t know why. It was just an icy pit in my stomach. A clenching feeling. A feeling that I was going to vomit. I didn’t know exactly why I was getting that feeling - I only knew that I felt as if a dark cloud had suddenly settled over my head.
“Well, let’s go back,” Izzy said brightly. “I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye anyhow.”
“Neither did I. I mean, he got angry and just dropped the phone and walked off. It was so weird, too. Stefano isn’t one to get angry like that. To tell you the truth,
I was really surprised to hear that he was even involved in that lunch room fight. He never started shit with people when we were growing up.”
“He beats people up all the time,” Izzy said matter-of-factly.
I sighed. “That was his job. Nothing more, nothing less. Besides, he only beat up rats.”
“I’m just saying that Stefano has it in him. That’s all.”
“Let’s not talk about this.” I took a deep breath as I saw Lucca’s apartment building coming into view. I assumed that Lucca was there in his apartment. I was going to have to ask him about what Stefano was saying to me, and I wasn't looking forward to that confrontation at all. At all at all. “Come on, let’s go in there and talk to Lucca.”
“Okay.”
I parked the car and we got into the elevator. As I punched the button for the elevator, I tried to tamp down the feeling of dread. It’s okay, Bianca. It’s nothing. What Stefano was trying to tell you was nothing.
Why did I not believe that?
Twenty
I went into the apartment and Lucca was there in the kitchen. The scent of red sauce hit me, along with the scent of garlic bread. As hungry as I was, I just couldn’t eat.
“Hey,” Lucca said, a big smile on his face. “I hope you’re starving.”
I looked at him and then looked at Izzy. “Izzy, could you…”
“I know, I know. You need me to make myself scarce.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re being so weird about Stefano. I hope that you tell me soon what’s going on.”
“I will, I promise.” I glared at Lucca, my hands on my hips.
He suddenly looked white. He looked down at the pot of spaghetti, and then looked me right in the eye. “You saw Stefano?” He tried to make it look like he was tasting the sauce, but I could tell that he really wasn’t. “How is he?”
I crossed my arms in front of me. “He’s not great. And he seems to have a real problem with you.” I raised one of my eyebrows. “You know anything about that by any chance?”
Lucca: Azzarra Crime Family Book Two Page 13
