by Sienna Mynx
“Bullshit!” Giovanni said.
"You two don’t see it, you two don’t believe it, but you’re pushing each other away.”
“Don’t counsel me on my marriage,” Giovanni grunted.
“Fine. It’s not my place. I have other news. I was referred to another doctor, one in Firenze. I spoke to her today. She has read Mirabella's file. Do you know what she thinks triggers these episodes?"
"I never gave you permission to see another doctor," Giovanni said. “Why not tell me about this?”
"Hear me out. First, you have to accept that she was poisoned."
"I accept it," Giovanni said. "I know more about the poison in her than you or those doctors."
"What I mean to say is that you must accept that her body's reaction to detoxing the poison is a long hard road. It happens. The fevers, the tremors, the vomiting, even the fainting, and seizures are part of this. It's all normal. Accept that."
"But it isn't normal. It's the fucking symptoms of a junkie," Giovanni said. "When she first came home, for days she was fine. She was mine. And then... and then this came on? It’s not normal. We need to find a cure."
"You're right, brother. But she's no junkie. And there may be no cure.”
“I won’t accept that.”
“Listen to me, Gio. We have approached this wrong. Our focus is on what Kei Hyogo gave her and not what he did to her."
Giovanni frowned.
"It's not the poison that makes her this way," Dominic said.
"Don't speak in riddles."
Dominic nodded. "It's the stress. It's the trauma. PTSD."
Giovanni drew back. "PT... ?"
"Mirabella was kidnapped, tortured; she went through something more stressful than she probably ever experienced in her life. This doctor says we should stop looking for a medical cure. We should get her help for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Her behavior points to it. This isn't a medical doctor. We have the best medical doctors on her recovery. Even Sweden has consulted and believes she is healthy. This is a different kind of doctor."
"Don't say it."
"A head doctor."
"No!"
"An American psychologist."
"I said no!"
"Listen to me Gio. This doctor has dealt with cases of severe mental trauma before. We see this woman and it could change everything."
"No. No. It's the drug," Giovanni said. "She isn't crazy. I know what a damn psychologist wants. To convince her she belongs in some asylum or rubber room. Or to make her think the problem is her husband. This life we lead. I won't put Bella through that."
"Do you mean you won't risk losing her?"
Giovanni clenched his teeth. "I'll never lose her. Ever. Even if that means we keep her here. Forever."
"You don't mean that Gio. You love her too much to let her suffer."
"I love her too much to let anyone come between us." Giovanni said.
"That's not what I'm saying. This woman can help her. She's in Firenze. I'll leave first thing after our meeting tomorrow to see her. Check her out." Dominic patted him on the back. "And then you can bring Mirabella to meet her. Just a meeting."
Giovanni shrugged off his touch. "I don't want any fucking body poking around in my wife's head. And you know why."
"If this doctor is right and we don't treat her PTSD it could get worse for her. Think of her nightmares and depression, then the days she acts as if nothing has changed for her. There aren't enough blue roses in Sicilia you can bring to her to cure the pain. And she will change, for the worst. Am I right?"
"It's like a man sent off to war?" Giovanni asked.
"Yes. Yes, like a traumatized soldier," Dominic said. "The mind has power over the body. We both know that."
"But when she came back to me, she was fine. We were better. Then she had those seizures."
"Yes. That's the physical part of it, Gio. The toxin in her system made her sick. No one denies that. But it's the trigger that came later. Being hospitalized and separated from you and the kids. It was stressful and then she lost control of the stress. She goes in and out of the hospital, and she sees how it stresses you and the kids. She tries to suppress her fears, but they consume her, and she loses control. Add that to her not feeling well, and it makes things very hard for recovery. Let me meet with this doctor. I can help. We can do this together."
"Okay," Giovanni sighed. "Okay. You check out this doctor. Call me and I will bring her to see her. No. I have a better plan. I'll take her to Chianti. I had planned to see Rocco soon anyway. It's past time for a trip. She's upset about this Paris show. Maybe we can finally use those tickets I bought for us to go to America. Get her out of here, away from all of this."
Dominic smiled. "Now we have to discuss the territories you've signed over. I've taken several meetings, and I owe you some updates."
"I've done a lot of damage," Giovanni mumbled.
"You reacted in a very stressful time. You saved many lives. We are weaker now, Gio, and we need you thinking not reacting. We are drug dealers now."
Giovanni wiped at his mouth. It felt dry, his lips chapped. His gaze flickered up to his bar. There was only one type of drink that could quench his thirst tonight.
"Gio?" Dominic said.
"Yeah, I've been thinking about the business. The clans and the drugs have split our interests. The Benicias are benefiting the most," Giovanni said.
"Yes. They are," Dominic agreed.
"And the inspector. Is he still sniffing in our garden?"
"I hear he's got a task force together. And some agents work for him undercover to get close to you. I haven't found any in our clan, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. We take them now younger and younger. And we lost a lot of men in the war with Hyogo. Some families have turned against us."
"That may prove useful. Chaos." Giovanni sighed. "Let me sleep on it. Call in Lorenzo, the rest, and we'll meet. Discuss it. Wait? Where are Carlo and Renaldo? I haven't seen them in weeks."
"Carlo went to America," Dominic said.
Giovanni’s brow arched. "Why?"
"Not sure, something Lorenzo wanted him to do I suppose."
"But I thought I gave him time off. To work through things."
Dominic shrugged. "Renaldo is back and forth from Milano to Roma. He and his new wife are expecting a baby. Remember?"
"What's in Roma?"
Dominic didn't answer.
Giovanni narrowed his eyes on his consigliere. "What's in Roma?"
"They think Isabella has fled there. He's been on the hunt. We were waiting to tell you once Lorenzo located her." Giovanni’s jaw clenched.
“She hasn’t,” he mumbled, and kept his thoughts to himself. He appreciated the effort from Renaldo. He was grateful for his enforcer's speedy recovery. The man was a machine. To take as many hits as he did, and still be able to run with the beasts took the strength of character, mind, and body.
"I can stay tonight. We can talk about whatever you want," Dominic said as he glanced over to the liquor cabinet. Giovanni chuckled in his throat. Dominic and Mirabella both thought he drank too much. Neither realized that it was part of the job. Dominic picked up Giovanni's gun and inspected it. Giovanni sat forward. He stared at the weapon.
"You know why I call him Danny Boy?" Giovanni asked.
Dominic looked at the gun and then to Giovanni, and then back at the gun again. "We all name our guns."
"Danny Boy isn't a common name," Giovanni said.
"I thought it was because of Madre. Because she is Irish. She sang the song when Patri died. Right?"
"Yes. Ireland. My mother. My time there." Giovanni recalled it all. "When I was a Ó Ceallacháin, an O’Callaghan, my grandfather said that we had blood ties all the way back to the King of Munster."
"A King?" Dominic’s eyes lit like they did when he was a boy. Giovanni knew he loved stories of kings and Roman Caesars. He even collected stolen Roman artifacts and studied everything about Julius Caesar.
Giovanni n
odded.
"But since I was half Sicilian my blood was tainted. I had one friend, a cousin. Different from Lorenzo, but tough and strong like him. It was my cousin that taught me how to load, shoot, and unload a gun. When my grandfather found out, he didn't punish us. Instead, he gave me that one."
"Patri taught you to shoot a gun I thought?" Dominic asked.
"No. He never did. Before Mama and I left he showed me how to kill a man, but he never put a gun in my hand," Giovanni said.
"What was the name of this cousin?" Dominic pressed.
"His name now is Henry Neil. He dropped the family name and fled Ireland when he was only seventeen. He lives in America," Giovanni said. It was this cousin that told him he wasn't a freak but a warrior. Said to him he should return to his father and not let his mother stop him.
"Danny Boy is a song my cousin Henry used to whistle all the time. He'd see me crying, or bruised and trying to conceal my wounds after the boys had kicked me around. He taught me how to fight back, fist to fist, before ever going for my gun."
"Song? What did it mean?" Dominic asked.
Giovanni began to whistle the melody. He took the gun from Dominic and turned it over in his hand. He remembered Henry with his bright red hair and face covered in freckles, whistling the song and smiling at him. "Henry said it was the song in my mother's heart when she gave birth to me. Knowing I was conceived in rape. He said Mother knew that I carried my father's evil spirit inside of me. He said it's the song they will play at my funeral. It is my death song."
"That's bullshit," Dominic said. "Madre was not raped. It's a lie!"
"I thought so at first."
"It's a lie Gio. I heard some women say that Madre was a disgrace a zoccoletta in Sicilia. It was in the market one day when I went shopping with Madre. I was eight. I asked Madre what the word meant and why they said it about her. She said it as a lie. She said she loved Patri, and he would never hurt her."
"Madre did love him, but it doesn't change who our father was. What he did to her."
"I don't believe it, Gio." Dominic tried to stand. Giovanni grabbed his arm. He forced him to sit and listen.
"I was there, Domi. I called father to come collect us and bring us home. The look on Madre's face when he showed up that day is one I will never forget. The look of defeat and sadness. She wore it for many years afterward; I knew the truth," Giovanni said. "Strange how a boy as young as Henry could see the devil in me. He had known before I did what I was to become.”
“You’ve become a brother, a father, a husband, a leader.”
"Father was all those things too. If I'm not careful, I'll become him."
"Why is that a terrible thing? You've taken the family further than he or Grandfather ever could. We are Battaglia, and that means something." Dominic pounded his fist into his palm.
Giovanni reached for his gun. He raised the weapon and closed one eye as he took aim at a lamp. "In the early days when I was a killer and not just your brother, I'd whistle Danny Boy when I pulled the trigger and sent a motherfucker off to the grave. When I cut up Kei Hyogo with a machete as he begged for his life, I whistled Danny Boy. When the reaper comes for me, Dominic, I want you to tell Mirabella to sing that song over my grave, as my madre did for Patri."
"You will outlive all of us," Dominic said.
"I know how this ends for me. When I took the vow of Omerta, I accepted it. Maybe I'll live to see my sons turn to men, to walk my lucciola down the aisle, to repair my Bella’s faith in people again and earn her forgiveness for forever changing her life. Maybe? One thing I know for certain, I won't leave this earth until all my enemies are named and dead."
"Of course, you will live, Gio," Dominic said.
"I'm done being at odds with who my mother wanted me to be, and who my father taught me to be. I'm done tolerating my enemies. I'm done being two steps behind the men who are supposed to walk in my shadow. Do you understand, Dominic?"
Dominic nodded. “I’m done being little brother. I’m your consigliere. I’m a man. I want you to see me as your equal not some pup you have to potty train.”
They settled into a comfortable silence.
"How does the song go Gio?"
"Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling..."
Giovanni set the gun down after humming a few bars from the song. He dropped back and closed his eyes. If his Bella had a stress disorder it gave him hope. Maybe he didn't need a German scientist to find him a cure to make her whole again. Maybe it was much simpler. He wanted to have a little faith. But nothing in his life had ever been that simple for her or him. So faith would have to wait.
"Go, Domi. Leave me alone. Tell the men to stay out of here tonight. Not in the mood for company."
“What about Mirabella? What if she needs you?”
“She has her children. The nightmares come less frequently when they are in her arms.”
He heard Dominic leave. He was alone. Giovanni pushed up from his seat and walked on instinct to the bar. His hand touched the handle, but he withdrew. He again wiped his hand down his face, though he had no tears. He went over to his gun. He checked the chamber and found it fully loaded. Giovanni closed his eyes. His mother was friendly to everyone. And her love for his father was as real as her torment. Eve took Tomosino's death hard. At the funeral, she sat by the grave long after the family left. She sat there and held a crying Catalina. It hurt Giovanni deeply. His mother was denied the permission by the church to sing at his gravesite because of the stigma of being Tomosino’s whore. So she stayed and sang the song for her and her children--Catalina, Dominic, Giovanni. It was the first time he heard her sing it of course.
Even now, all these years later he could remember her voice, her singing, the black veil covering her tear streaked face. She was beautiful, as was her singing. Everyone saw it. But Giovanni saw something else. He saw the grave. He saw the faces of his father and his uncles. He saw Lorenzo weeping. He saw the future. For all of them. He tucked the gun into the front of his pants and walked out to the front of the villa. He collected the suit and things he brought from the house. It was one of the suits that his wife had tailored for him. Maybe if he wore it for her tomorrow, it would make her smile.
Giovanni started the long climb up the stairs with Danny Boy at his side.
Chapter Seven
The Deal
Sorrento Italy
Mirabella had not closed her eyes since Giovanni walked out of the room. She lay in the darkness listening to the soft breathing of her babies. Gino was on her pillow. His pink lips puckered in an invisible suck of the pacifier now denied him. She loved the cherub face of her boys. Zia had shown her pictures of Giovanni when he was a baby. Her husband's sharp features had marked all of her children. When they looked up at her with his eyes, or smiled at her with his smile, her heart melted. There was no escaping her love for him, except in her nightmares.
She had another bad dream. And this one woke her with tears. In her nightmare she was alone. She searched the many rooms of Melanzana for her family. Each one empty. Every piece of furniture had vanished. No sounds of laughter or sweet smells from the kitchen. And then she ventured outside, hoping to find her loved ones. But the entire beauty of Italy was wiped away. All around her was darkness, an empty void. She called out to Giovanni. She shouted his name and her voice echoed back to her. She was alone.
Mirabella leaned over and kissed her babies. Eve stirred. Her little girl opened her eyes.
"Hi, Mommy," Eve yawned. "Go to sleep, Mommy. It’s good for you."
Mirabella smiled. Eve had elected herself Mira's nurse and caregiver. At night when Papa left for one of his many trips, her daughter sensed her loneliness, and tried everything from reading a book to her, to making her brothers behave to cheer her up. It was sweet and sad. Not a burden for a four-year-old.
"I'm all right," Mirabella smiled.
"Are you sure?"
"Sto bene. I'm better than okay, sweetheart. I promise."
; "Papa was here," Eve said. “He kiss you. He kiss me, too.”
"Did he?"
Eve nodded.
Mirabella pressed her lips together. "Can you do Mommy a favor?"
"Yes," Eve said.
Mirabella stroked her daughter's hand. "Can you go to sleep and not worry so much about me?"
Eve smiled.
"I think so," she said.
"If the boys wake up, can you tell Leo to wake up Zia?" Mirabella asked.
"Where you going?" Eve asked with a frown. "Don't leave us. I’m scared!"
"I'm going to find Papa. To make sure someone is taking care of him," Mirabella said.
"He was happy," Eve said. "Everybody is happy."
"That's right, baby. Nothing to worry about." She picked up Eve's hand and kissed it.
"Ti amo, Mama," Eve squeezed her doll and closed her eyes. “Don’t go. I’m scared.”
"Ti amo, così tanto," Mirabella said. “Go to sleep. I’m right here.”
She hummed a nursery rhyme so her daughter could drift back to sleep. She kissed her baby girl and her sons once more. She could kiss on these kids forever. They owned her heart. She then eased out of bed. She found her robe to cover her long sleep shirt and put on her slippers. In the past, she'd put on something sexy, do her hair, and welcome him home properly. Mirabella removed her scarf. She checked the mirror and used her fingers to comb out her new hairstyle. The bangs were longer than she wanted, but her features were highlighted by how her wrapped hairstyle under the scarf lay flat to her head and framed her face.
The house was silent, but his men were always close.
"Hi, Leo, Gio’s home?”
“Si, Donna, he’s in villa Rosso,” he said.
“I’m going to keep the door open. If the kids wake and won’t go back to sleep can you get Zia?”
“Si, Donna,” Leo said.
She smiled, and he smiled back. She descended the steps and headed to the back of her villa, then out across the lawn. She glanced up at the moon. It was huge in the sky. And though there were no stars she found the night to be beautiful and calm. It was a good omen. She approached the troupe of men gathered outside of villa Rosso. They looked at her with surprise, and then their gazes dropped away. Mirabella was their Donna, and if she perceived any contact with the men inappropriate, there would be hell to pay. Everyone was barred from villa Rosso, but that rule did not apply to her.
