La Sposa

by Sienna Mynx

  The question stuck in his gut as well. “I assume we will know the answer shortly.” He nodded toward the gates. Tall black iron gates surrounded the property, and the land stretching to the Mancini’s villa was so neatly manicured, it looked like golfing green. Mancini’s compound was as vast as Melanzana. It rose up from the tallest hill like a solitary kingdom. It had been in Mancini’s family for close to three hundred years.

  “Shit, we’re here.” Lorenzo grunted.

  An armed young man, who looked to be in his teens with a gun twice his size, accompanied another. They stopped at the car and peered in at Giovanni. The older, leaner man cut a hateful glare back toward the caravan, accompanying Giovanni.

  “We won’t leave our men outside the gates.” Dominic informed them both in Italian.

  The man frowned, and they waited. He stepped back and nodded for them to pass. They drove along a forested dirt road. Lorenzo removed a smaller gun from the band fastened to his ankle. He checked the chamber and verified it was loaded. He put it back under his pants leg once the car parked.

  The door was opened for Giovanni. He emerged, as Armando Mancini started down his marble steps toward him with eight men following, each meaner looking than the other.

  “Giovanni. Benvenuto.”

  He was greeted with a kiss to both cheeks and he did the same.

  “How long has it been?” Armando asked.

  “Over a year, possibly longer.”

  “Yes. Ah, Lorenzo, Dominic, good to see you both.”

  “Bullshit,” Lorenzo said.

  Armando smirked. “True.”

  “Is he expecting us?” Dominic asked.

  “He’s expecting Giovanni. You two are welcome to join me for a drink. While we wait.”

  “We intend to meet him together.” Lorenzo said.

  Armando clasped his hands behind his back. “This is my home. You will show respect to my father. He wants to meet with Giovanni alone.” Armando then cast his gaze back toward the men that came with them. “And they are to remain outside. If that doesn’t suit you, then you are free to leave.”

  Giovanni put up a hand. “No need. I will see him alone.” He cast a look to Lorenzo for him to fall in line. His cousin cut down Armando with a glare, but didn’t object.

  “Very good. Now, gentlemen, you know the routine.”

  The men stepped forward and patted down Lorenzo, relieving him of all his weapons, including the one strapped to his trouser sock. They did the same to Dominic. Giovanni was not searched. It would be considered an insult to do so, based on his status. He could sense Armando’s displeasure with having to accommodate the intrusion.

  “Please, follow me this way.”

  Together, Armando and Giovanni entered doors at least eight feet tall. The vestibule led to a foyer with high cathedral ceilings and two elegant oval stairwells that led to the second floor. Armando continued through the sunken lower level toward the back halls.

  “How is he?” Giovanni asked with forced concern.

  “Not so good. The cancer is gone. But his recovery has taken a toll. The doctors are amazed he lasted this long.”

  “I had no idea he’s been this ill.”

  “We’ve kept it private,” Armando said. He stopped before an open parlor equipped with a pool table. “Dominic and Lorenzo can wait for you here. I will take you to the gardens.”

  Giovanni made eye contact with his men. He nodded that he would be okay. He saw Lorenzo struggle with the separation but he did as requested. He and Armando continued on. Once they reached the doors to the outside veranda, Armando stopped him.

  “Go to the right. The gardens are there. He’s easy to find.”

  He opened the door and stepped outside. The back of the estate was as expansive as the front. He walked out along the cobblestone path that wound around flowers of colors plucked from rainbows. It was very serene. And the warm temperature made it all the more welcoming. Giovanni found the Don seated in a chair that extended his legs and lifted them so he could recline. He lowered the book he had been reading upon his approach.

  “Join me,” Mancini said.

  There was a chair next to him. When Giovanni drew closer, he could hear the old Don’s staggered breathing. The sunlight gleamed off his oxygen tank. Mancini looked up at him with a face filled with wrinkles. He cut his gaze back to the flowers in bloom. Giovanni sat. “You don’t appear surprised to see me.”

  “I’m not,” Mancini wheezed.

  “They tell me Manny Cigars is your name.”

  “No one has spoken that name to me in over twenty years.”

  “Maybe if you had returned to America, they might have.” Giovanni offered.

  Mancini shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about this day since I learned she was alive.”

  “Who, my wife?”

  “My daughter!”

  “Don’t call her that. You know damn well she isn’t your daughter.”

  Mancini chuckled. The old Don coughed. He removed a hanky and covered his mouth. Giovanni waited for the coughing fit to end. Don Mancini wheezed in a breath. “I’ve never met her in person you know. Only seen her in pictures and on the television. She is as beautiful as her mother. Looks just like Lisa.”

  “What is this about really? Revenge? Extortion? What are you after?” Giovanni asked.

  “Hold your tongue.” Don Mancini cut him a glare. “You are in my home. Show respect.”

  A tense pause lengthened between them. “Va bene. Then make it plain for me. What do you want?” Giovanni asked.

  “She’s my daughter.” Mancini looked over. “I want her to know it!”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  Mancini coughed and hacked up phlegm spitting it over his shoulder to the grass. “How did you find out the truth, Gio? Who told you?”

  “Does it matter? I had hoped I was wrong. I’m still not convinced you are her father. Excuse me if I don’t see the family resemblance.”

  “I owe you no convincing,” Mancini replied. He cut his gaze back toward the garden. “The story I tell will only be shared with her.”

  Giovanni laughed. “Then you have a big problem old man.”

  “You don’t know my reach, son. She is in Italy because of me!”

  “So you did bring her here?” Giovanni asked. “I spoke to Rocco. He told me about you and my father. So what is this? Some sick act of revenge all these years later? You did all of this to destroy me?”

  “I can give a shit about you!” Mancini spat. He coughed hard and Giovanni sat up alarmed. He made to rise to get Armando but Mancini grabbed his arm. “Sit! Sit now!” he said coughing, but capturing enough breath to speak.

  Giovanni sat. Mancini turned up the oxygen on his tank and wheezed down air into his lungs until his breathing normalized. “Two years ago, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. Too many cigars I suppose. And as you know, I love my cigars.” Mancini chuckled. “The doctor told me I wouldn’t last six months. After losing my Rosa, I didn’t give a shit about life. But Armando, he isn’t ready for the legacy he will inherit. Like you, he is full of pride and ego. So I went under the knife twice. What’s left of my lungs is barely enough to pump oxygen to my brain. Still, I exist.”

  “The devil is hard to die.” Giovanni remarked.

  Mancini laughed. “True. You think this is about revenge? You are such a fool. What do I need with revenge?”

  “Then why? Why send her to me…”

  “I never sent her to you!” Mancini wheezed. “I brought her to Italy to bring her to me! Me! The moment I found out, I was dying. I needed to make peace. She doesn’t know I exist. But I’ve known of her all her life. Protected her. And you!” The Don leveled his finger at Giovanni. “You got in between us.”

  “This is bullshit.” Giovanni said.

  “You respect nothing.” Mancini said with evident distaste. “In my day, omertá had meaning. Men lived by a code. I saw you slaughter people because of the Calderones. Women? Children.”<
br />
  “That’s a myth. I didn’t kill children.”

  “Taking a child’s parents and casting them to the streets is as good as killing them. Do you think I would trade my daughter for you?”

  “But you forget something. I killed the Calderones because of my love for her. For justice. You let her mother die, and did nothing…”

  The accusation caused Mancini to seizure with rage. He slammed his fist into his hand. “Non essere un idiota! How dare you say that to me! You have no idea what I went through, how I tried to save Lisa and Mirabella!”

  Giovanni shook his head. “Try again, old man. You had two daughters. That’s right, I know Mira has a twin.” He reached in his pocket and tossed to the garden table Mira’s bracelet and Marietta’s necklace. “You’re going to sit here and tell me that you brought them both to Italy for this reunion, two years apart? When you couldn’t give a shit about them being separated in America for over twenty years?”

  “Marietta is alive?” Mancini sat forward. He picked up the necklace, then the bracelet. He looked upon them both with wide-eyed wonder. “Is she?”

  Giovanni frowned. “You know damn well she is!”

  “No. No, Giovanni. I was told she was killed. That she died with Melissa. I had no idea she lived. Where is she? Have you found her?”

  Giovanni wasn’t sure what to make of the panic in Mancini’s voice. “I’m not telling you anything until you share the truth about my wife.”

  “I saw them when they were born. Little brown girls. They weren’t identical but I loved them as if they were. I had these made for them by Del Stavio, when Lisa told me she was pregnant,” Mancini smiled. He stared at the jewelry, as if lost in a memory. “Strangest thing, when the doctor wheeled my girls out to me and Lisa. When they were born, they were different colors. Mirabella was dark like her mother, and Marietta was fairer like me. It was like our love had divided and bound us. A miracle.”

  “Love?” Giovanni chuckled. “James Walker tells it a different way. Melissa was barely sixteen when you snatched her from him. How is that love?”

  “I loved her!” Mancini said, closing his fist around the jewelry. “The first time I saw Melissa, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. You had to see her. What did you think when you first saw my Mirabella?” Mancini hissed. “Were you drawn to her instantly? Well, multiply that times a hundred and you will understand what Lisa did to me. She was a sweet kid. Naïve. I helped her…”

  “That’s a lie. You ran a bar and you seduced her away from her boyfriend. Probably raped her the first time you had her all alone after you threw James in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Then you turned her onto drugs.”

  “That’s a lie! I never turned Lisa to drugs! Ever!” Mancini wheezed. “It’s complicated.”

  “Bullshit. I’m no fool. I know what you and men like you are capable of,” Giovanni said.

  “You mean, men like us?” Mancini smirked. “Where is Marietta? Is she really alive?”

  The question distracted Giovanni. Did Mancini really not know that the other daughter existed? Or was this all more of his bullshit? There were too many gaps and holes in between the truth. He began to question if he’d ever uncover the real truth. “Why don’t you know about Marietta?”

  “It was a long time ago, Giovanni.”

  “And?”

  “The Ciaculli massacre made a mess of things in Sicily. The war with the Republic tore families, men that were brothers in blood apart. We were all scattered to the wind. The Dons had lost control. They needed their son’s home, my father wanted me home. Your father tried to warn me. And I would have listened, but Lisa was pregnant. I had abandoned her once and when I returned, she was on drugs. I cleaned her up and left her again. When she told me about the babies, I knew I had to be there for them.”

  “You wanted children with an American black woman?” Giovanni scoffed.

  “Don’t you?” Mancini chuckled.

  “This isn’t about me!”

  Mancini shot him a glare. “I wanted babies with Lisa. She wasn’t just some American puttana. She was my Lisa. Special, in ways you should know. Especially if you claim to love Mirabella the way you profess to.”

  “But you already had a wife and a son. You’re telling me you were willing to give them up.”

  Mancini sighed. “It was complicated.”

  “Right.” Giovanni smirked. “Complicated. I saw my father’s complications. How he kept my mother and his wife. Slept with them both, crushed their spirit under his boot heel.”

  “I was arrogant enough to believe myself invincible, like Tomosino. And maybe I am. But Lisa never was. I should have never trusted her to them.”

  “Them?”

  Mancini didn’t answer. He kept speaking as if Giovanni hadn’t spoken. “Somehow, my father figured out why I chose America over my bride, my son, and the family. He was furious. I believe it was Del Stavio who turned on me. Later, I carved him up for justice,” Mancini said with a clenched fist.

  “You killed Del Stavio?”

  “Yes. After Lisa died, I needed revenge to keep breathing.” A wicked smile slipped over his mouth as Mancini’s hard stare latched on to him. “You do know that kind of revenge. Don’t you, Gio?”

  “We are nothing alike.”

  “Are you sure about that? Enough to risk her life twice?”

  “I can protect her. She is the mother of my children.”

  “Children? I thought she had a daughter for you?” Mancini asked.

  “She’s pregnant,” Giovanni answered.

  Mancini closed his eyes to the news. “Why did you take her? You could have any woman. Why my Mirabella?”

  “She’s mine. That’s all I will say on it. Mine.”

  Slowly, Mancini’s eyes opened and the rage on his face revealed the dormant monster that the cancer had tamed. Giovanni knew if the old man had a gun, he’d draw it. Mancini continued to speak, but this time through clenched teeth. “Lisa was the mother of my daughters and I failed her! A hit was put on Lisa’s life to bring me back to Sicily. Her car was firebombed and she barely escaped.” He wagged an accusing finger at Giovanni. “Just like the bomb set in your home for Mirabella.”

  “That wasn’t…”

  “And then set again in America for her! Do you know how I grieved Mirabella? How badly I wanted to attend Mirabella’s funeral. The doctors wouldn’t let me travel. It was hell. That’s why I didn’t intercede when you waged war on the Calderones. I wanted revenge through you.” Mancini coughed and covered his mouth again. “And one day, almost two years later, I turn on the television and there she is. Alive. With you again!”

  Giovanni fell silent. Guilt and shame rendered him speechless. Mancini nodded, satisfied. “I didn’t bring her here for you. I’m proud of who she has become. A star. A beautiful, talented woman loved by the world. As her mother should have been. A star. And then you show up and rip her life apart. Impregnate her. Strip her of her identity. Do you think any father would want that for their child? Do you think I’d want her to suffer for men like us, like her mother did!”

  Giovanni shifted forward in his chair. “What you want means nothing to me. Finish the fucking history lesson so our business can conclude.”

  “I flew back to Sicily when I learned my father had the bomb planted for Lisa. I left Caruso Capriccio to look after Lisa. He and another woman named Gemma worked for me. They decided to take Lisa to Gemma’s family in Chicago. She was to stay there and wait for me. But something happened. Caruso said he didn’t know much, because he was still running our operations in Philadelphia. Gemma claims to not know why, but for some reason, Lisa ran away in the middle of the night with one baby.”

  “Mirabella?” Giovanni asked.

  “Yes. She took her back to Virginia. I only learned about it months later when I had her found. She told me she had no choice. She told me that Caruso and Gemma couldn’t be trusted. She begged me to help her get Marietta back. She said she could only escape with one
baby. I asked her what she was escaping from and she made no sense. She sounded paranoid. It was fucking madness! Like it was when she was on drugs.”

  “She needed you.”

  “And I was needed here. We were in the fight of our lives against the anti-mafia commission. I had to join La Cosa Nostra, or risk two hundred years of my famiglia’s legacy.”

  “So you didn’t believe she was still in danger, or you didn’t give a shit? Which is it?”

  Mancini sighed. “I believed her. I’m not proud of my actions. I was a selfish man then.”

  “You still are!” Giovanni charged.

  “I knew something was wrong. Lisa wouldn’t separate the girls. What could I do from Sicily? She lost faith in me and cut me off.”

  Giovanni wiped his hand down his face. “And Gemma? Caruso? What did they tell you?”

  “Gemma said Lisa was back on the drugs. I still don’t know if that was true. She went clean when she found out she was pregnant. Gemma said it was best that Marietta stay with her family, and Mirabella stay with Lisa’s family until I return. Caruso told me when he checked in on her in Virginia; he was told that Lisa had run away again. Abandoned Mirabella and was living on the streets. No one knew where she was.”

  “That’s a lie.” Giovanni corrected. “Mira remembers her mother being at home with her in Virginia when she was young. Lisa was not on the streets. Why is there no record of their birth in Philadelphia?”

  Mancini frowned. “What do you mean there is no record?”

  “Are you telling me you don’t know that their birth certificates were pulled? Mira and Marietta are recorded as being born in Chicago. For Mira, she has no father listed on the certificate.”

  “That makes no sense. I never had that done. I always believed that Lisa’s parents had the birth certificate changed since Mira doesn’t know me. I’m almost certain they didn’t know about Marietta.”

  “Then your father had their birth records removed?”

  “No. Patri was dying. He just wanted me home. He wouldn’t waste resources on that kind of deception.”

  Giovanni mulled it over. It had to be Caruso. He was working against Mancini from the start. He set things in motion to get rid of Melissa Ellison and the babies.