by J. S. Cooper
“Hey, Giorgio.”
“Yes, sir?”
“You take care of that other thing for me?”
He let out a deep sigh. “I wasn’t sure if you still wanted that to go ahead, sir, seeing as...” He nodded toward Valentina.
“Did I tell you I didn’t want it to still go ahead?” My voice was steel.
“No, sir.”
“So you need to make sure it goes ahead. Tonight. You hear?”
“But...”
“No buts. You can do it tonight. I expect everything should already be in place, correct?”
“It’s in place, but I...”
“Giorgio, you don’t get paid to think. You get paid to act and do what I tell you. I’m not going to tell you again. Tonight, it happens.”
“Yes, Luca.”
And with that, he turned the radio on and pressed his foot on the accelerator. I didn’t care. He could be moody. He just needed to do what I said. Valentina was peering at me with curiosity in her eyes. I hadn’t liked having the conversation in front of her, but she seemed so slow and dumb that I doubted she’d even understand what we were talking about; as we’ve been talking so cryptically.
“So what was that about?” she asked, questioning me.
“None of your business,” I said bluntly.
She looked taken aback for a few seconds and then just shrugged and started humming some song to herself that I didn’t recognize. I didn’t feel bad. Her father was one of the meanest mobsters around. He’d married into the Italian mafioso and dropped his entire family, killing most of them before he left. He was a mean cruel guy. Crueler than I could ever be. I was better than him in all ways and Valentina should count herself lucky to be away from him for a little bit even; if her reputation was going to get ruined.
“So I was wondering...” she asked hesitantly.
“Yeah, what?”
“Um, if we do get engaged, which I know you said might not happen, but if we did....”
“What about it?”
“If we do get engaged, um, will we have to have the white sheets?”
I looked over at her through narrowed eyes. “Why, you got a problem with that?”
“No, no. I just, I just, I mean, I know that it, it... you know.” She stumbled over her words and blushed.
I just stared at her for a few seconds trying to figure out what she was telling me. “Have you had sex, Valentina?”
“No, I haven’t,” she said quickly.
Too quickly. It made me pause. Not that I cared if she’d had sex or not. Our mafia traditions were antiquated. It was our custom, that on the wedding night, the husband and bride would sleep on pristine white sheets and the next morning, the bloodstained sheets were to be paraded in front of all the family members to show that the bride had kept her virtue until the wedding night. Valentina was supposed to be a virgin, as were all mafia brides. I didn’t care if she was or not, but I knew that her family cared about custom and tradition. I knew if we were to get married and the sheets weren’t stained a dark deep red, she would be faced with a lot of shame. That wasn’t my problem though. If she’d had sex, that was on her.
“So, will we have to do it?”
“I’m not talking about this right now, Valentina. I have work to do.” I shook my head at her and she looked out the window, most probably thinking about more clothes, or maybe she was worried about what her father would say and do if he found out that she wasn’t a virgin on her wedding night. Frankly, I didn’t care. My mind drifted off to Anabel. These days, she was in my mind quite frequently. Her long, beautiful, silky light brown hair. Her dazzling, bewitching green eyes. The way her pink lips would curve into a small, delicate smile as she whispered sweet nothings to me. I’d been her first love and she had been mine, even though she believed I didn’t know what it was to love. Even though she believed that all I knew was pain and horror and blood.
She wasn’t incorrect. Those things were a part of my life as well. But I did know love. I had loved her. I’d loved her more than I thought I could ever love anyone. Those days were long gone though. I hated her now. I hated her with a passion, and I wanted to make her pay for all the pain she’d put me through. I wanted to destroy her life the way she had attempted to destroy mine. She wasn’t going to just disappear and get away with it. She was naive if she thought that. I had been biding my time waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting, and now she was back in my life. Now, I was going to put all my plans into motion. Tonight was step one. Tonight, everything would change, and Anabel would soon see that she had messed with the wrong man.
Chapter 8
Anabel
There’s something about watching romantic comedies that is so familiar and comforting. Whenever I’m feeling down, I turn on the Hallmark Channel and I watch a romantic movie, and it’s always better when it’s the Christmas movies. I don’t know why, there’s just something about Christmas that makes me all happy and excited inside. It makes me feel warm and I want to drink hot cocoa and eat s’mores. It just reminds me of my happy place.
The movie on my screen was helping me a little bit, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about Luca. I had told Emily and Charlotte that I didn’t know if I loved him, and that was true. I didn’t know if I still loved him. It had felt so weird seeing him. And now I couldn’t stop thinking about him. To think that there was even a possibility of me still loving him after everything I’d seen, after everything he’d done was crazy. But I had to remind myself that he hadn’t always been that cold, cruel, calculating man. In fact, he’d never really been that way with me. And even though I knew our first meeting hadn’t been an accident and he’d planned it, it was still so sweet. He was still the young man that had captured my heart. He was still my Luca.
That first night when we’d gone to the park and ate the bread and cheese, he’d given me one soft, sweet kiss and I’d melted into him. Almost begging him to kiss me more, to touch me, just to do anything to make me feel closer to him. And he’d pulled away and he’d said, “No Anabel, you’re too special for that. You’re too special for me to try and grope you on our first date. Let’s give it time because I want to show you that you and I have something that’s meant to last. I want to show you that I respect you and I respect your body, and I don’t want anything more from you than that one sweet kiss.”
And my heart had exploded because in my wildest dreams I’d never expected to meet a man that would actually be okay with just a kiss. My parents had always told me that men only wanted one thing, sex. My friends told me stories about boyfriends they dated that dumped them because they wouldn’t sleep with them. I’d read books. I’d seen movies. I’d watched TV shows. Everywhere, it showed me that men just wanted sex on the first or the second date. Everyone was telling me that was all men wanted.
But Luca had been different. He’d been special and I’d been special to him, and I’d thought that we were a match made in heaven. We were each other’s true love. We were destined to be together. He’d been my knight in shining armor. He’d saved me from evil in a dark alleyway. That was better than Superman. That was better than Batman. That was better than anything I could have dreamed about or read in a book. That was my real life and he was there. It took a couple of weeks for me to realize that when he told me he was in the mafia, he hadn’t been joking, but that hadn’t really meant anything to me. Yeah, I’d seen movies like Goodfellas and Godfather. I’d even seen Scarface. But Luca wasn’t like any of them. He didn’t wear dark, depressing suits. He didn’t have a mustache. He wasn’t in the drug trade, or so I thought. He didn’t do drugs. He barely drank alcohol. He was calm, composed. He was handsome. He was loving. He was sweet. He was almost perfect.
The first time I realized something was slightly off was when we were walking down the street in Manhattan. I think we were on Broadway. I’d wanted to go to a show. I’d wanted to see Wicked, and even though he hadn’t really wanted to go because he hated Manhattan, he’d taken me anyway. He’d
gotten us seats all the way at the front of the theater so that we could see the actors and actresses on the stage clearly. I could see the color of their irises and how long their lashes were. We were that close.
But we’d been walking down the street and a guy had nudged me by mistake. At least I thought it was a mistake, but I sort of jumped slightly because his arm had grazed my boob. Luca had looked out at me, let go of my hand, and then ran over to the man. He grabbed him roughly and pushed him up against the side of the wall.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Both the man and I had been shocked by the vehemence in Luca’s voice.
“Luca, it’s fine.” I touched him lightly on the shoulder. “I think he was just walking past and he brushed me by accident.”
“He hurt you though, you gasped.”
“I just was shocked. I wasn’t gasping because he hurt me.” I decided not to let Luca know that he’d also grazed my boob and that the shock of someone touching me was what had caused me to gasp so loudly.
“Dude, I don’t know what the fuck is going on with you and your girl. If you don’t trust her that’s on you.” The guy against the wall glared at Luca. “If she’s sleeping around with other men, that’s got nothing to do with me. I was just walking fast because you two were walking slow. This is New York City, okay. We don’t walk slow, we walk fast.” The man kept babbling on and Luca was getting angrier and angrier.
“So it’s like this. If I’m walking and you’re slow, you have two options. Get out of my way or I’m going to push you out of my way!” The guy was speaking quickly and I could feel myself feeling frightened for him because, as he kept talking, Luca’s face was getting darker and his fist was getting tighter. “Don’t be pussy-whipped dude, she’s not worth it.”
“What did you just say to me?” Luca said, a slight Italian accent coming out in his tone.
“I said if you or your woman don’t want to get hit in the street, you got to walk fast, my brother.”
“Luca please.” I spoke up quickly as I could tell he was getting even madder. “Just let him go. It was an accident.”
“I’m going to let you go now.” Luca let go of the guy’s shirt and stepped back. “Because if I don’t let you go, I’m going to do something that you’re not going to like. But I have on my nice suit and I’m here with my lady and I’m about to take her to a show, so I don’t want to get into any trouble right now. I suggest you walk slowly away from us and you watch how you’re walking past women, you hear? Don’t hit them, don’t touch them, and if I ever see you near my woman again, I will take care of you, and that is a promise.”
The man looked at Luca and then at me and shook his head, saying something after his breath as he walked off slowly. I looked at Luca and shook my head.
“What was that about, Luca? That wasn’t cool.”
“He hurt you, Anabel.”
“He didn’t hurt me, Luca. He just brushed past me.”
“But you gasped.”
“I gasped because I just wasn’t expecting it. He was right, this is New York. This is Manhattan! People walk fast here. Tourists get lost here. People are constantly crashing into other people. It’s okay. I don’t know why you acted like that.”
“I’m sorry.” He let out a deep sigh. “I just got a little bit of a temper problem sometimes, you know how it can be. When it comes to you, I’m so cautious. I’m protective of you. I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m okay, Luca. Please, just… just don’t do that again.”
“You are my girl, Anabel,” Luca said, his voice soft. “And I’m here to protect you. I’m always going to protect you. I need to keep you safe.”
“But I am safe, Luca. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“Anabel, I told you when we first met I’m in the mafia, okay, and there are people that will want to hurt you because they want to get to me. And I can’t let that happen.”
“I don’t understand what you mean by you’re in the mafia. I don’t understand what that means, Luca. You have to tell me more.”
“For your own safety and protection, I cannot tell you more, my love. You just gotta trust me that everything I do, I do to keep you safe. I love you.”
“I love you too, Luca. I love you too.”
My eyes flooded open as I realized that I’d fallen asleep thinking about Luca in the past. I yawned and realized that I was hungry. I didn’t want to eat anything in my fridge, and I hated wasting money on ordering take out when I lived in New York City. So I got up out of bed and put on some clothes. I’d walk down to the pizza joint and I’d grab a slice of pizza, maybe two, and then I’d come back, have some more wine and watch another movie.
I quickly put on my shoes, grabbed my handbag and keys, and headed out of the door. As I rode the elevator down, I couldn’t help but think that something didn’t feel right. I didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was just that feeling that you have when you’re slightly anxious. You feel like something’s off kilter in your world. I knew that I was feeling incredibly anxious and most probably should go and try and see a shrink or something, to talk about my feelings and my issues, but I was nervous. I was nervous to tell someone about my life. I was nervous that they’d judge me. I knew that was the whole point. People went to shrinks because the shrink wouldn’t judge them and the shrink wouldn’t tell anyone what they’d been told. But I had trust issues, thanks to Luca. I didn’t trust that anyone would keep what I told them a secret.
“That’s why you’ve got Charlotte and Emily,” I said to myself, as I got out of the elevator, and in that moment I knew Charlotte and Emily were all that I needed. I knew that I could tell them anything. I knew that they wouldn’t judge me. I knew they wouldn’t tell anyone, and I knew they’d support me. I think I’d always known it. They were the sort of girls that would have my back through everything and anything. I think I’d just been so ashamed of myself, so embarrassed, that even though I wanted to get it off of my chest, I didn’t feel like I deserved to. I resolved to myself that tomorrow at brunch, I would be honest with them. I would tell them absolutely everything, and maybe then I’d start to feel better about my life.
I was about a block away from the pizza place when I felt a man walking behind me a little bit too close. Normally, I would ignore it, but as he bumped into me, I turned around and snapped.
“What do you think you’re doing, dude? Can you give me some space?” I said.
“Sorry.” The man didn’t look at me and moved to the side. I kept walking and was about to cross the street, when he bumped into me again.
“Look, what is going on?” I said, and before I knew what was happening, his hand was over my mouth and I smelled something funny pressed against my nose. I felt myself start to faint. The world turned black and I was out cold.
My head felt groggy as my eyes opened. I looked around me, but I wasn’t sure where I was. I was seated in a chair, rope wrapped around my waist, my shoulders, and my hands, so I couldn’t move. I turned my neck to the left and to the right, and looked around the room, but there was no one in there with me. I was gagged with what felt like a silk piece of material and it chafed against my lips. I felt sick. My head felt heavy and I had no idea what was going on.
“Mmm,” I muffled trying to speak, but no words would come out. “Mmmm,” I tried even louder, trying to get attention from someone to let them know that I was finally awake. It worked. A door opened and a man that I’d never seen before walked in.
“Well, well, well, who do we have here?” a man with a deep Italian accent asked me. He looked older, maybe in his sixties, and was very elegant. He looked like the Don from The Godfather. I knew, somehow, this was connected to the mafia.
“Mmm,” I said again, though it was indecipherable what I was trying to say. He smiled.
“I cannot understand what you’re saying, Anabel. The gag in your mouth makes it so I can’t hear you. Hmm, maybe I should try that with my wife. She talks
far too much and I can’t stand listening to her. Maybe if I gag her, I won’t have to.” He laughed to himself.
My eyes just widened and I stared at him, and the laugh stopped. He walked over to me and crouched down and looked me directly in the eyes.
“You’re not as pretty as I heard you were. I thought you’d be beautiful. Nah, you’re not beautiful. You’re just okay. Your hair is a weird sandy color, not beautiful blonde, not stunning raven. Your eyes, huh, I’ve seen better. My wife even, she has beautiful blue eyes. Your eyes, they’re okay. Your figure, you’re not a model, are you? Huh, I don’t understand why you are so important. I don’t understand why any man would do anything to you or for you. Hmm, but I suppose I do many weird things myself for many reasons others do not understand.” He stood back up and walked back to the door. “I’ll be back in an hour. Make yourself at home,” and then he laughed again, closed the door behind him, and left me in silence. I had no idea who he was or why I was there. And suddenly, I felt more scared than I’d ever felt before in my life.
Chapter 9
Luca
“Luciano Pavarotti is one of my favorite opera singers,” Valentina said as we listened to the increasingly erratic tones of the Italian tenor crashing through the speakers in my living room. “Did you know that he was considered one of the finest bel canto opera singers of the twentieth century?” she asked me and I wondered if she really liked opera.
I looked at her and just nodded. What boring conversation she had.
“So Luca, I was wondering, do you think we could go into the city tomorrow?”
