by S. W. Frank
“Dammit Tony…your timing sucks!”
He looked around in confusion. Did she have company…had he walked into something? He strolled through the apartment pushing open doors, looking for somebody to punch because he was angry at her for letting him down. Typical of a woman. First his ex-wife and now her, someone he thought was solid!
Tony slumped against the door, staring at his feet. “Life sucks…get used to it, I have!” His head rose. “I’d hoped this time around I’d win. But damn, I’ve lost again!” he said with a sneer before marching across the floor to snatch his suitcase and slamming out the door.
He tossed the case in the backseat of his car. People were still out on the streets in Brooklyn, believe that shit? Did anybody sleep in New York besides babies?
Tony frowned. In his periphery he noticed movement and the passenger side door swung open. Tiffany flung her duffle bag over the headrest.
“I swear Tony you better make this decision worth my while!”
He saw the engagement ring sparkle under the moon light and grinned. “The perks of this new position is I’ll be able to give you anything you want.”
“All I want is you Tony.”
“You have me. You can plan our wedding, but do it big, and I’ll be sure to show up!”
Tiffany’s smile was like a star leading him to the manger. She touched his thigh. “Get that black card ready, you know how I love touching hard objects.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The hour grew late. Torn wrappings with sugar cane pictures or holiday images were scattered around the living room floor. The most expensive of the gifts had yet to be unwrapped. Sophie tapped Shanda on the shoulder. “Giuseppe’s present is outdoors.” She then led Shanda through a side door, prolonging the suspense.
They were followed by several curious guests.
The nippy climate had Shanda rubbing her arms as they walked toward a red shiny automobile. “No…” Shanda whispered in awe as they neared what she’d seen in magazines or in videos with rappers who acquired their dreams. A Bugatti…Giuseppe bought her a Bugatti! “This is my Christmas present?”
“Sí, it is Giuseppe’s gift and here is the key,” Sophie stated as she opened her hand and Shanda removed the key.
Feet bounced excitedly and loud squeals of joy emanated from Shanda, causing Sophie to smile. Family members took pictures, laughter and happiness is what occurred all around.
The engine came to life, the window rolled down and Shanda’s arm stuck out. “I’m taking it for a spin!”
Sophie stepped forward to protest but Shanda is Shanda, she hears nothing but her own mind. “Do not go far…por favore!” she exclaimed as soldati immediately scurried to their cars to follow. But Shanda had a head start.
The cold returned the revelers to the villa cradling their wine glasses to warmth, but Sophie’s limbs remained stuck to the ground. Her happy smile faded at a bony chill.
Why this feeling?
Why this sense of doom?
Answers come with the sound of an earth shattering screech not far in the distance. Tires trying to hold earth, she’d heard the sound before with Geovonna. Then came another sound…an explosive boom that shook her legs.
Flight at night, a human bird soared to a misplaced nest to her chick. There were others at her back in formation, as if migrating south for the winter. The wind whipped their clothes, flapping cloth were wings in the dark. Lovely people, led by Sophie were beautiful fowl.
At the turn beyond the villa, trees stood sturdy and tall. The thickest was the most colorful of them all. The red Bugatti had become a metal shiny bow.
The soldati were unable to keep up with the speeding girl when she made the turn around the curve. They temporarily lost sight of the car but heard the collision and reached the scene first.
Shanda had driven on this roadway many times. She never had trouble navigating the wide street previously, but tonight she had, they thought.
The soldati were out of their cars. Brawny men with crowbars were strains of silver slithers in a tearful mother’s eyes. She had several more kilometers to run…to Shanda…to the horrific accident site.
***
Nico had arrived home. Semira was lifted from the car seat and taken inside. Weary travelers readied for bed when he received a call from Bianca. He frowned at the message. He’d thought she’d gone to Spain to spend the holidays with her daughters. Bruno and Maria were there, why hadn’t she flown with them?
The abbreviated text informed him Sabrina had a gift that she wished to deliver to Nico personally.
Nico hoped Bianca was not playing a game. They had agreed to maintain a platonic relationship and nothing more. “I have to run out for a minute sweetheart,” he said to Ari when she emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel.
“Seriously Nico, now?”
“I’ll be right back. I promise I won’t be long.”
She pouted. “Ugh, Nico. Damn!”
He gave her a kiss which silenced her complaints. “I made a promise to you Ari and I plan to keep it. Trust that I will love.”
Her eyes were tender. “I trust you.”
“Bene.” His mouth twisted in a naughty grin. “Wear nothing. I would love to have dessert when I get home.”
She winked and then he was gone.
Not long after, braving the frigid wind, Nico stood at the door of Bianca’s villa waiting to be let in. Finally, the door opened and he saw Bianca. Her eyes were wet as she framed the entryway. There wasn’t the pleasant welcome he’d become accustomed to.
For some inexplicable reason his mind drifted to the night he’d come to Bianca’s door and her coded plea for his assistance. “Ciao Nico.”
Her eyes flicked left, almost like a flare sending up a warning. Bianca spoke, yet there was a quiver that told him something was amiss.
What danger, this time waited behind that door?
Too many burdens he carried, yet soon Tony would arrive to assist in lightening the load. However the responsibility of family would remain foremost.
Nico sought to cleanse his corrupt soul but in trials saw the Butcher’s hand through child eyes as he fought to lift his head from icy water. But the memories were from infancy, pictures stored in his brain that through time he saw often.
The vile man he made The Butcher out to be over the years was replaced by an image of his mother. Why had this come to mind, he wondered?
Then he recalled the conversations with Vincent and the brotherly laughter when he recanted what The Butcher had done.
“Ah, Nico, he has yet to beat you. Why do you make these things up?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“He has never tried to drown you in ice water. Do not speak crazy.”
“I’m telling you it happened Vincenzo, vaffanculo stronzo!” he recalled shouting at his brother.
They were at Sophie’s home that day and she became concerned. She went to her brother and he too denied Nico’s charges of such abuse. Lies he had thought as a boy. Sophie he realized became kinder to him. She became almost like a mother. But could she have pitied him? Was any of what he said real, the abuse part that is?
The Butcher was ruthless but Vincent said he loved them as if they were his sons and taught them how to kill but never physically abused them -at all.
The fragments of the past were multilayered. What Ari spoke was true. To have a bright future, the past must have a spotlight. His protection from bad memories had become a mental prison until he faced the trauma.
Gasping and choking from the water, breaths hoarse, long and shrill similar to an asthmatic Nico fought for air in his mind. Bent over with h
is hands on his knees wishing death on himself is probably when he died in infancy at the hands of his mother. The dreams which sprung forth in intervals to spark hope were life, except he wasn’t meant to live, was he? A mother who birthed him had foretold his fate. It was she who tried to give him a watery grave!
She appeared from his dreams at the door and fired, but a quick response from Bianca prolonged death once more. The struggle of women was halted when Nico seized a hand brandishing a weapon and raised the arm high. Shots in rapid succession blew apart the ceiling as a mother screamed, “Die my son. You and your father must die!”
He shoved Bianca clear of the danger and easily lifted Sabrina off her feet. Soldati who were assigned to guard Bianca filed through the doors at the sound of gunshots. They aided their mistress off the floor.
“I should have killed you the first time. You are not my mother!” Nico snarled as the other hand took hold of her throat and began to squeeze the life out of Sabrina.
Clarity was in the woman’s malicious eyes. Sabrina was not blind, Nico saw that now. A fool he’d been for not dispensing of the vermin, but not another death due to this folly would lie on his conscience. Spittle and blood ran from the evil woman’s lips. His present to family was ridding them of another threat to their existence.
War with me...I dare you.
Weakness of mind will not be an inheritance any longer.
Death to the enemies of my family.
Kill a treacherous mother!
Sabrina became string. Her arms dropped to her side and the gun hit the floor. Muscles of a killer had coiled so tight, veins ran like vines from his neck and fingers.
“Nico…Nico….” He heard at his back.
He listened because there’s a woman whose voice sounded similar.
Ari?
“She’s dead Nico…she’s dead…you can let her go darling.”
Ari?
His fingers loosened and he turned thinking he’d gone mad to hear her voice. Thankfully he had not.
She walked tentatively into his arms, hugged the shit out of his waist and then began to sob. “I love you…it’s over Nico…it’s over.”
Over her head he saw Bianca, tears flowing without shame. She lived and there would not be a repeat of Vincent. The pressure eased away.
“I’ll take care of this, go Nico,” Bianca said. “Go home with your wife.”
Ari was sad but had not lost her senses. Like a cat taunted by yarn she seethed. “Stay away from my husband bitch…do you understand me?”
“Sí,” Bianca responded. “Capisco.”
She watched the couple exit. She had yet to tell Nico, maybe one day they will speak of truths. Sabrina had notified the Segrete of her confession. The entire bonding ritual she orchestrated by her betrayal. As the guards cleaned away the body and spilled fluids she leaned her head in abject misery to the wall. She would leave this place. She had no other choice. The promise she’d given Nico was broken. What cruelty to love again and have it unrequited?
What vicious joke reversed a surgeon’s work to give her Nico’s seed to carry?
Sabrina had sought to ruin family’s unity. But, she would not win. She’d enlist her father’s aid. Nico will never know of this child she carried…this gift she would love.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Utter blackness exists when one cannot distinguish the barren tress or feel wet snow on slippered feet. Cry rivers. Let the waters flow and merge with dried lakes, fill them until my sorrows drown...for I do not need tears in this black hour...strength por favore is what I require to save my own. "Dammi la forza…aiutatemi!" Sophie shrieked gripping and pulling with fierce determination to aid the soldati.
Cuts bled down matronly arms as fluids ran unnoticed. The saints gave strength to a desperate mother; they gave hope that she could accomplish the impossible.
“Santi aiutami!”
Invisible hands gave aid and Shanda was freed from the wreckage. What heartache it is to drag a lifeless body that had once been full of life and carrying an embryo to a tired old woman’s lap which earlier cradled children, but now holds the dead. “Lovely daughter I am your mother…I am tua madre in this last moment, por favore rest your head.”
The shrieks were impotence of all mothers who must live with memories of their young. For mercy has no ears, and is blinded by the power of death. Weak are the limbs, heavy is the heart.
She rocked the woman, running her hands along her arms. Blood poured from a cut on her forehead. There was not a whimper or moan. She’d died instantly. Sophie had witnessed such aftermaths of accidents like this before.
When she was a young girl, her cousin Antony died in a similar collision. She witnessed the incident, because it occurred outside of her school.
Her father sent him to pick her up.
Antony was seventeen.
It seems she was meant to outlive the young, even then.
***
Turn on the news. Find a channel. See the images of flashing lights in the night, police tape and mangled metal. Those are images on a screen, but real for Giuseppe when he arrived outside the gates of his mother’s villa.
Fear is also real. It leaps higher than flames from a festive bonfire. An unafraid Don who slaughtered men was forced to feel its potency. Initially he emerged from the car in a daze of denial. However, as he thought about his son and Shanda, his legs were swiftly moving.
Words in Italian were shouted as he ran to the ambulance and swung the door open. His legs bent to leap into the vehicle but hands grabbed at his arms, pleading voices of mourning people asked him not to.
Why he wondered, why did they not let him go?
In anger he roared and they released their hold…up…up and in to the place where uniformed medical personnel put away instruments to save lives in medical bags.
None could look him in the eye.
None wanted to receive a Don’s wrath.
None wanted to speak the words a Don already knew.
“Get out…leave me!” he shouted and they scurried through the doors, closing him in with his donna lying immobile covered in blood.
On knees he went.
Giuseppe dropped like a stone, shaking a death carriage on wheels.
“Donna…you leave again…dispiace…dispiace that I was not here to go with you,” he sobbed.
He touched Shanda’s cold cheek which was usually warm. His finger traced her lips to remember the feel against his in passion, and moaned for he would miss their sweetness forever more.
How close he’d come to that elusive happiness his brother got to enjoy. His fingers had touched the fine silk of cloth called love. Whatever sins committed in his life, Giuseppe wished could be undone for a chance to prove his affections were real for the mother of his son.
Then his hand touched her stomach. Gone, too was their unborn child.
Gone were possibilities.
Bereft, his dark head lowered to the railing and the man who never cried wailed like a baby being born.
Inconsolable…desolate in grief, a Don fell back against the cramped metal seat to stare through air.
The hour stretched.
Death is forever long.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Que?”
“Sí, Shanda’s car hit a tree. She is dead cugino. I am very sorry. I th
ink its best you tell your wife. I cannot do it.”
“What?” Alfonzo repeated as if he hadn’t heard correctly the first time. He anticipated a grave notification and had steeled himself for the role of grieving cousin when he was told about Domingo. This news about Shanda dying in a car accident was totally unexpected. The season wrought two funerals instead of presents.
“Geez, oh no…oh no!” he bellowed. Giuseppe must be distraught. He leaned over with his head between his legs. “Oh geez…how do I break this to my wife?”
Amelda’s compassionate words came softly. “You will find a way. I must go cugino. I must comfort my mama.”
Alfonzo let the wheels of the car bounce him like a ragdoll as he held the cell aloft long after Amelda disconnected. That painful ache going round and round never settled anywhere. Nah, he couldn’t go home and tell his wife her best friend was dead. Damn, he just couldn’t do it!
The wheels stopped spinning. A merry-go-round is what he’d been on it seemed. The driver never said a word. The shits obvious he’d arrived.
Songs that’s all he heard; the saddest fucking songs ever.
He slumped in the seat, dialed Giuseppe’s number and he answered immediately. They had this bond that grew so thick over the years that when one hurt the other felt it also. “I’ll be there grande fratello.”
“Grazie fratellino I do not know what to do…”
Alfonzo closed his eyes at the sound of his brother’s despair. “There is a boy who requires a father now more than ever. Hold him brother…feel his life and that of his mother. Together fratellino we will mourn. That is what our family has done and will continue to do.”
Giuseppe sniffled. The volume and bass in his tone elevated. “Sí, hai ragione!”
“Hold tight, I’ll be there the same way you come through for me.”
“Grazie…I must see my son.”
Alfonzo sighed, turned the handle and climbed out the car. Face the storm dammit. He stood erect, sucked in a deep breath and headed for the door.
