He smirked, probably understanding I was speaking English to be an asshole.
For some reason, Mr. Giordano chose to not respond to my disregard and opened a drawer, retrieving four large envelopes stuffed with cash, and tossed them to me. “There is plenty of money to get you and Sal started. There are credit cards and bank cards that match the names on two false passports. I prefer you to use the private jet at your disposal, but permit commercial flights if an emergency arises. Rossi has already given you burner cells?”
“Yes, sir. Sal and I have all necessities already packed.”
It was shocking to hear him speak English. It was even more shocking to hear what he had to say. “Then… may your father’s soul guide you to my granddaughter.”
My jaw locked. He was asking for my father to be trapped to walk the Earth instead of flying in the Heavens where he belonged.
If there was ever a chance for Mr. Giordano and me to have the relationship he shared with my father, he had just burned that bridge to the ground.
As I said, the Devil is cold as ice.
Exiting the Giordanos’ home, I saw Sal being—well—Sal. Stress eased from my angry chest. Exhaling the release, I asked my best friend, “What are you doing?”
His upper body was sprawled out over the hood of his car, his arms trying to embrace the blue metal. “Crying. Telling Juliet how much I will miss her.”
I kept walking right on past my best friend, who sometimes concerned me. “You know she is not alive, correct?”
Not moving his body nor cheek from resting on the hood, he petted his car, cooing, “He didn’t mean it, baby. He’s just a crabby old soul stuck in a strapping young body.”
I smiled for three reasons. One: Sal was always the humor I needed. Two: He complimented my body that hadn’t had a female’s touch since Noemi. Three: His English had improved, dramatically.
We were ready.
10 years later…
Snakes.
In this nightmare, Angelo was running through a minefield of coiled snakes to get to me. He didn’t have his short-trimmed beard. He was young again. Not aged by the stress and horror of the endless search for Scarlett Giordano; the Mafia Princess nowhere to be found. Every time we felt like we were making traction, it was as if someone knew our every move and shut down our attempts.
Snakes. They were everywhere.
In the nightmare, snakes at my feet hissed at me, but they weren’t what was causing my fear. I panicked when realizing I was naked and my hands were tied above my head. I had seen this stance before. It was the night when I had finally broken through the door of Isabella’s bedroom, finding her on the balcony.
With my arms restrained, I kept looking over my shoulders, terrified to experience what Isabella had endured. The helplessness—the having no way to protect my back was almost paralyzing. “Angelo!” I yelled out for help as I yanked and tugged on the rope. I could feel my skin ripping with my efforts, but refused to stop. All I wanted was to be free.
Snakes. They struck at my ankles and calves as I madly kicked, trying to use all my weight to break away from the ropes. The only thing that got me to pause was the sound the snakes were now making. Every time they opened their mouths, roars from motorcycles filled my ears. Stunned—now realizing my nightmare had meaning—I stopped moving to see what else I was being told.
Wham!
Bold heat—a formidable body I knew well—rammed into my chest, snapping the ropes free. As I flew backward in slow motion, I watched my hands with joy, as if they had their own mind, separate. They floated through the air as if relishing the sensation of freedom.
Angelo’s arms were still around my chest, his force propelling us backward off a cliff. The heat from his body was like nothing I had ever known, which was unusual because I knew everything about his body when awake. I found myself wanting to mold myself to him, to feel more of his—I couldn’t find the word for it. In fact, many words were no longer a part of my vocabulary.
My mind, my body… none of it felt like my own. It was as if I had become someone else. Someone who was truly clueless about… everything. It felt as though I had an unknown path in front of me, one I had to hike, yet didn’t even know how to walk.
Still falling—into nothing I understood—there was one certain peace. Angelo. He had hold of me, making the unknown… tolerable.
When Angelo’s eyes found mine, my mouth moved, but it was no longer my own voice that came out. It was the sound of a beautiful female. “Are you the Angel of the Night?” I felt those words, if true, were the answer to a prayer.
Angelo’s only reply was, “Trovato.” Found.
Then a miracle happened. Huge black wings shot open from Angelo’s back.
I jerked awake, instantly disappointed to find myself in yet another hotel room, a strange naked woman lying next to me.
Having a bare woman between our hungry, naked male bodies was common practice for Angelo and me. I easily persuaded ladies to join us in our hotel suites from time to time. Angelo and I tried to find the comfort we found in Noemi, but it was always only a sexual release. He never looked them in the eye as we fucked them. And he never stayed in bed with one once done. If the woman was too intoxicated to leave, Angelo would barely say good night, then crawl into the other King-sized bed.
After such a dream, I wanted the same. I didn’t want to feel this stranger holding on to me in her sleep. She felt cold. Unfamiliar. So unlike the woman of which I had dreamed.
Naked, I left one bed behind to crawl into another.
Not asking questions, Angelo moved over and made room. There was no way he wouldn’t have awoken. We slept half awake. Angelo and I were always with our guard firmly in place. That happens after you kill enough traffickers. If a deal went wrong, our tracks had to be covered so that we could continue our search.
As heat from Angelo’s shoulder sunk into mine, I thought of the word found. When Angelo had said that to the woman, in the dream, she had felt the grounding such a word—such a statement—offered.
“Scarlett,” I whispered, causing Angelo to jolt and look at me. Laying on my back, I nodded, then whispered in Italian for the stranger to not understand me, in case listening. “I dreamt of her.”
Angelo’s eyes widened.
My mother was gifted. He believed I was, too, not realizing he was the true treasure. He was the Suit, like his father, who never gave up.
I reached under his pillow to grab the picture I knew would be there. It was always there, no matter what country we were in. The photograph my mother gave her angel was now worn, but you could easily see Isabella at the age of eighteen. The age when she had been abducted and sold.
Scarlett was now twenty-five or twenty-six. We would never truly know, due to the circumstances when she was born, but if she looked anything like her mother, we would know it from this picture Angelo studied like the Bible. That photo had some sort of divine power that possessed his spirit and guided him. Even when exhausted, he demanded his body continue the search. Country to country, state to state, that divine power pointed him.
Trying to learn the ins and outs of the sexual slave trade was a rat race with no prize. My father and his, when they had searched for Isabella, found the internet already expanding the epidemic. By the time Angelo and I entered the dark world, it was a pandemic, leaving us trying to find a rare pearl in an ocean of them. So many children, women, and men being sold, traded, exploited, and tormented.