I nod. “Yes. Yes, for sure I will come on your half-birthday. No way I’d miss that.”
“Promise?”
“I promise, okay?” I know even as I say it, I shouldn’t. He’ll be heartbroken if I miss this.
“Okay.” Then, as quickly as he was upset, his tone changes. “I have to go, Gabi. The magician’s here.” I can hear his excitement and it breaks my heart.
“Okay, Gabe. You go have fun. Let me talk to Melanie, okay?”
“Sure. Bye. Oh, I love you, Gabi!”
“I love you, Gabe.”
Melanie gets on the phone a moment later and I’m relieved I don’t have to try anymore.
“He sounds good,” I say.
“He is. He’ll be fine, Gabriela. Don’t worry. We take good care of him here. All the nurses love him.”
“Thank you, Melanie. You don’t know how much that means to me. I have to go but I’ll try to call again soon.”
“And if you can FaceTime him, some of the other patients seem to do well with those so…”
“I will. I’ll try. Thank you. Goodbye Melanie.”
I disconnect the call and can’t help the tears that stream down my face. It’s an ugly cry and it never changes because every time I see Gabe or talk to him, I think about what happened and how it changed everything. How his life was stolen from him by the very man who gave it to him.
I wonder if he thought he had some right to do it? To decide that?
Or was it the moment? His rage when he saw them together?
I wipe my eyes, take a random book and get up to go into the living room. I’m still barefoot so I’m silent and no one seems to notice I’m there. Or maybe they just don’t care.
I remember the liquor cabinet in the living room and go to it. I don’t drink usually, I don’t really like it, but tonight, I feel like I could use something. So, I grab a glass and a bottle of whiskey even though it’s nasty stuff, and head out to the patio to wallow. To drown my sorrows and cry myself a river. Because I haven’t cried since I was brought here. Not really.
And it’s not that I feel sorry for myself because it could be worse. Gabe is living proof of that.
I still wonder if he’s still in there somewhere trying to get out. Desperate to. For his sake, I hope not.
I pour myself a generous glass of whiskey and drink it straight before pouring another, thinking if I shouldn’t go up to my room first, but too tired to move. Too tired to do anything but sit here and wallow.
19
Stefan
It’s past midnight when I walk into the house in Palermo.
Today was a bad fucking day. Marchese pulled his first punch and I admit it was a good one. Didn’t see that coming.
I wonder if he timed it because today used to be one of my favorite days. Well, before everything happened.
Mother fucker.
Today is—was—Antonio’s birthday. First-born son is a big deal in our family and our parents, especially mom, went crazy with the celebrations.
I looked up to Antonio growing up. He was a good big brother to me.
I always knew what kind of family we were. The things we did. As much as our mother tried to shield us from it all, our father wanted us in the business from as far back as I can remember.
And when Antonio turned on the family, I wanted to hate him for it. Wanted to hate him for being the cause of our father’s murder and our family’s downfall. I did, too, for a while.
But he was my brother and I knew he was good. I knew underneath, he was good.
Maybe too good to be the first-born son in our family.
I walk into the living room to pour myself a whiskey and I think about Gabriela upstairs, asleep. I think about why she’s here, how she’s involved. I think how if it weren’t for Antonio turning informant, she wouldn’t be.
And I wonder if it isn’t better for her that she is.
Because Marchese is a son-of-a-bitch.
And he’ll screw his daughter—his own blood—to fuck with me.
I think about how she was at the party when he came to greet her. How she stiffened. How she almost cringed when he kissed her cheek.
And I think about the look in his eyes when he first saw her.
I give a shake of my head.
No. I imagined that. It’s too sick to think otherwise.
I think about last night as I search through the liquor cabinet for the whiskey. About what I said to her about not wanting to hurt her.
How far am I willing to go to bring down Marchese?
Am I willing to bury her too?
With this new condition, I may have to.
Because her brother isn’t dead. He’s alive. Not quite well, but alive.
Which means Marchese has a second heir, the rightful heir, as he called him. The rule of the Marchese inheritance is that it goes to the first-born child, boy or girl. Gabriela is second-born, but considering her brother’s condition, the inheritance had shifted to Gabriela. Marchese plans to shift it back and cut Gabriela out unless I make sure all ties with her brother are severed.
I know from the two times her brother’s come up, Gabriela cares about him.
“So what the fuck is your point, mother fucker?” I say out loud.
Just when I do, I hear a crash out on the patio.
In an instant, I grab the gun I keep in the right-hand drawer of the cabinet and rush out just as my men charge through the front doors, weapons drawn.
Floodlights go on before I even reach the patio and the instant I do, I stop. I raise my hand to the men behind me to do the same, signaling to put away their weapons.
Because there, kneeling by the pool, is Gabriela in a little yellow bikini, startled eyes wide, mouth open, staring back at me, at the men behind me, at those she must see on the roof.
I walk outside, look up, see the two snipers with weapons pointed.
“I got this,” I call up to them, tucking my pistol into the back of my pants. I see what the crash was because there’s that missing bottle of whiskey.
She follows my gaze slowly back to the ground where she’s kneeling in broken glass as if just realizing it.
“What are you doing, Gabriela?” I ask as I near her.
She looks up at me and squints.
“Turn out those floodlights,” I tell my men. “And someone bring some bandages.”
The lights go out and again, she turns her attention to the broken glass, the pool of whiskey.
“I tripped,” she says, sitting back, looking at her knees which are bloody with shards of glass. She then shifts her gaze to her hands, opens her palms. She takes a long time looking at them.
“Is that my whiskey?” I ask her as one of my men hands me a first-aid kit.
She looks up at me as I crouch down to take her hands and gauge the damage. She must have fallen into the broken bottle because the heels of both are badly cut.
“I broke it,” she says, dragging her gaze back to the mess on the ground.
“I see that, but how much of it did you drink before you broke it?” I ask, noting her wet suit and hair.
She doesn’t answer but pulls one hand away to pick a piece of glass out of her knee.
“All right,” I say, cradling her to lift her up. “Let’s go.”
“I want to swim,” she says pointing to the pool.