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I turned and shut my eyes. My body felt elated, completely blown away by everything that had just happened. I bit my lip as I realized that I wanted more. Angelo turned his back to me and relaxed on the edge of the pool. I looked down at his back to see a few scars. I had not seen them that close before, and it was the first time I realized how bad the injuries had been.
“What happened to your back?”
Angelo turned to look at the scar but remembered he could not actually see it. “An incident.”
“I can tell that much. This looks like a pretty bad injury,” I added, hoping he’d tell me more.
“It was. Gunshot wound, from the night my father died,” Angelo replied.
The tone of his voice told me that there was more to what he had said, but he did not say anything else. I ran my finger across his back, a little reluctantly at first, but I relaxed as I saw him lean into me. He was getting more comfortable around me, and for some reason, I liked it. I pulled myself over until my head was beside his own, and I could get a good look at his face. He had shut his eyes and was breathing very calmly now, soaking in the steam from the pool. I looked at his arms and saw a few scars as well, telling the story of a battle-hardened man.
“How did your father die?” I asked, wondering if it was something he would share with me.
Angelo opened his eyes and shut them again; apparently, it was a touchy subject. He was quiet for over a minute, and I wasn’t sure he would even answer the question. But then he cleared his throat and touched the arm that I had left on his shoulder. He pulled my arm towards his lips and planted a kiss firmly on it. I realized that he was trying to bring up the courage to talk to me about it. I rubbed his cheek a little, hoping it would soothe him.
“It's okay if you-”
“No, I can,” Angelo replied. “I should.”
“Alright,” I replied, waiting for him.
“He was shot. There was an attack on the family. That night, a lot of our businesses were hit, and a lot of our people—good people—were attacked. But the only person who died that night was my father.” Angelo gritted his teeth, tilting his head slightly. “No one knows who led the attack, though obviously there are a few suspects. We were about to score big time. My father had run a deal on the ports, and that would have given the family a lot more money and power. More than any of us had ever dreamed.”
“But you don’t know who shot?”
“Not for definite, no. They dragged him out of the car he was in, took him to the end of the street, and shot him. I was on my way to the scene, along with a few others. By the time I got there, he was already dead. The shooters were driving away, and they decided to get a shot off at me.” Angelo seemed to smile at his next thought. “That was when I met Leonardo. He was just a random guy who worked at the store nearby.”
I stuttered, alarmed by the tale. “He chased after them?”
“No. He jumped between me and the shooter, and kept me from dying.” Angelo paused and touched his chest, “He saved me from that bullet ripping through my chest.”
I paused, looking down at the scar. “But you still were injured. How did that happen?”
“The bullet went through him and then hit me. If he had not gotten in the way, the shot would have killed me. He almost died from the shot, but we had our best doctors save his life,” Angelo replied. “It was insane, thinking back on it.”
“And you’ve not still found who killed your father? With all of your resources?”
“As I said, I have suspicions, but there is no way to know for sure. What I did find was my father's will. He asked me to... to make sure that I took care of the family. He wanted me to do so while making the least number of enemies. For a while now, that is what I have been trying to do. I sought to make more alliances. But in my world, that isn’t so easy.”
Angelo got to his feet and pulled himself out of the pool, sitting next to me. He pulled me into his body, and I felt the warmth from the lower half of his torso that had remained submerged in the pool. He had been trying to hide his face from me, but his voice betrayed him, letting me hear of his deep pain. Angelo had not found inner peace after his father had been killed, and I could tell he needed that to move on. He longed to let go of the past and find relief.
“I’m so sorry about your father, Angelo,” I began, not sure of what to say. “If you need someone to talk to...”
“Yeah, I’ve seen your file from the hospital. I understand,” Angelo replied. “I understand that you would understand.”
We sat in silence for a moment, and I looked up at his face, grateful that I did not have to live in the world in which he lived. He had probably lost a lot of people in his time with the mafia. A feeling of dread reached my stomach as I wondered if some of the madness would ever be mine to deal with. He lowered a thumb to my lips and ran it across, then he pulled my head towards him and planted a sincere kiss on my lips.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
Maria
I wanted to pull away after a while and ask him more questions about his father, about his childhood, about his entire life with the mafia. But I knew that the conversation was over. He did not want to talk about it anymore, that much was obvious. But he had let me into his world for a couple of minutes, he had let me into his past, too. It was something that I was grateful for.
When he spoke about his father, a different part of him had come alive. A part of him that I had never seen before. It was as though he was another person. His tone was different, his facial expressions weren’t full of narcissism or sarcasm, as they usually always were. I saw a vulnerability that I never imagined possible to see in a mafioso.
I guessed his father’s death had made him the person he was today, but I couldn’t know for sure. Somehow, I wanted to delve deeper and deeper into him. But I feared what might happen if I was let into all of that darkness, how it might change my perspective on things and change me as a whole person. So instead, I sat beside him, listening to his breathing, feeling his eyes on me even when he wasn’t touching me.
Losing someone that you loved and looked up to was no easy grief. It took a heavy toll on you, no matter how hard you tried to conceal your sadness. Even so many years after the fact, I could hear it in his voice. I saw it in the slight tremor of his hands when he spoke about it. I couldn’t help thinking about my mother. It was the last thing on earth I wanted to think of, but if anything by any means happened to her… I didn’t know how I would ever get over that. And if someone else were responsible for it, God knew I would run to the ends of the earth and find that person. There would be no rest until I had exerted my revenge. Maybe Angelo and I weren’t that different, after all.
