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“Okay, Raphy,” she says. “You win. Let’s celebrate.”
Eight
MICHAEL
“Was I nothing to you?” she whispers.
I look down at Cecelia, at the pain drawn all over her beautiful face and I am at a loss for words. That she would even have to ask me that makes it clear to me that our enforced separation has played havoc with her heart. I can’t bear that she’s surprised me here like this, that I’m not prepared enough to answer her heartfelt questions. This wasn’t how I imagined our reunion at all. I came to Sicily to find her, and now fate has stepped in and scuppered my well thought out plans.
A few moments pass and the words she is waiting for still do not come, despite me willing them to. There’s so much I want to say but I’m a mannequin, unmoving, unspeaking. I see bitter disappointment in her almond shaped eyes as she searches for something more substantial in mine, then bleak resignation. With an anguished sigh, she turns away and leaves the office.
As I watch her exiting through the outer door, a picture of style and sophistication in her red silk blouse and white trousers potentially leaving my life for the second time, a sudden impulse spurs me into action.
“Cecelia, wait!” I say, striding over to her and wrapping my hand around her slender arm. She flinches as if I’ve scalded her and twists away.
I hang my head in disappointment as I realize it’s too little too late. She can’t even bear for me to touch her anymore, so will words make any difference?
“What? What is it, Michael?” she says, giving me yet another chance to salvage the situation, but I remain mute once again. Why can’t I tell her how I feel? How much she means to me? I’ve thought about her every single day for almost five years yet now she’s standing in front of me, my mind is as blank as the white walls of my prison cell were. I’m terrified of losing her yet unable to articulate my feelings for her.
“Goodbye, Michael,” she says, the words dripping with sadness, then she walks away from me again and out towards the bar. A man and a woman are waiting for her. The woman looks a lot like her, and I wonder if she’s Cecelia’s sister.
“Get me out of here,” I hear her say to them and I clench my fists in frustration.
The man scowls at me and puts a protective arm around her. “Come on, Cece, this place is a dive anyway,” he says, throwing a disgusted look back over his shoulder. Our eyes meet and I just know, in the same way I know that I’ve probably just blown my one chance with Cecelia DeMarco, that this man recognizes me and wants to cause me trouble. I’ve been able to make sure details of my arrest and incarceration are not publicly available, but even someone with limited tech skills can do an online search and find out basic information about me. What did she tell her family had happened to her once she had returned to them? Did I become the villain in her recollection of events? More questions I torture myself with yet may never know the answers to.
Defeated, I retreat into my office, slamming the doors behind me, and sit down behind my desk, my head in my hands. This wasn’t the plan. The plan was to set up the new businesses in Sicily, establish myself here as head of the outfit, and then contact her, explain, beg for the chance to prove myself worthy of her, to provide a good life for us both. It’s only been a few weeks since I was freed, and I know I’m not worthy of her yet. But I resolve that I will be. Today did not go well, and I’ve no doubt that right now she hates me more than the day I sent her away with Gianni, but I can fix this. I must fix this. I will show her what she means to me in other ways. I can still protect her, which is all I’ve ever wanted to do. I reach for my phone and tap out a message, then I pour myself a much-needed drink, light a cigarette, and wait.
Less than an hour later Gianni arrives. He enters the office and sits on the same couch Cecelia was lying on earlier and I force myself to blink her image away and focus. He puts his hand on the arm and my eyes automatically search out the circular scar, now fully healed, after Ricci shot him clean through his hand that night at the docks. The same bullet then lodged in his shoulder, but it was removed cleanly and he was patched up well before his sentencing. We both were. He got four years and I got five, with early releases for good behavior. Now we’re both based here, overseeing the running of a few hospitality establishments while I head up a new Sicilian outfit. Those parts of our new lives are going well at least.
“Find out anything?” I ask as I place a tumbler of whiskey on the table in front of him.
He nods his thanks before reeling off a list of facts. “Raphael Lombardi, childhood friend of Cecelia and her sister Connie. Lives with his parents here in Sicily close to where the DeMarcos live. Still leeches off them too, as far as I can tell, but there’s bad blood there so he might be out on his own soon enough. No current employment but he has some dodgy connections around town—in the underground gambling dens mainly. I’ve just shown his picture to Lorenzo on the bar, and he confirms it’s definitely the same man he saw here today.”
“Girlfriend or wife?” I ask, leaning back against my desk and crossing my arms.
“Neither, as far as I know. Frequents brothels from time to time. Few kinks.”
“Kinks? Such as?” I light a cigarette and inhale deeply.
He looks at me. “Rape role-play mainly.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Fuck’s sake,” I say as I blow out a long plume of smoke. An uneasy feeling settles within me as I think about how possessively Lombardi behaved towards Cecelia earlier. Her behavior didn’t suggest she was romantically involved with him, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be. I mean, who wouldn’t want to love and be loved by her? But the fact that he pays prostitutes to act out his rape fantasies concerns me greatly.
“Good work, Gi. Will you and Gustavo tail him for a few days, find out where he goes and what he does? I’ve got a bad feeling about him.”
“No problem, boss,” he says, taking a mouthful of Cutty Sark. “I’ll let Gustavo know. He’s been here building connections longer than us so he might be able to get more intel than I can currently. Do you want us to keep an eye on Miss DeMarco too?”
I look up at my trusted associate. We still haven’t talked about Cecelia properly; there wasn’t time after he took her to the safe house in Naples then arranged for her safe return to Sicily a few days later. As soon as he came back from dropping her off, it was time to head to the dockside meeting with Ricci, which obviously went to shit. We were both arrested and sent to different prisons once our injuries had been triaged. Gianni’s cousin Gustavo got a suspended sentence. Franco, funnily enough, didn’t survive his bullet through the brain, God rest his soul. After Gianni was released last year, he visited me, but we spent the limited visiting hours discussing our impending move to Sicily and preparing to set up the new outfit, rather than Cecelia, and I never expressly revealed that she was the main reason for the change in location. I suspect Gianni has figured that out by now though, and maybe it’s time to clue him in. I’ll need help if I’m going to win her back.
Despite the disappointing events of the day, I smile at the mention of her name, giving myself away. “Yes, keep an eye on her too.”
“You know, she was pretty cut up that day,” says Gianni, tapping his fingers on the arm of the couch, offering an opening to the conversation. “Cried the whole way to the safe house. Inconsolable. Never seen a woman so sad before or since.”
I imagine him stealing glances at her in the rearview mirror as she curled herself up in the back seat sobbing over me, over my cold and cruel rejection of her, no doubt bewildered following the magical night we’d spent together, the night she gave the gift of her virginity to me. These past few years I’ve often wondered how she reacted, hoped I hadn’t crushed her completely, but now that I know it did, I feel even more wretched. And even more determined to make amends.
“Is that right?” I say, returning his pointed gaze, smoke curling around me. This is new territory for us and although I prefer being a closed book, if anyone has proved his loyalty to the Luciano clan, Gianni has.
I sigh and decide to let him in. “You know she’s the reason I’m here, right?”
