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“Soph? You got a nickname for her. Cute?” Franco says, smirking.
“Soph, Sophia, same thing,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“Just admit it Rocco, she’s got you right where she wants you.”
I say nothing because I fear that he might be right.
“It’s looking good, but it will take a couple more sessions to get it completely gone. As you can see, it’s starting to look a little fainter,” the laser technician says removing his goggles.
My wrist still feels a little tender as he applies SPF and the aloe gel, but the ‘A’ is definitely fading away. If only removing your memory could be just as easy as lasering off a tattoo. I have been regularly visiting the city to get the tattoo lasered off. Rocco hasn’t asked about it for a while and I had taken to wearing jewelry to disguise it. I was looking forward to finally showing him the results.
I pause when I get to the parking lot. Two of my tires have been slashed-—not even punctured, just wholly slashed. I debate with myself on whether I should call Rocco or if this is just a strange coincidence. Why would anyone slash them? It seems so random. I chew my lip and decide against calling him. It will only worry him more, and I can tell he is already stressed out about Chicago. Lately, most nights, he’s in the office strategizing or working with his captains.
Luckily, the auto company comes out within an hour and changes all the tires. I get into the car, ready to start my journey home from the city. Nightfall fast approaches, and I want to be back in time to start dinner. Just that sentence is enough to make me smile. I am becoming more of a Mafia wife every day. We are now coming up on winter and there is already an icy chill in the air. Christmas is only four weeks away, and I am excited to prepare for my first holiday with Rocco.
Although he pretends not to like Christmas, I can’t forget the look on his face when he walked in and saw that I had purchased a Christmas tree and fully decorated it. He never speaks much about holidays or when he was younger, apart from saying ‘pop didn’t do holidays’.
The next time I saw Lucia for our regular morning Pilates class, I asked her about it, and she told me that Rocco’s ma had left him when he was barely six and never came back. Every Christmas, Rocco would wait for Santa to bring his mama home. This was something that went on for years until he realized she wasn’t going to walk through the door. He never spoke about her again and when anyone else asked him about his mama, he told them she was dead. When he was older, Christmas at the De Luca household consisted of Rocco’s father passed out underneath the Christmas tree and Rocco making himself a microwave T.V dinner. For that reason, it was important to me that our first Christmas together was special, I wanted to give Rocco the perfect day. Although, I still hadn’t thought of a gift for him.
What do you get the man who has everything?
The sun has disappeared, and there is a sudden chill as the evening starts to cloud in across New York. The highway leaving the city is almost deserted since most of the traffic is going into the city, not leaving it. My eyes narrow, watching a dark jeep in the rear view mirror. When I switch lanes, it follows and when I speed up, it does the same. My phone is dead and thrown in the backseat, so I can’t call Rocco without pulling over to charge it. Nightfall looms, and I can’t wait to get closer to home as a feeling of growing anxiety starts to cling to me. I take the correct exit for Long Beach and feel a sense of relief when I am not followed. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but I can’t help feeling like I was being tailed.
I always thought I was a city girl at heart but being in New York made me realize it was a stifling reminder of an old life that I didn’t belong to anymore.
I grin a little walking into the house, remembering how Rocco had allowed me to put my own touches on the décor, which meant redoing everything from scratch. Softer and brighter tones had now replaced the dark navies, maroons and browns. I didn’t touch his office or man cave, I let him keep it as it was.
Strangely enough, Rocco hardly fought me on most things. In fact, more often than not, he let me have my own way with pretty much everything. I thought he would lose his shit when he came home to me repainting the walls, but he just shrugged it off. Even when I got rid of the cook, he barely reacted. The only time he seemed genuinely surprised was when he came home to a set table and dinner.
For me, it was a normal thing that Mama would do every night. However, Rocco told me he couldn’t recall a single meal he had at a table when he was younger and that his papa was usually passed out by six if he was lucky. When I asked him about his ma, he told me to drop it. By the look on his face, the topic was clearly painful for him. I never wanted to mention that I already knew the story because Rocco would only take it as a betrayal.
I merely ask Lucia about Rocco’s past when he isn’t being forthcoming; it kind of hurt me that he still didn’t trust me. Then, I realize that I am being a hypocrite holding the biggest secret back from him. Every day that goes past, it claws at me a little more.
If I told him, I would lose him, I rationalize to myself. Maybe if I told him in the beginning, it would be easier, not easier to understand but easier to lose him. There would be fewer feelings involved; less to lose.
I could imagine the look on his face when if he found, he wouldn’t say anything, though his cold glare would speak volumes. How do you tell somebody whose only veto was that you don’t lie to them, that you have been lying to them the whole time; that you betrayed your own family on a whim? That you got a man killed and started a war, the same war that had ignited a grudge between two cities that was beginning to rev up again? His pride would never allow him to forgive me, and once everybody else started to find out, I would be tainted all over again.
I would be a divorcee, which in Mafia circles is the equivalent of being branded with a Scarlet Letter. My chest constricts realizing that Rocco would remarry and have children with someone else while I languished away. My head and my heart battle daily over this terrible secret. I was getting so used to this sense of happiness and ease that I was ignoring the atom bomb hovering over my head. Every time I tried to open up and tell him, he would look at me and my resolve would melt. Rocco De Luca had done the one thing that I didn’t want to happen, he made me fall for him in every inexplicable way.
I nod at the guards as I walk into the gated entrance. Security has amplified since the war between Chicago and New York started to heighten. Heading up the stairs to take a shower before starting dinner, I hear the door slam as I finish in the bathroom.
“Rocco?” I yell, surprised that he would be home early, but there is no response. “Rosa?” I call out the maid’s name, but I know she finishes early on Thursdays.
I towel dry and throw on a pair of old jeans and a sweatshirt. When I emerge from the bedroom, men are swarming the house.
“What’s wrong, Damon?” I say frowning.
“Rocco has been shot, Sophia.” He says in a low tone.
I feel like all the air has been sucked out of my lungs. Pain seems to radiate through my chest as if I am the one who has been shot and I have to look down at myself to check if I am still intact because I feel like a bullet has burned right through my heart and is shattering me into a million pieces.
He has to be okay.
I want to ask so many questions, but the words only seem to jumble all around my brain.
“What?” I ask, feeling my knees go weak. “Is he—” I want to say the word dead, but I can’t seem toget the words out.
“No, he isn’t.” He says understanding what I meant.
