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We went to school with Santina. Back then, all the boys wanted to date her. She was the brightest and the prettiest. I remember having a crush on her myself but it was Giovanni who swept her off her feet.
He sold her a life of unbridled pleasure. She ended up like this. A shell of the woman she once was. All I feel for her is pity that her life has ended up like this.
When she heard about our father’s will, she came to speak to me in private. Whispered in my ear that she had been using birth control for years. Didn’t want to get pregnant. “I won’t let him treat a child the way he treats me,” she said.
I never forgot those words. She won’t leave him but she won’t have a child with him. She’s begged me not to kill him. She doesn’t want his blood on my hands.
I don’t know what she does want other than for him to not hit her.
I know what I can do for her. I can become Don. Then I can send Giovanni far away. Let Santina be free. Hell, maybe she’ll meet someone better, someone who can bring back the girl we went to school with, the one with a laugh a mile long.
I haven’t heard her laugh in a very long time. Only a fake giggle she brings out at parties, whenever Giovanni makes a joke at her expense. Or when she sees him flirting with the other girls.
“Any luck finding Rory?” she asks, bringing me out of my thoughts.
“Not yet but she’ll turn up. I had a dream last night. Saw her right in front of my eyes.” I don’t tell her the whole dream. I don’t tell her about Rory holding a gun to my face, weeping as she pulls the trigger.
I sat bolt upright in bed when that happened. I never get nightmares but it didn’t feel like a nightmare. It felt like a warning. A premonition even.
“I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Santina says, putting a hand on top of mine. “I don’t think becoming Don would help Giovanni. Do you?”
I’m about to answer when my cellphone buzzes in my pocket. I’m hoping, as I always do, that it’s a call to tell me someone found Rory.
It’s not. It’s Reggie. “I need to talk to you,” he says down the line, hanging up before I can reply. That’s always been his way. No unnecessary small talk.
I get to my feet. “I’ve got to go,” I say. “If he hits you again, let me know.”
“I’ll be fine,” she replies. “You concentrate on the endgame. Make sure you become Don. It’ll be all right then. He’ll calm down, I know he will.”
Does she really believe that or is she so lost in her delusions that he’s a good man that she can’t see the truth?
I get the feeling Giovanni is going to go too far one day.
There was this rabbit we had to look after when we were kids. Brought it home from school. Lord Thumper, it was called. Dumb name, I know. Anyway, it was one of those vacation projects. Caring for the little furball. I had it in my room and Giovanni was pissed at me for it. Wanted it for himself. I told him to get lost. I was supposed to be looking after it, not him.
I never forgot coming in one afternoon from shooting practice, finding him holding that rabbit by its ears, leaning out of the window. Told me he’d drop it if I didn’t let him look after it.
I called his bluff.
I read him wrong.
He dropped it.
The worst thing was it didn’t die. It was all broken up but it was alive when I got to it outside. He told me it was my fault. I should have let him win.
Santina reminds me of Lord Thumper. She’s in Giovanni’s hand, held out of the window by her ears. Any moment he might drop her and she’ll be all broken up with no chance of surviving.
I won’t let it happen.
I will find Rory. I’ll marry her and get her pregnant. That way she’ll be safe. Santina will be safe. I become Don. Giovanni can go fuck himself.
It’ll be the perfect revenge for his men pulling guns on me back in the diner. When it’s all over and he’s about to be loaded onto the plane to fuck off forever, that’s when I’ll tell him Santina was on birth control the entire time he was trying to get her pregnant.
I head out. Reggie needs to talk to me. He only calls when it’s something seriously urgent. Whatever it is, I’m getting a bad feeling about it.
Nineteen
Aurora
