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“Let me have my phone call, then,” Edoardo says. “I’m allowed at least one?”
The guard flashes me a cunning smile and raises his wrist. Strapped to it is a brand new watch, encrusted with gems. It certainly is worth more than a full year’s worth of his salary.
“It would seem that, according to my paperwork, you have already made your phone call,” he says with a smile. “According to us, yesterday after your arrest, you used your one phone call to cancel some theater tickets.”
An exasperated groan seeps out from deep within me. It seems like it’s getting easier to pull strings these days. What a pathetic guard to be persuaded with a simple, expensive watch. Back in the day it took hundreds of thousands of dollars to pull a stunt like this. It’s getting too easy for Gabriele, that’s for sure.
Gabriele knows that it will only take one phone call to get me out of here, and he has made sure that it won’t happen. After all, I’ve been at the receiving end of his handy work before. He’s a master at sending innocent men to jail.
“You’re an idiot,” I say to the guard before he leaves.
“What’s that?” he asks, cupping his ear so that his watch is visible again.
“I said you’re an idiot,” I repeat. “You settled too low. Don’t you know how much he’ll pay to keep me in this cell? You could have gotten far more than just the watch. I guess they don’t make the guards like they used to anymore.”
I can see that I’ve gotten through to him. He glances at his watch and his eyes then drift away in thought. He knows I’m right. It doesn’t change my situation to make him feel like a fool, but it certainly does make me feel a little bit better knowing that I have upset him somehow.
I use my feet to kick all the spilled food out of the cell and into the hallway where the guards can clean it up. It doesn’t matter; I’m not very hungry anyway. I just need to keep my cool.
Gabriele is ironing out the details as I wait, I am sure of it. But it has only occurred to me now that in order for this to work, he will need a statement from Aria stating that I have kidnapped her. After everything he’s put her through, she won’t give it easily.
It’s already crossed my mind that he has taken photographs of the two of us at the villa on the island. It wouldn’t be too difficult for him to have those edited to look a little more sinister, especially considering the armed guard I have stationed outside the house to protect her.
He could easily convince a jury that the guard is there to keep her inside. God forbid she cries for any reason at all. If he gets a photograph of that, I will almost certainly be sentenced.
Still, he would need her to take the stand and say that she had been held captive. And he had only one way of doing that. I don’t think he could bribe her, she wouldn’t take his money. However, Ariadoesunderstand just how dangerous he can be, and he has any number of ways of threatening her. The idea that she might wind up right back in his control, and in an even more dangerous manner, stokes outrage within me. How will he threaten her? It’s the only thought that occupies my mind at this point, and I have absolutely no way of warning her about what will happen now.
Gabriele has gone too far. If he was in front of me right now, I would kill him with my bare hands. I know what Aria looked like that day on her friend’s couch, she was a shell of a woman. I watched how she blossomed on the island, freed from her father’s oppressive hold. It seems the further away she is from her father, the better she is. And I know that he will find a way to suck her back into his world. How would she survive there? I could spend the rest of my life in prison, never knowing my own child, if he sees whatever his plan is through.
That child will grow up under the suffocating care of Gabriele as well, doomed to live the same overly-protected life that Aria has lived.
Frustration bubbles up inside me now, and without any further prompting, it explodes. My closed fist hits the concrete cell wall and my knuckles split open. I let out a short scream and my hands start to shake with anger.
This is all my fault. I should have known that this plan would never work. I should have known better. The idea that Gabriele can change his mind is an absurd notion, and I must have been temporarily insane to have believed it.
I’ve made a grave mistake, and all of us will pay the price for it. Aria, my unborn child, and I will all suffer because I was naïve enough to think that there was an amicable way to sort this out. I just didn’t want to scare her away by using stronger tactics. .
I had contemplated fighting dirty with Gabriele too. I’d thought about staging another attack on him, this time making Mattia lead on the operation. I am sure that I would have succeeded and Gabriele would have been dead by now. But I hadn’t wanted to hurt Aria, and now I’ve gone and hurt her anyway.
I’ve hurt her in a worse way. She’ll wait for me at the villa, and I will not come back. And how long will it be before Jay decides that they should leave and come looking for me? I should have told her the truth about her father’s blackmail, and about what I’d planned. I was only trying to protect her from an ugly reality. It didn’t take long for me to notice that she had no idea the sort of cruelty her father was capable of. I’m sure she’s experienced some of it. But he is so protective of her, that I am certain he kept her sheltered from a lot of his dirtier dealings.
When I look into her eyes, I can see that she has no idea how many murders her father has arranged. She would not have so much optimism left if she knew. I was simply trying to protect her from that, but instead, I made everything so much worse. I’ve put her in significantly more danger.
The only thing that brings me any solace is that, for the next few days, she can enjoy some relaxation at the villa, at least, before the real torment begins. She’s about to learn her father’s true nature, and thinking about it is driving me crazy.
It is easy enough to blame Gabriele for it all, but my own actions play just as big a role in all of this. For that, I might never forgive myself. I hate myself for it.
Another frustrated scream boils up from inside me, and before I can stop myself, I am swinging again. Both my fists repeatedly hit the concrete until the pain is almost blinding. Red marks decorate the wall where my knuckles have split open again.
The angry outburst has left me completely out of breath. I rake my fingers through my hair to push it out of my face. But one strand will not obey, and keeps falling back in front of my eyes. I can see that the tip is stained red from the blood on my fingers.
I need to calm down. I need to conserve my strength. If I allow myself to continue, I fear that I won’t stop until all my fingers are broken. And I know full well that any violent outburst in here can be used against my character in court. I need to do the best I can to remain well-behaved.
It’s my only chance at saving myself a couple of years at the sentencing. So, I remove my shirt and lay down, placing as much bare skin against the concrete as I possibly can.
The cold floor soothes my temper just slightly. This is a trick I adopted during my twenty year sentence. I wanted to behave well enough to get released early. It didn’t work, but it sure saved me from a lot of potentially painful fights.
The cold of the ground clears my head just enough. The only maddening thought that I have left is that I hate Gabriele with every fiber in my being. Once that thought subsides as well, I am left only with thoughts of Aria. I see her face in my mind, and I am able to breathe easy again.
