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A thousand questions rush into my head at once, but I don’t have the energy or the air in my lungs to ask them all. Plus, there’s an aching pain that still radiates throughout my ribcage, and I’m pretty sure I’ve cracked or at least bruised a few bones. The impact alone was enough to knock me off my feet and take my breath away. For a moment there, it felt as if there was an elephant sitting smack on my chest.
After assessing, to his very visible relief, that I’m unharmed, Vari turns around and lays into the director in front of everyone there, including Vari’s own son. “How the fuck did something like this happen?!” he shouts. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Vari’s face so red with rage. His already bulging muscles flex with tension, and the vein at the side of his neck pops out. Hector stares back at him with a blank expression, unable to answer the question being asked. I sit there on the stage floor, still amazed, and beyond grateful that the bullet didn’t kill me and instead got itself wedged in my bustier, while I watch the real-life scene unfold. This is much more dramatic than anything written inside the script ofBlood Rose.
“I have no idea how something like this happened,” Hector says.
“Bullshit,” Vari growls back at him. “You’re the director here. You’re responsible for every decision made. Somehow this prop gun got replaced with a real one, and you’re expecting me to believe you had nothing to do with it?”
Hector glares at him. It’s a look I haven’t seen on the director’s face before. He looks almost as if he’s as fearsome as Vari is for a moment, although not quite. “Everyone get out of here!” Hector shouts to the cast and stagehands. “Take the rest of the day off while we sort this out. Be back for rehearsal first thing in the morning. And tell no one of this little mishap.”
Everyone scurries off of the stage except for me. I want to hear the result of this heated discussion. Neither Hector nor Vari seem to care that I’m still there. I glance out into the auditorium to see his small son looking up at his father in shock over what’s just happened.
“I’m telling you,” Hector snarls back at Vari now that there isn’t an audience to their argument. “I had nothing to do with this. Why would I want to sabotage my own show? This production has enough going against it as it is. If you want to question someone, perhaps you should question Brutus and some of your other mafia buddies, instead of picking on Broadway show directors.”
This time, my silence isn’t because I’m having trouble breathing or speaking, it’s because of what Hector just said. He just called out Vari for being a criminal right in front of his own son and anyone else within earshot. It’s not like everyone doesn’t already know of the mafia’s presence in this borough of the city, but calling it out is an entirely different matter. No one calls out the mafia. At least not in real life anyway, not if they want to see another day.
Vari’s face twists in confusion. It’s unusual for him not to seem like he’s in control of everything, but whatever’s going on here seems to have him puzzled. He looks angry and upset, and without another word at Hector he reaches down and grabs me by the wrist, yanking me up onto my feet and pulling me alongside him as he storms down the stairs at the side of the stage. “Lucas, come on, we’re leaving!” he shouts at his son.
It takes me a second to realize that this includes me as well. Vari’s grip on my wrist doesn’t loosen as his son comes up alongside him, and he grabs the boy with his other free hand. “Let me go,” I say in surprise. “Where are you taking me?” He doesn’t say anything at all, just keeps walking out of the theatre with me in one hand and his little boy in the other. “Vari, stop it!” I say. “I’m not a child! You can’t just pull me along with you without my consent!”
He doesn’t answer me, not even when we’re outside the building and headed toward his car. “Vari, stop! You can’t just yank me out of my rehearsal!”
“Rehearsal is over,” he growls at me. I can tell he’s trying to keep his temper on a tight leash and is struggling with it. I don’t think he’s mad at me, but something’s definitely gotten under his skin.
“That still doesn’t give you the right to pull me along with you as if I’m a piece of luggage. It’s akin to kidnapping.” I crane my neck around Vari’s broad body to catch a glimpse of his son, who is trying desperately with little jumps to keep up with his father’s furious pace. Vari doesn’t seem at all slowed down by what I said. He doesn’t seem to care whether he’s allowed to bring me with him or not. This is the part of him my mother warned me about. The part that thinks he’s in control of everyone, including me. My mother used to always say that all mafia bosses were this way. That to them, anything they considered to be theirs was within their power to dominate. It didn’t matter if it was a car, an antiquity, or even a woman. I always thought that Vari was an exception to that notion, but I guess I was wrong.
As soon as we reach his car, he opens the passenger door and pushes me inside. His son obediently climbs into the backseat as if on cue, and I sit there in a stupor, trying to decide whether to get out of the car and run back into the theatre or to sit here and let myself be absconded. I blame the fact that I don’t immediately get out of the car on my state of sheer shock I’m still stuck in. Although, deep down, I also know I just want to find out more about what’s going on. Sheer curiosity, always getting me into trouble. Sometimes I wonder if my mother thinks I was switched at birth, because she always seems so cautious and careful yet here I am, always acting like the wild child. To think that a daughter of hers almost ended up with a man in the mafia. And to think that I just got back in the car with one now, even though I know better. I can feel my mother shaking her head at me from wherever she is.
Still, I protest the entire way, not making it easy on him, and adding to the stress I can see furrowing across his brow. “Where are you taking me?” I ask.
“Back to my apartment where I know you’ll be safe,” he says curtly.
I’m just about to ask Vari what he thinks he’s keeping me safe from, exactly, when my phone starts to blow up. It’s my mother and I’m guessing she’s heard about the fiasco at the theatre. I have to answer it or she’ll launch into a full-blown panic, and I don’t want to be responsible for causing her a heart attack. “Oh my god, Dahlia, are you okay?” my mom asks in a panicked tone as soon as I pick up. “Sweetheart, I was so worried!”
“I’m fine, Mom. It’s okay, calm down,” I say as I try to reassure her that she doesn’t need to worry about me. Honestly, she probably has every reason in the world to worry about me right now, but I sure as hell am not going to tell her that.
“Where are you? What happened?” she asks. “I heard about it from Tom—you know, the guy who runs coffee down to Broadway and 42nd.”
“It was just a mishap on the set,” I try to downplay.
My efforts instantly fail. “A mishap? Dahlia, there was a loaded gun on the set!” I let her keep talking because I don’t want to give any additional information she doesn’t already know. “Were you on stage when it happened?” she asks. Perfect. She doesn’t know anything other than that a gun fired. I hate lying to my mom, but this is one of those little white lies that makes everyone less stressed.
“No, Mom, I wasn’t anywhere near the incident,” I say, noting Vari’s raised brow next to me as he tries to act like he isn’t listening in on my conversation. “Look, I have to go. I’m with a friend. But I’m okay and everything’s fine. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Okay, sweetheart. I’m so glad you weren’t hurt. See, this is exactly why I keep telling you to stay away from all things related to the mafia, even the pretend ones.”
“I know, Mom,” I sigh. God, if she only knew that I’d been quite literally shot in the chest, and was now in the car of a mafiacapo, being driven back to his place. My mother would drop dead from a panic attack. “I love you and I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” she says, audibly relieved. “I love you too. And I’m so glad you’re alright. Reconsider dropping out of that play.”
I hang up with my mom just as Vari is pulling his fancy car into the parking garage beneath his building. I notice how unusual this garage is from practically every other parking garage in the city. Instead of a gate attendant, there are armed mafia guards—Vari’s men, I’m sure. And there isn’t any button to press for a parking ticket, which means that he likely owns the entire building. I’m not sure why I’m surprised. As soon as he turns off the car, Vari hops out, opening his son’s door and then mine. “Come” is all he says as he heads toward the private elevator below the street level.
His place is incredible. It spans three stories with a spiraling wrought iron staircase in the middle. “I’m going to go up and play in my room, Dad, okay?” his son says. For a small child, this kid is handling what he’s just seen exceptionally well.
Vari nods and his son disappears up the staircase with a plastic Batman dangling in his hand as he takes the steps two at a time. Suddenly, this all feels too real and stifling. This might’ve been my place if Vari hadn’t broken up with me after high school. I might’ve been the wife in this luxury three-story penthouse. My son might be bounding up those stairs right now. I feel instantly claustrophobic and want to leave. “I demand to be taken back and returned to the theatre right now,” I say.
Vari completely ignores me. I might as well be a fly on the wall or an old lady shuffling on the sidewalk outside, because he pays me no attention as he gets on the phone and calls for a meeting with his brothers. “No, now,” he growls into his cell phone. “I want to find out what the hell is going on!”
I walk toward the apartment door, thinking that I maybe I can just leave and head to the nearest subway station. But this fancy door has a peephole and I push my eye up against it to find two of Vari’s men standing guard outside. I likely wouldn’t make it far, even if I could find a way to get past them. Since Vari’s still on the phone and I’m stuck here, at least for the moment, I decide to explore around the place a bit. I walk up the beautiful staircase, wander down a hallway to see what I can find, and stumble upon the open bedroom door where his son is sitting on the edge of his bed in tears. I can’t just walk past and leave this poor kid in here crying, not after what he’s just seen.
