Damage: an Arranged Marriage Mafia Romance Read online

  “We’re going to a memorial service for my friend who is dead because of me. I realize you could care less, but I’m not fishing for compliments. It was the only thing I had in my closet that was appropriate.”

  Her eyes glisten and I see the circles beneath them that she’s tried to cover up.

  “He made a choice,” I say. “What happened to him is not your fault.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me that.” She puts on a brave face, but I can see how fragile that surface layer is. “Can we go?”

  I gesture to the man at the front door and he opens it. Gabriela flinches when I set my hand at her lower back and guide her out to the waiting SUV. We drive in silence to the airport and within two hours, are making our way up the steps to the small church in a suburb of Rome for the memorial service.

  The parking lot is full, and people talk quietly as they climb the stairs and pass the heavy, wooden door to each other. Organ music plays a melancholy, gothic tune. Music for a funeral.

  I breathe in the smell of incense already heavy in the air and it takes me back to when I was younger. To when we would attend mass as a family.

  We weren’t welcome in the small church then. I felt it even as a little boy.

  And neither Gabriela nor I are welcome here now.

  I see it in the faces that turn in our direction as I walk her up the aisle and into an empty pew.

  A glance at her tells me she sees it too.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her. I don’t know why.

  She shrugs away from me. “You should go. You don’t belong here.”

  “Do you?” I ask, gesturing to the family who are openly talking about us from the front pews.

  “I used to,” she says, sitting down and picking up the memory card.

  I glance at it, see Alex smiling back. See her lightly touch his hair in the picture and I’m pissed. I’m pissed that this happened. That we’re here for this. The kid shouldn’t have died.

  “Haven’t you done enough?” asks a man.

  Gabriela tilts her face up, and what I see in her eyes, it brings out something dark inside me. Dark and fiercely protective.

  I turn to face the man. He’s in his forties I’d guess. Not the father, I know he’s dead. Maybe an uncle?

  “You are?” I ask politely because we’re at a fucking memorial service.

  “Alex’s uncle, not that it’s any of your business, Sabbioni.” Ah, he knows me. Saves me the trouble of introducing myself.

  But he looks past me to Gabriela who’s stood up.

  “I didn’t…Alex was…” Gabriela stammers.

  I shift my posture, blocking Gabriela from the uncle as I step out into the aisle. He’s a big guy, but so am I, and if he thinks he’s going to somehow make us leave, he’s got another thing coming.

  “She has as much right to be here as you. Gabriela and Alex were good friends.”

  “And look where that got Alex.” He gives me a once-over, then peers around me. “Is your father coming too?” he spits the words.

  I put a hand on his shoulder, squeeze. “Watch yourself. We’re in a fucking church. I advise you to go back to your pew and sit down. We’re staying.”

  The man leans against my hand as he gets his face in mine. “Leave.”

  “Stefan,” Gabriela starts, her hand on my arm.

  “Sit down, Gabriela,” I tell her without turning away.

  “Maybe we should—”

  “You’re making a scene,” I tell the man.

  He looks around, notes all the eyes on us, backs up a step. “You leave your men outside, Sabbioni.”

  “Do you see my men inside?”

  His eyes narrow.

  “You lost your nephew,” I say. “My fiancée’s lost her friend. She grieves as you do. Now go back to your seat and let her be.”

  He grits his teeth, looks at Gabriela once more before scanning the dead silent church, all eyes on us, all ears on us. He then returns to his pew at the front.

  Gabriela is still standing, her face white, a rosary in one hand, the memorial card in the other and all I can think is how different she is to who she was when I first met her two years ago. When I first started this.

  And I think how little I like this change.

  Because she is being buried. And if not buried, then at the very least, she’s breaking.

  The music changes, the boom of the organ commanding our attention. The procession of altar boys begins to make their way up the aisle, followed by a priest swinging the smoking censer, all of it so familiar and yet so far out of reach, as if the past never was at all.

  That’s the thing with time. I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to forget. To set fire to all the photographs. To somehow burn all the memories.

  “Thank you,” Gabriela whispers, drawing me to the present.

  I nod and take my place beside her in our pew.

  7

  Gabriela

  I think Stefan is bipolar. At the very least he has multiple personalities.

  Throughout the service, as I pass my fingers over the rosary beads Miss Millie lent me, he sits quietly attentive, giving the impression he’s listening to the mass when I know he’s just watching me and everyone else.

  I don’t know Alex’s uncle. I’ve seen him once, but I don’t even know his name. Alex and his father were the only ones out of his family to work for my father. But if I’d been on my own and he came to tell me to leave, I’d have left. I wouldn’t know how to say no, to stand up to him the way Stefan did.

  It’s so confusing being with him. One minute he’s a fierce protector. The next, he’s the predator and I’m the prey. And I feel like I don’t know when either will take over.

  The service lasts two hours and afterwards, as we walk out of the church, I feel drained. Weepy.

  “We’ll get lunch before we go back,” Stefan says as he helps me into the SUV.

  I know we’re close to his uncle’s house and I really don’t want to go there. Or anywhere, really.

  “Can we just go home?” Why do I keep referring to it as home? It’s not my home. “I don’t feel like company.”

  “It’s just us. You don’t have to be anything with me.”

  “Oh. I assumed you’d want to see your uncle.”

  He shakes his head. “I didn’t think you’d feel very social after this.”

  Well, that was considerate. I bite the inside of my cheek and we don’t speak again until we’re seated at a quiet restaurant in a part of the city I’ve never been to. We’re the only customers and a bartender, a waiter and two other men are nearby to wait only on us.

  “Thank you for bringing me to the service,” I say. I know he didn’t have to do that.

  “You’re welcome.”

  He picks up my menu and hands it to me.

  I take it, open it and scan the page, just picking the first item I see, then close it again and set it down. I don’t care what I eat.

  Stefan takes his time, though. Is this what it will be like with us? Will we sit quietly, awkwardly like this? Or will he ship me off somewhere once we’re married? Resume his life?

  Resume.

  That makes the assumption he’s stopped living the life he’s always lived.

  My hands in my lap, I finger the diamond on my left hand, feel the weight of it.

  My new life. This is it. And I have no more control over it than I did my old one.

  But I’m going to do what Stefan told me last night. I’m taking his advice. I’d tell him if I didn’t think he’d get cocky but I’m going to stop feeling sorry for myself. I’ve become weak since this began. And since the kidnapping, I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore.

  As if Stefan feels this shift in my mood, he closes his menu and looks at me with those strange, hazel eyes.

  I think of his eyes on me last night. Think of how I looked to him when he touched me.

  Heat flushes through me, settling at my core.

  What he did to me last night, I wa
nt it again. And I’m determined to learn this game fast and learn it well, because I have to beat him at it. Let him underestimate me. Let him think I’m laughable. A child. I know what I felt when I touched him. He wants me. And that is a weakness.

  The waiter is at our table a moment later and Stefan asks a few questions, then asks me if I’m ready to order.

  I open my menu again because I’d forgotten what it was and order the first pasta dish listed.

  “That’s all?” Stefan asks.

  “That’s all.”

  He orders a starter and a main course as well as a bottle of wine. Once the wine comes, the waiter pours for both of us and we drink a sip.

  “I want to see my brother,” I blurt out.

  “Your brother’s in New York.”

  “You have a jet.”

  He takes a deep breath in, studying me. “We’ll talk about it.”

  “No. I want to see him. Especially now.”

  “You have the phone. You can FaceTime him anytime.”

  “It’s not the same. And he doesn’t understand why I haven’t been there. I used to go every week, twice whenever I could. Please, Stefan. I just want this one thing.” I pause. “I’ll do something you want in exchange.”

  He sighs.

  “Anything,” I add.

  “Let’s talk about it later.”

  “No, not later. Now.”

  “If you push me, the answer is no. Let me think about it.”

  There’s a long silence while we study one another.

  I sigh. “Why were you like that last night?”

  “Like what?”

  “Mean.”

  He makes a face, like he’s going to laugh or say something cutting, but I speak first and cut him off.

  “Don’t tell me to grow up. You don’t have to be a jerk to me.”

  “You lied to me. How do you want me to be when you lie to me?”

  “The thing with Rafa, I should have told you. At least when I recognized the man at that house. I get that you were mad, but the rest, the things you said, I’m not my father. Don’t hate me for his sins.”

  “I don’t hate you, Gabriela.”

  “That’s the thing. Sometimes, I feel like you do. Then other times, it’s like you’re this other person. The one who carried me up out of that well.”

  “Which one do you want?”

  His question catches me off guard and it takes me a moment to process because he seems genuine.

  Don’t be a fool.

  I give a shake of my head. Am I so desperate for affection? He’s just fucking with me.

  “My father said there’s a modification to the contract. What is it?”

  “Which one do you want?” he repeats.

  The waiter brings his starter and sets it down. Stefan doesn’t take his eyes off me for a second.

  I, on the other hand, look at anything but him.

  “Which one, Gabriela?” he probes.

  I look up at him and my heart is racing and the thoughts in my head, I don’t understand them.

  “The one who carried me up out of that well.”

  I say it. I put it out there and I don’t know if he’s setting me up, if he just wants to make fun of me or hurt me somehow but I feel too weak to fight him today. I don’t know what he gets out of it, anyway. What pleasure he can have from making fun of me. Maybe he’s just a sadist.

  He looks thoughtful, though, not mocking.

  But he still doesn’t speak.

  I pick up my glass, swallow some wine, clear my throat and wait, regretting having said it out loud.

  It’s a long time before he finally says something. “I would not have left you in that well. What you said last night, that I should have left you there, I wouldn’t.” He drinks a sip of his wine, then puts his glass down. “But I’m not what you think, Gabriela. And you should remember that one heroic act does not a hero make.”

  “I know what you are, Stefan. I know who you are. I remember you from the first night in my bedroom. That’s you. The real you.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Someone broken. Someone alone.”

  “Like you?”

  8

  Stefan

  She’s quiet for the rest of the day, throughout lunch and the flight back to Palermo. It’s late afternoon when we’re back and as soon as we walk inside, Gabriela heads for the stairs.

  “Gabriela.”

  She stops, turns to me.

  There’s so much sadness in her eyes right now that it’s hard to look at her. To see her like this. Alex’s death pushed her over the edge, but this has been building for a long time. Maybe all her life.

  It’s everything that’s already happened to her.

  All the things that are still happening. That have yet to happen.

  “Go change into something comfortable. I want to take you somewhere.” As I say it, I’m not sure why I’m going to do it. I’ve been to Skull Rock once since Antonio betrayed us. It was the night I buried what was left of him.

  She opens her mouth to protest. I can already hear it before she even says a word.

  I go to her, put my finger to her lips. “You said you’d do anything if I let you see your brother.”

  “You’re going to take me to see Gabe?” she seems surprised and when she smiles, her eyes sparkle for the first time in days.

  I smile too. “Not right this second, but yes. First, change. And bring a sweater. Hurry.”

  “Okay.”

  She disappears up the stairs and I follow her to do the same, putting on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. It’s a few minutes after I’m downstairs that she follows wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top and is tying a sweater around her hips.

  I hold out my hand.

  She looks at it cautiously, but slips hers inside mine and a few minutes later, I’m leading her out the back of the house and down those stone steps to the cove.

  “Where are we going?” she asks as I help her down. The stairs are steep, and I wonder how she managed them in the dark that night without falling.

  “Have you ever gone swimming in the sea under the moon?” I ask her as we step onto the sandy beach.

  She pulls back, her expression changing.

  “Stefan, I can’t swim. You know that.”

  “You can swim. You’re just afraid to and I already told you I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” This is one reason I didn’t tell her to put a swimsuit on. She’d have given me trouble.

  She’s reluctant as I guide her around a corner, following the shoreline to a hidden cove I’m sure she hasn’t discovered yet.

  “I used to play here with my brother growing up,” I say as we turn a final corner where my boat is docked. “Now the toys are a little different.” It’s a sailboat, not a very big one, just what I need. I haven’t taken it out in a while.

  Gabriela looks up at it, at the high sails, the beautiful polished wood.

  “It belonged to my father. I inherited it.” It’s well maintained, even through the years I wasn’t able to do it myself.

  She turns to me. “You can sail?”

  I nod. “Have you ever been sailing?”

  “A long time ago. With my mom and brother.”

  “Well,” I start gesturing to the boat. “Then you can help.”

  It takes a little doing to convince her to get on and I don’t really expect her to help with the sails but not ten minutes later, we’re out on the water having caught the wind and are sailing steadily toward what Antonio and I named Skull Rock. It feels like a lifetime ago that we did that. It is a lifetime. A whole other life.

  I sit beside Gabriela as we watch the sun set on the horizon and she slips her sweater on, pulling the sleeves over her hands as the breeze cools a little and when I shift closer and put an arm around her, she doesn’t pull away.

  “I’m not sure what’s more beautiful,” she starts. “The sunsets or the sunrises.”

  “Maybe it depends on the day. I
f you need a beginning or an ending.”

  The moon replaces the sun in the sky. It’s full and the night is clear.

  I work the sails and navigate the boat to Skull Rock and a little while later, I lift her out of the boat. We walk onto the shore where we sit on the sand and look back at the house, at Palermo in the distance, and the moonlit water. The only sound is that of the water lapping against the boat, waves gently rolling onto the beach.

  “What is this place?” she asks.

  “Skull Rock. At least that’s what my brother and I named it. Look,” I lean close to her, point. “Close your right eye and look at the rock. Tell me it doesn’t look like a human skull.”

  “That’s creepy.”

  “Yep. Exactly what we liked when we were little.”

  “I saw a picture of you when you were little. You were cute. And fat.”

  I can hear a smile in her voice. I smile too. “I never passed up a plate of my mom’s homemade pasta,” I say with a wink.

  Her smile fades a moment later and she lies down on her back to look up at the sky.

  I watch her. She’s so fucking beautiful. Even like this, sad and pale, she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  “Do you miss her?” she asks.

  “I miss them all.”

  She glances at me but shifts her gaze back to the sky. “Do you believe in Heaven and Hell, Stefan?”

  I lie down too, hands behind my head, and think about her question. Think how to answer her.

  “Yes and no.”

  She turns her head to look at me. “What do you mean?”

  “I believe in hell. I believe that’s where we’re left when they die.”

  “That’s so sad.” Her eyes glisten with tears and one slides over her temple.

  I wipe it away. “You cry too much.”

  “Please don’t call me a baby and ruin this.”

  She must see confusion on my face.

  “You’re being nice, Stefan. Don’t mess it up.”

  “I wasn’t going to call you a baby.” I turn on my side, set my elbow on the sand and lean my head in my hand. “What do you believe?”

  She shifts her gaze up. “I think those stars are us. When we die. I think they’re our souls. And I think you’re right about hell being right here.”