“No, I had no idea,” he reveals. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose. Because our captive is going to the Rizzos anyway. She’ll never get a chance to tell her father anything.”
I don’t answer.
“All right.” Luciano slips out of my grasp and stands.
“She hasn’t eaten supper by the way,” I tell my brother.
Luciano nods. “I’ll make something for her. She likes spaghetti?”
I nod absently and watch him go.
I receive a text from Stefano shortly after:
Hey bro. Are the trades still on for tomorrow? Noon and one thirty?
Noon refers to the Rizzo trade, while one thirty is the meeting with the Amatos.
The timing of the text is suspicious. I wonder if Luciano talked to Stefano.
I can’t wait too long to answer or Stefano will think something is going on. Last thing I want is my brothers thinking I’m having cold feet. I need them to show up tomorrow. I also need to hang onto Angela long enough to give her to her father.
So I text him back:
They are a go.
I’ll find a way to make this work. A way for my brothers to keep the nine million Euros and for me to keep Angela. There has to be a way. I just don’t see it right now.
A part of me wonders if I should just do what Luciano asks. Just give her up. It would make things so much easier.
But I can’t bring myself to. Not now.
I reach underneath my shirt and touch the pendant hanging from my throat. She gave me this for a reason. Because she belongs to me, now. Not the Rizzos. And certainly not the Amatos. Yes, that she gave me this pendant tells me everything I need to know: she’s not playing me.
I glance at my watch. It’s late. I head to my room. I’m actually surprisingly tired… I guess making love to someone all day does that to you. I head straight for my bed, not bothering to shower. I don’t want to clean off Angela’s bodily fluids anyway. Let them linger, part of her mark on me.
I lie on my bed, plotting, scheming. I run through every option, from going through with the trade and killing Angela’s entire family, to running away with her and never returning to Sicily. Ninety percent of the options are sheer suicide, while the other ten percent—those options where I give Angela to the Rizzos—will only kill a part of me, destroying the last vestige of good left inside of me.
In regards to the option where I return Angela to her father, by my judgement there’s only a one percent chance she’ll come back to me, and a ninety-nine percent chance her father will hunt me down and kill me. So far, that seems the best and only option. Now I just have to figure out how I’m going to do it and live. There has to be a way to absolve my brothers of responsibility… but even if I could, I doubt I could convince Giovanni that they weren’t guilty by association. I’ll find a way, though. I have to.
I think about Luciano’s failure tonight. Having a decoy when meeting the Rizzos would have proven helpful, but it’s not strictly necessary. I could…
Actually no, it is kind of necessary. I told Luciano earlier that if we showed up without a hostage, the Rizzos would probably order hidden snipers to mow us down from afar. I won’t have any harm coming to my brother tomorrow. If it was just me attending the rendezvous, then maybe I’d proceed alone. But since Luciano is slated to come with me, I’m going to have to kidnap someone to replace Angela. We need that fucking decoy.
If I get up early tomorrow, I should still have time to find someone. There’s no point in heading out now, everyone will be at home, the streets deserted.
So early tomorrow it is. I’ll return to the fruit farm with my new hostage and we can go through with the trade without Angela. It’s going to take place at sea. I’ll have to make a slight change to the plan of course: we’ll place our new hostage in a different boat with a bag over her head, about five hundred meters from us, so that by the time the Rizzos realize we’ve fucked them, we’ll be a long way from any snipers.
Then I keep Angela, and my brothers get their Euros. Everyone leaves the table happy.
Well, sort of. My happiness will only last until I give her to her father an hour and a half later.
But I’ll deal with that when it comes. I have some vague ideas in mind, but I want to give them some time to fully form. Often, the best ideas are those that come to me moments before the point of no return. So I guess we’ll see.
I close my eyes. I rest my hand around the necklace and its touch comforts me. I can’t help but smile.
She’s mine. Or at least, she will be.
I descend into an exhausted sleep and my last thoughts before I go under are:
