Everything takes too fucking long.
Too long to come into full consciousness in the wrecked SUV.Too long to check over my own body for injuries – which include a fucked-up head and an even more fucked-up left leg.But nothing’s broken, far as I can tell.So I drag myself out into the rain.
That takes too long, too.And then it’s too long until I encounter another vehicle and force the driver out by gunpoint.Too long to drive back to Toronto, to get my fake ID and passport – because I can’t show up in Toarmina with Titone stamped anywhere on my documents.I wouldn’t make it out of the airport alive.The ruling Russofamigliathat our papà betrayed, thefamigliathat burned our childhood home – along with our mamma inside it – to the ground are still alive and well and powerful.
It’s well past dawn in Toronto by the time I’m in the air, Sicily-bound, with the name Cesare Titan inked into my identifying documents.
I spend the entire flight hoping against all that is holy that I didn’t dream Aurora’s words.That I’m not wasting precious time, flying across an ocean to find her when she won’t even be there.For some reason, in the stalling cells of my brain, she’s the clearest thing I can recall.And all I can do is believe that it means the words I remember her speaking beside that car are real.Not New York.Taormina.
I can hear her even now.Like she’s calling me from across the ocean.
Begging me to come and find her.
Things take too fucking long at the airport, too.Too long to exchange my stacks of Canadian bills for euros.And when I see the line at the car rental desk, I already know I do not have the goddamn patience for that.I’ll need a car, but I leave the airport, instead finding my way to the line of taxis waiting.I walk up to the first car I see, its middle-aged male driver leaning leisurely against the passenger side door, smoking.
“I will give you five thousand euros in cash,” I say in Italian, “right now, if you hand over the keys to this vehicle.”
The taxi driver raises his brows in disbelief.
“What, is this a shakedown?”he asks.“Five thousand is not worth the risk!This is my livelihood!”
It would be so easy to kill him.Right fucking now.
But there are cameras and witnesses and no fucking time.
So I move onto the next one.But he says no too.I get through four of them before I suddenly hear a voice pipe up from beyond the lane of taxis.
“Five thousand cash?”A young man with a bag in one hand and a set of keys in the other is standing nearby.He’s not a cab driver.He looks like he’s just gotten back from a trip.
“That’s right.You got a vehicle?”
He nods, and I close the distance between us in a few massive strides.He’s a little startled by how fast I’ve made it to him, craning his head back to look at me.
“It’s in the lot over there,” he says, indicating the parking beyond the taxi area.“An old red sedan with one black panel at the back.”
“It’s got gas?”
He nods again, eagerly.“It’s not even worth five thousand euros.But it runs just fine.You pay that much, and you can fucking keep it.”
Without another word, I pull out the wad of bills for him.His light brown eyes go round as coins at the sight.Maybe he didn’t think I was telling the truth.He’s so stunned that he doesn’t even reach for the money.I drop it on the ground between us, swiping the keys from his hand before he even realizes they’re gone.
The first thing that doesn’t take too long in this entire fucking journey is locating the young man’s vehicle.His description was spot-on, and there’s only one decrepit-looking sedan with a lone black panel in the lot.It looks like it’ll fall apart if someone so much as breathes on it, but the engine starts just fine.
Exiting the lot, I let a mixture of memory and instinct drive me.I only remember one house associated with the Messinas when I was younger, and that seems like as good a place as any to start my search.It was a big, rural property.The last time I saw it was when we were leaving Sicily, driving to the airport after the fire.I remember it being on a hill not far off the main road to the airport, with a church on the hill behind it.
But after driving for nearly an hour towards Toarmina, I’m beginning to doubt my memory.That knock on the noggin could have done more damage than I realized.I’m just about to head right into Taormina proper and start interrogating random people off the street when I see it.The night sky is clear, the moon heavy and bright, illuminating the pale stone of the Messina house and the medieval-era church beyond.
There is a vehicle parked by the front door.
Somebody’s in there.
I don’t pull up the drive to the house, instead parking the car where it’s at least somewhat hidden by a stand of trees at the side of the road.I walk the hundred metres or so to the house, moving slowly, stealthily.It’s harder than it should be.My leg hurts like a motherfucker, but I ignore it.My head hurts, too, and that’s harder to ignore, because it’s affecting my brain, my train of thoughts.But I don’t need to think to do this.To slip into this house without being detected.
Keeping to the shadows, I arrive at the side of the house.I consider picking the lock of the front door, but decide to do a quick lap of the building.I find other doors – like glass ones at the back.I stare through, seeing furniture.But not Aurora.
There’s another set of glass doors, higher, leading from a balcony into a second-floor room.Probably a bedroom.Based on the size of the balcony, I’d guess that it’s the primary bedroom of the house.If Alessandro is here, that’s where I’ll find him.And the way that there’s an iron trellis right beside it, a ladder built right into the fucking wall, feels like it’s got to be some kind of sign.
Yeah.That’s my way in.
