Page 18 of Revenge on the Mafia

“You’re the new Don.”

To his credit, he didn’t explode. Didn’t bombard me with a thousand questions. He asked only one. “What do you need?”

I told him a few things. Not all of it. I couldn’t tell him what I really needed. A man brought back to life. A wife to have her husband. Two girls to have their father. But also, I wanted to have the man back who had taught me and brought me alive. But none of it was possible. So I buried my emotions like I’d done every day for the past one thousand four hundred and sixty days, and I told him the things he could give me. Starting with a cleaning crew.

When I hung up, the view outside caught my attention. It was a bright day. Like the world was a better place without Boris Martello in it. Four years ago, it had been dark. Switching from a sunlit day to a sudden storm. Another sign that Juan Vales’s death was in vain. The world wasn’t a better place without him. Not for me, and definitely for the three women left behind.

SEVEN YEARS LATER.

Anna Vales.

Two thousand three hundred and seventy-two days since I’d seen her last. After all I’d done to avoid her, she was in my home, flat on the floor, looking at me like I was a stranger.

I was to her, but still—

Deep olive skin wrapped around a tiny five-foot-seven frame. Full, dusty mauve lips I’d secretly seen tilted into a quick smirk when she wanted her way. Dark hazel eyes that carried every emotion in them like clear water, looking into her soul. And those tight mocha spirals on her crown. I’d wanted to sink my hands into them and pull her tight to me for so long that if I actually did it, I’d think I’d died and earned my place in heaven. For a second, I thought I might just do it. I yearned to step forward, sink to my knees, and run my fingers through her hair. A mad impulse I’d almost forgotten.

The thought alone made me take an abrupt step back and stride out of the room. There was a buzz in my ears, and my heart beat in an uneven rhythm as I took the stairs three at a time and walked back into my room.

I couldn’t touch her. Wouldn’t. Shouldn’t. Pulling the drawer open in my closet, I stared at the contents. The scent of her filtered into my nostrils. She smelled like my memories. Sun-kissed days and summer nights. Working in an office with windows and looking outside. A young, innocent girl on the beach. A boy who’d already killed in the house. A treacherous mad yearning in between. One-sided and probably unwanted. She smelled floral and fruity. Altogether too sweet for the darkness of my heart that pumped unevenly inside my rib cage. The clothes she’d left behind the night before were downright boring. A short ivory skirt and a white cotton blouse. Buried underneath them, though, hidden purposefully from my sight, was a hot pink satin bra and panties. Fuchsia. I’d learned all about that color from her. I stared through the boring fabric, imagining it. Imagining her wearing it. Without it. I hadn’t touched the clothes. Except for dumping them in the drawer, I’d stayed away. Didn’t want to get my hands on them and twist this infatuation into something else.

She was the pleasure I sought. One of many things I didn’t deserve. No happiness in this world should be directed towards me, least of all if it entailed Anna Vales.

There was only one good thing that could come out of this.

Anna Vales was here to kill me.

And I was going to allow it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ANNA

Magda told me to clean his office. Not entirely. She told me to clean the hallway leading to his office. It was pretty much the same thing.

“Signor Martello is out for the day,” she told me by way of an explanation before continuing with her cooking. The sun was out. The light streaming in through the kitchen window dazzled, highlighting Magda in front of the black-and-brass Aga cooker. She was far too busy adding spices and tasting her pasta sauce in the heavy Le Creuset pot to give me any attention. I was beginning to like her. She hadn’t fired me for taking a plunge in the boss’s bathtub. Even though she must have found my clothes. I watched her stirring in the pot, trying to piece together her intentions. Why would she keep them, though?

I was still mulling over my idiocy when Magda asked me in a tone layered with annoyance, “Allora, why’re you not there?”

My nails bit into my palm, but outwardly, I hoped I showed a poker face. “I could cook.” Drop some extract into his dinner. If it wasn’t pineapple, move on to the next latex allergy, or add them all in one go and…

She gave me a condescending look. “Can you cook Italian?”

“No… but I cou—”

“I’m cooking Italian. That’s what signore likes.”

“I can make a dangerous paella.” No one could accuse me of lying.

She gave me a glare before shoving me away. “Go. I don’t have time for this.”

She didn’t mean any harm by it. I knew that. But she cramped my plans. I would have preferred to cook his meals. I wasn’t an assassin or anything. I did do days’ worth of research, and my research had told me there was a twenty to forty percent chance of the son having an allergy if the father was allergic. Those were odds I would take. If I wasn’t allowed to cook, I needed to find another way. She told me to clean the hallway leading to his office. I followed the hallway to his office.

A full wall of arched windows greeted me, framed on either side with dark wooden bookshelves from floor to ceiling. There was something about this room that worked on my nerves. From the dark wooden desk in the middle to the wall units and windows, the layout was eerily similar to my distant memory of Papá’s office. Once I’d seen it, I couldn’t erase it from my mind. It played in my emotions like an intense composition. I hadn’t played or listened to music in eleven years, but in my mind, ghost fingers played an invisible piano, and the composition was Asturias (Leyenda) by Isaac Albéniz. The beat took me over. The music climbed the walls, hung on to the ceiling, and shot into my veins like sharp icicles and hot lava at the same time.

My body moved before my mind could comprehend. I walked slowly, then paced quickly in line with the composition pulsing in my head. My fingers were inquisitive. Roaming the open shelves and grazing the line of books. Some of them were old, worn, and in Spanish. I gave my head a shake. It didn’t mean anything. My breathing slowed. Fingers halted. On the fifth shelf from the bottom, the second column from the window, they touched something that brought my blood to a chilling plunge. I’d stopped myself from remembering everything past that atrocious day when Papá died. The days before, the days after, or even the day itself were like memories flushed underwater. So vague they left me wondering if it had ever been real, a made-up fantasy, or a nightmare. But there was one thing I remembered. A star, the size of my palm in crystalline. Cold to the touch. Warm with memories.

Si no puedes encontrar una estrella, busca lo suficientemente lejos hasta que la encuentres.