The corner of his mouth lifts in a knowing smile. “You don’t know the half of it, mia cara.”
“Whose bedroom is this?”
He finally turns around, looking into the room. “Take a wild guess.”
“Yours?” My eyebrows lift in surprise. The room is so…neat and peaceful. “I thought it would have been your fathers.”
“It used to be. When he was healthy, and, before then when my mother was still alive.”
“I see.”
“He moved out to be closer to the stairs, but I think it reminded him too much of his Mama.”
I can see her influence in the layout of the room, with a wide armchair in a sunny corner, and a bookshelf within reach. There’s a tray for teatime where Antonio has displayed his bottles of expensive-looking whiskey. Even the open-plan bathroom has a white curtain separating it from the room, the free-standing tub looking like a centerpiece.
“Let’s continue,” he says and touches my lower back ever so gently to guide me back to the doorway. He knows that it reminds me of last night, I can see it in the slant of his mouth.
He goes on to show me the home gym, past another slew of bedrooms and a shared guest bathroom. Only once we’re heading down the stairs does it dawn on me that he took me to his room first for a reason. He wants it ingrained in my brain that should I leave my room again, the first place I’ll subconsciously think to go is his bedroom. I tell myself it’s a manipulative captor’s plan, but I want to believe it’s for more personal, desirable reasons.
“This is the service wing.” He lifts an arm to the right side of the front lobby. “The kitchen, laundry, and maids’ rooms.”
I nod and smile politely when a maid I’ve never met scurries past.
“On the left, the office.”
“Oh?” I say, finding interest in that room. I’m sure it’s where he looks the most authoritative, the most regal, so I head towards the set of heavy double doors. Antonio opens it for me and I take it in, quietly. The sun streams in strongly and lights up all the dust particles in the air it passes through. Beyond that, there’s a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. His desk is large, mahogany, and covered in papers and a closed laptop. I can’t imagine what actual desk work a mafia man needs to do, but I assume it must have to do with financials and property investments. I turn back into the room and stare up at the books, scanning the spines for anything remotely interesting. I’m pleasantly surprised when I see a section, albeit small, of different colored novels.
“Whose are these?” I pace over and touch each spine gently as I read the titles.
“They were my mothers. She loved stories, be it movies or soap operas, or—” He steps up next to me, close enough for me to feel his arm brush mine. “—romance books. She said she used them to learn to speak English better. She was an Italian immigrant, you see.”
“Wow,” I can’t say much else, distracted by the potential emotion held within these books that I feel a need to discover. They’re wasted here, alone and dusty.
“I’ll have Sophia bring you a few books later.”
“Thank you…”
This is so unreal. I’m still trapped in this house, but I feel less restrained, more at ease.
It’s only when we step out the door that I realize how deprived I’ve become of the sun. It hits my face, stunning me, making me close my eyes reflexively. I breathe in and face the warmth that blankets my face. My eyelids glow red, my face tingling, my skin breaking out into goosebumps as it physically absorbs the Vitamin D.
When I carefully open my eyes again, Antonio is watching me curiously. He’s waiting patiently for me at the bottom of the entrance stairs, apparently taking in the sight of me in the sun. When I feel myself blushing at his stare, he holds a hand out.
“Come on, I want to show you something.” I take his hand and he leads me out into the garden at a slow pace. In front of us, a long, grassy yard runs as far as the eye can see, trees lining each side. To our left is a small stone wall with an iron gate. He opens it and gestures for me to go first. I do, letting his hand go and placing mine at the back of my thighs to stop a quick breeze from blowing up my dress. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear people talking, children laughing, and I can even smell what I assume to be pork chops grilling on a barbecue.
“Did you grow up here as a child?” I ask, struggling to even imagine Antonio as an innocent little boy.
“Yes, we spent every weekend and summer here visiting my grandparents, until my parents moved us all here. I remember climbing all these trees with my kid brother. We’d get sticks and pretend that we were fighting in the war.” Antonio points to a big spruce tree.
“We got into it one time about whose turn it was to play the German side. You know, because somebody had to be the bad guy. Anyway, I must have been pretty convinced that it was his turn because when he refused, I took my stick and broke it over his head. I remember my father chasing me around the trunk of a tree with a boot in his hand. My brother was crying and there was blood everywhere.”
“Sounds fun,” I answer, my tone dripping with sarcasm. Antonio’s mouth lifts again in his famous mysterious smile. It’s as if he knows something you don’t, as if he finds you amusing for some reason unknown to you.
“No, it wasn’t like that. After five minutes, we were back to playing as if nothing ever happened.” Antonio takes me down a set of stone steps, and it’s to my surprise that we run into a group of kids playing tag. “Woah, take it easy, Luca, you’re going to knock somebody over.”
“Uncle Antonio! You see how fast I went?”
“See how fast? Luca, if you were going any faster, you’d break the sound barrier.”