“Sure thing, boss,” Vinni answered for both of them.
“Good.” I whisked past them and out the door and into my car. I spun out of the driveaway and floored it down the hill on my way to the dockyard. Her scent was all over me, and I tried to focus on what I needed to do, but I was hard and tightly wound. I hadn’t felt this out of sorts since the day we got the call to leave the island.
My patience was gone as I skidded to a stop and slammed the car door. I slipped my gloves on as I walked up to the man who waited for me.
“He won’t say anything, boss.” Donatello folded his arms, clearly as annoyed as I was. I pulled back my fist and started to pound on his face then his body. I lost count how many times I punched him, but when he couldn’t hold himself up anymore, I pushed him to the ground.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk?” I held up a container of gasoline and a box of matches, but when he rolled his head to look away, I doused him, threw a lit match, and watched as his body burned.
“Why are you taking out your own men?” Donatello stood next to me as I lit a cigar. “It just seems kind of backward to me.”
“Or brilliant,” I hissed and blew out, letting the smoke rise to mingle with the smoke and screams from the man who lay writhing at our feet.
He nodded, but I could see he wasn’t sure where I was going with that. Nothing like forcing me to do the dirty work to remove my own men. I felt like I was plucking them off one by one, leaving an open trail for whoever was behind this.
“I want you there tonight, I’m tired of this shit.”
“Yeah, boss.” He snapped his fingers, and two men came closer, waiting to dispose of the body.
“Hey!” I ran my tongue along the inside of my teeth. “Take a photo and let it circulate as a warning to the others.”
“Will do.”
Slowly, I made my way back to my car where I finished my cigar then tossed it in the trash and headed for my parents’ place. The entire way, my mind flipped from the one woman I’d ever loved suddenly being here, to the faces of the men I’d once known and trusted, who I considered an extension of my family. It drove me mad. There were too many unanswered questions. The worst part was when I turned on the cooling system, Sienna’s smell swirled around the car like the smoke from my fine cigar. As I pulled into the roundabout driveway, my mother greeted me in the entryway.
“Did you see her?”
“Yes.” I kept walking to the kitchen.
“And?”
“And what?”
“Elio Capri.” I stopped with a sigh and turned around to find my mother with her hands on her hips. “That girl was like my daughter for years. Your father saw her, and now you have, twice. I want to know how she is…now!”
I slipped out of my gasoline-smelling suit jacket and draped it over the maid’s arm. She whisked it away without comment. I rolled up my dress shirt while I thought about the right words to use.
“Elio,” she snapped impatiently.
“She’s Sienna, still gorgeous and has a new bite to her personality. She’s pissed and hurting, but…” I paused, remembering how good it felt to have her in my arms again.
“What?”
“She’s still wearing the necklace I gave her with the two pendants.”
Her hands went to her mouth as she let out a breath. “That’s something, isn’t it?”
“We’ll see.” I wasn’t getting too excited yet. We had a long way to go first.
“Do you…” She came closer. “Do you still feel the same way?”
“Yes.” There was no denying it. I was still captivated by her.
“Little steps, my son. You’ll get there.”
“What about Mariano?”
“We don’t know exactly what, if anything, they have between them. Besides, Mariano doesn’t share a past with her. Elio, you and she have deep roots in your relationship. She loved you once, and she’ll find her way back to you again. Just give her a little time and help her remember what you had.”