Page 254 of Vita Mia

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Resurrection - 2001

Mondello Beach, Sicily

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MIRABELLA’S EYELIDSflipped open. She lay on her side on the bed. She faced the open doors and the night. And behind her a stranger was close. So close she could feel his breathing on her shoulder. She moved slowly. Her hand reached and fingers touched the handle to the nightstand dresser drawer. She slowly pulled it open. The man behind her snored lightly but didn’t wake. She reached in and felt the gun. She had to move forward to grasp it. The risk was great but she decided to take it. She grabbed the gun and leaped from the bed.

“Who are you!” she demanded. She pointed the gun at him. She turned on the lamplight to brighten the room. A man lay there half covered. His hair had almost greyed and was slicked back from his face. He had a long grey beard streaked in grey that blocked the view of his neck.

“Gio?” she said and lowered the gun slowly.

“Yes. It’s me Bella,” he said and sat up.

“But how? How is it you?” she asked and the gun slipped from her hand and landed on the floor.

It was him but it wasn’t. Before she could make sense of any of it she rushed the bed and threw herself back into his arms. She couldn’t believe a dream could become real. Her mind couldn’t conceive it. But he was there. He was alive.

When her heartfelt joy eased she drew back and looked at him. She touched his beard. It was the longest she had ever seen him grow it. She looked down at his torso that had some scarring from prison, knifings and other acts of violence he’d endured. He was different. His dark thick brows ha silvered the same way his hair and beard had. And he had pierced ear. Very tiny diamonds in both lobes. Her Giovanni would never pierce his ears. Who was this man pretending to be him? Suddenly all of the pain and grief she carried for what felt like an eternity surfaced. She slapped him. Not just to hurt him, but to see if this person who looked like her husband, was real.

“How could you do this to me? To your children? Why?”

“Let me explain.”

“Explain? Yes! Explain to me how you could disappear from our lives for five years. How you could watch us bury you, mourn you, and do nothing! Explain it damn it.”

“It wasn’t my plan.”

“Bullshit! Liar!” Mirabella shouted at him. “This was your plan all along. Wasn’t it. Wasn’t it?”

“They weren’t going to stop persecuting me. Their anti-mafia campaign needed a sacrifice.”

“The sacrifice was supposed to be the Puglias! We planned for it to be the Santoro’s!”

“And it was, Bella. In the end, the Santoro’s took the fall.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “Noooooo. In the end, you made me and my children take the fall.

“Our children,” he corrected her.

“My children!” she shouted at him. “Their mine! You’re a dead man!”

“Stop yelling,” he said.

“Don’t talk to me like that!”

“Give me a chance to explain.”

She glared at him.

He sighed and ran his hand and fingers back through his hair. “The accident happened how the news reported it. The Russians ambushed us. The Générale was in the transport van with me. We went off the cliff. But I was thrown free. Not before the explosion caught me. Some people found me. Dominic got me out of there. It took months for me to heal. I was hurt pretty bad.”

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