Page 68 of Roque

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Where is he?” I gripped my head in my hands. My world was falling apart and I needed him to reassure me.

He was only supposed to be gone a few days, but his trip to Chicago turned into a trip to Italy.

He lied to me, though. I only knew he was in Palermo because my PI tailed his ass for me. It cost me most of what was left from Pap’s money. But I needed to know just what in the hell was going down.

“Miss Palermo?”

“Yes,” I turned, smiling weakly at the doctor coming toward me. I found Zio slumped over and foaming at the mouth two nights ago. He was rushed into the hospital by ambulance and it’s been a whirlwind of tests ever since. Zio had a massive stroke. He’s in a coma and they don’t know how much damage his brain has. How could I miss this? So many nights the signs were there that he was slowing down and yet I was preoccupied with Roque, too caught up in our love storm to pay much mind and now I might lose Zio.

“I’m sorry. Your Uncle is brain dead. The machines are breathing for him…,” my world faded to black. Tears from my face fell on the tiled hall. I was truly alone now, the last Fiorelli left.

I tried texting Roque, but he still refused to answer. Desperate, I called Tati and asked her to get Johnny’s number from Seb.

“Johnny?” I wiped a hand across my eyes when he picked up. Where were they? It sounded like he was at a party. I heard voices and music and a man on a microphone congratulating someone on their engagement…

“What in the hell is going on where’s Roque…?!” But no one replied. The call quickly ended.

I quickly dialed my PI…I was tempted to have her blow her cover just to get him a message to call me.

“Diana…” I pressed my phone to my ear and held a hand over my other one. I could barely hear her over the deafening applause and music.

“Where are you?”

“…Roque’s engagement party in Palermo. He’s marrying Julietta Castellione.”

“What?” Nothing made any sense.

I hung up feeling absolutely gutted. It couldn’t be true. He wouldn’t do that to me, would he?”

With a numb heart, and a hung head I gently pushed open the door to Zio’s room. His skin was ashen. The machine breathed for him, but he was gone. I sat next to his bed, picked up his hand and finally let it all out. I sobbed for the girl I was in the woods, for all the years it was just the two of us, and finally I broke down because I let him down. While he was slowly deteriorating, I was burning up with our sworn enemy. One who apparently is betraying me at this very moment.

“I’m sorry, Zio. I swear to you I’ll finish it. I’ll end Roque Salvatore. I’ll stop at nothing to make this right. I am a stupid girl, just like you said. But no more. Never again will I be seduced by the enemy. He hasn’t changed. Not one bit. I know that now.”

“I held Zio’s hand until the nurse came in and asked me if I was ready to let him go.

I nodded and watched as my world was ripped away. How could anyone be ready to let someone you love go?

Sometime near dawn, I exited the hospital. I was a walking Zombie. Everything inside of me was dead. I noticed a dark SUV parked a few cars down. So, he was still having me watched but couldn’t be bothered to answer my calls and texts? Fuck that. I walked past the SUV and inside a coffee shop, blindly ordering something just to have an excuse to walk past the car. I saw him looking at me in his rearview. I dropped the cup when I was close and quickly slashed two tires.

It was a numb kind of satisfaction when I peeled out and watched the SUV struggle to tail me. It didn’t matter. They knew where I lived but if I was quick enough, Diana Palermo would disappear.

He wouldn’t find me.

I’d find him.

But I needed space and distance to grieve the loss of Zio and deal with the devastated hole Roque’s betrayal left in my heart. The man decimated me. Broke me down just like he warned he would.

Did he know this whole time? Did Johnny’s crew dig up my past?

I drove back to our tiny house feeling the crushing weight of so much loss. I couldn’t breathe in that house.

Quickly, I packed and set plans in motion. Zio did train me very well. It was time to execute our “bug out” plan and disappear for a while. I was eighteen and a legal adult and no one could stop me from leaving.

I left the Explorer in the drive and used the car we kept in the garage under a tarp. An old Volvo wagon would be my getaway car. It was blue and nondescript. I turned back to the house. It was time to say goodbye.

I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t crumble. Instead, I drove south to Pennsylvania. Past farms and fields, past rolling hills until I reached a tiny college town called Altoona. Zio bought a log cabin on an acre here years ago. Paid cash. Before he slowed down, we’d summer up here, slowly stocking it bit by bit in case we ever needed a safe haven.

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