Page 10 of The Madman and his broken Princess
I gasped, my heart jolting. The left side of his face was entirely swollen, his eye a black-and-blue bump and crusted shut. His other eye opened, and for several moments, he merely stared up at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling slowly before he rotated his head toward me. He grimaced. “Hey, Amelia.” His voice was rough. From screaming? The thought made me want to wail.
“I…” I cleared my throat. “I brought you food and a book.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to read tonight. My head is spinning.”
I nodded, my chin wobbling. “Yeah. You look…you look really—” I wasn’t sure what to say. He looked like hell, like my father really wanted to kill him.
“This is nothing.” He pushed into a sitting position, his expression tightening with pain. He moved his hands stiffly and kept them hanging limply at his sides the moment he stood. When he moved to the bars, I finally got a good look at his hands and immediately wished I hadn’t. He didn’t have any fingernails. Left were swollen nail beds and half-moon-shaped wounds. My belly dipped with a heave, but I quickly swallowed.
Nestore leaned the less beaten-up side of his face against the bars and smiled, or at least he tried, but the swollen side didn’t move properly, so it looked like a grotesque grimace.
“I wish…” I felt a wave of immense guilt. I wished I could help him, not just with food or books.
“Yeah, me too.” He motioned at the bag. “Let’s see what you got.”
I pulled out a couple of bananas, a protein bar, and a small pack of chips. “The cook threw away the food before I could pack some for you. I’m sorry.”
He ate the bananas first, then handed me the peel. “It’s better if you bring me stuff that doesn’t leave a trace. Your father noticed the plate you brought down here last time.”
I could feel the color drain from my face. I hadn’t even thought about that. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Me neither,” he said. Was he really joking?
When he had eaten everything that I’d brought and handed the packaging back to me, we settled on the floor.
“The staircase creaks when they come down here. You can hide in time,” Nestore told me when I glanced at the cellblock door for the hundredth time.
“Here.” I handed him the book I’d picked. It was a fantasy book with dragons. He took it without checking it, then took a few gulps from the water bottle.
“I’m praying that this will be over soon.”
“There are only two ways this can end. With me dead or with your father dead.”
Two weeks later, I could barely contain my excitement as I headed down to the basement to Nestore. My father had left that morning, so as soon as my homeschooling was done, I hurried downstairs.
Nestore’s face looked better. He had a new cut on his lower lip, and the way he moved suggested he had other bruises and injuries on his body, but it wasn’t anything as obvious as the first time my father had tortured him. “I know why my father was so busy in the past few days.”
Nestore raised his eyebrows as he eagerly dug in. Today, I had a container with penne all’arrabbiata for him.
“I overheard the guards talking today. They said Benedetto Falcone was killed by his own enforcer.” I grinned, feeling giddy with the possibilities.
Nestore stopped eating and put the container down, hope lighting up his face. “Growl? Are you sure?”
“That’s what they said. My father wasn’t at the dinner table, so I couldn’t ask him, but he’s tripled the guards.”
Nestore’s brows snatched together as he absentmindedly rubbed his left rib.
“Maybe a new Capo will improve things,” I said.
“Maybe,” Nestore agreed, looking more alive than I had seen him since his capture. “But it’ll be a while until his influence reaches California. His son, Remo, is too young.”
“Rumor has it nobody knows where he or his brothers are anyway.”
Nestore perked up, his brows furrowing further. “Several forces will fight for the position of Capo of the Camorra, and eventually, he’ll be one of them. It’s in his blood.”
That was what I had feared. “Do you think my father will be among them?” The idea that Father could become even more powerful terrified me. He’d be as bad as Benedetto, and Nestore’s fate would be sealed.
Nestore’s shoulders stiffened, a flicker of fear passing his face before he masked it. “He’ll try.”
