Page 18 of Bought By the Mafia

Half an hour later, we were in the car park with Giovanni holding my bag. We were waiting for someone. I was too nervous to ask who. A few seconds later, a black car with black windows came through and stopped in front of us. The door opened and a muscular woman I’ve never seen before stepped out. She was wearing the same outfit I had seen Giovanni’s men wear. Black pants, a shirt, and a jacket. Giovanni handed her my bag. “Get in,” he said to me. I obliged. The woman got in after me, but Gio stayed put. “You’re not coming?” I asked. He shook his head. “If you don’t see me within in a month, she’ll know what to do,” he said. Nodding his head towards the woman, he said to her, “Remember my instructions.” She replied with a gruff voice and that was it. The door was closed, and the car sped off, leaving Gio standing there and me being carried off to some unknown place in a car with strangers.

8

Never in my life did I think I would ever yearn for a man. Wonder if he was well. If he wasn’t hurt. Or worse… dead. And yet, here I was, two weeks into isolation, wondering if Giovanni was alive or not. Whether he had succeeded in whatever mission he had gone to. He didn’t tell me anything. He had put me into a car which had taken me to a safe house and left me there. His worried and agitated expression had been enough for me to do as he said, and now that same expression tormented me. It was funny how one can grow to miss someone they thought they hated.

My two bodyguards did not allow me to leave. They did not allow me a phone, laptop or any device that could access the Internet. For my protection, they said. They did not want to talk to me either, which meant I had to resort to the television and a Blu-ray DVD collection, courtesy of Gio apparently. For companionship, they said. How he knew the type of shows and movies I would want to watch is still a mystery, but a part of me thanked him for the foresight. It made the time less stressful, but the worry still niggled at the back of my mind every time I watched Pretty Woman.

Every day, I kept wondering if it was the day he would walk in to announce that it was over or if somebody else would walk in announcing he’s dead. His death meant I would be free. Hell, even his success meant I would be free because of our agreement. Whatever the outcome, I would either end up a rich widow or a rich divorcee. And even that didn’t make me happy. It was odd. I didn’t care about him. I hated him. But I didn’t want him to die.

Another horror plagued me. What if we were found out? Blake and Matteo assured me no one followed us here, and it was the best safe house in the country. They had gone above and beyond to make sure that even I didn’t know where I was. They blindfolded me as soon as we were out of the city and at some point, placed noise-canceling headphones and gave me music to listen to. It was only after I entered the house that they removed them. The only thing I could tell is that it was a heavily secured farmhouse in the country. Even so, thoughts of his enemies bursting through the door and raining bullets on all of us plagued me all day and invaded my nightmares.

That was what my life was like for two weeks. Living with two introverts and watching series and movies while worrying about my husband.

Then, one day, the doorbell rang. The two bodyguards, Blake and Matteo, both looked at each other. “Is it him?” I asked, getting up from the couch. Matteo, the man, put a finger on his mouth to tell me to be quiet while Blake, the woman, crouched silently towards the door. They both got their guns out at the same time. Oh god, I thought. Is this how I was going to die? In God knows where land, at the hand of some unknown enemy of my husband?

Three taps on the door came immediately after. The two looked at each other again. They seemed to relax a little, but they did not drop their guns. Blake made cautious steps to the door as Matteo and I waited behind. As she peered through the peephole, I thought I saw her bulky shoulders relax. She then put her gun back in its holster and opened the door. Relief washed over me when I saw who it was. I didn’t even think. I ran past Matteo and Blake and went straight to hug Giovanni. His familiar scent immediately enveloped me. Seeing him again unharmed made me want to embrace him for longer. The torment was over.

It took me a little too long to realize that he had not embraced me as well and remembering my surroundings and the state of our relationship; I let go of him, my cheeks reddening at the obvious display of affection. He went inside and Blake came over to close the door. Gio acknowledged the bodyguards, ask them if there were any anomalies, thanked them, and turned back to face me. His face was impassive, his emotions unclear. He could have been happy, sad, or distraught. I cleared my throat. I felt I had to say something, but nothing profound came to mind except for, “You’re back.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Did,” I stammered, “Did it go the way you wanted it to go?”

He raised an eyebrow. “If you’re asking if we won, yes, we did.”

I wondered what that meant. As I watched him command the two men to pack things up and get ready to leave, my thoughts kept wandering to an image of Giovanni, gun in hand, shooting mercilessly at faceless men. Did he kill people in order to win? He must have, right? He was part of ‘the family’ after all, if not practically the head of it. It was difficult to fully reconcile the suave wall street banker that was the Giovanni I knew and Giovanni the cold-blooded killer. It did not compute.

We left the safe house soon after. Gio and I got into the same car as Matteo and Blake while the car Gio came with had Mickey and Johnny following us. My heart swelled when I saw them. They seemed well and unharmed.

I was relieved to escape the oppressive atmosphere and get my phone back, but I was more concerned about the person next to me in the car than the unread messages. “What?” he asked, after he caught me sneaking a glance at him. Blake and Matteo were in front, and I felt too shy to ask what was on the tip of my tongue. Gio seemed to notice it and closed the partition. Even with the private space he had given me, getting out the specific words turned out to be more difficult. Instead of direct and clear questioning, I fumbled out a sentence saying, “When you said it’s over, does that mean…”

“If you’re going to ask a question, ask it fully.” I can’t believe I had forgotten what a jerk he could be. Two weeks I spent worrying over him only to remind me in less than a few hours who I was dealing with.

I tried again, a little more confident this time. “Does that mean you and I are no longer necessary?”

He burst out laughing. This must have been the first show of emotion I had seen in him since he came back. “It’s not funny,” I responded, irritated by his laughter. He made me feel like a stupid child. “You will not get rid of me that easily,” he said. He said, “Our agreement, which was made for the sake of my family’s war with Saccone, is still in place even though the war is over.” In a lower voice, he added, “I made sure of that.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

I did, and his reason was irrational. I would probably do the same if I were in his shoes. However, he seemed to regard me as a nuisance most of the time. Tormenting me would be tormenting himself. “But do you really want this marriage?” I asked. “I’m sure you have plenty of women you want to be with who aren’t me. Women who are more fun.”

“I’ve been with plenty of women before. Most of them aren’t fun. But watching you squirm is.”

“I don’t want to stay married to you!”

A small smile appeared on his features. It was in contrast to the realization of impending doom I was feeling and I wanted to wipe it off with a slap. “Is that why you were so happy to see me? You thought this would be the end of our relationship? And here I thought you missed me.”

What’s funny is that I had missed him. I had thought about him constantly to the point of having difficulty eating on some days. My heart had yearned for him and there was no way I was going to tell him that. The rational thing was not to live with this man, but to leave him. He didn’t want me. I didn’t want him. The condition on which we agreed the marriage upon had come to pass. The obvious thing to do was to terminate the marriage. “Of course,” I lied. “Why wouldn’t a woman trapped for a fortnight not be happy when she knows she would be free of the man who put her in that cage?”

He laughed. “That cage was for your benefit.” I rolled my eyes. He ignored the gesture and said, “You should have read the fine print. Honestly, Simona, I thought you were smarter than that.”

I thought I was and if this had been any normal arrangement with any other person, I would have read every word on that paper. However, this was Giovanni and I was too nervous to read carefully and too eager to please my father to ask whenever I encountered a term I didn’t understand. I simply perused the contract and signed.

“I need to see the contract when we get back,” I said.

“No need,” he said before bending down to take out a tablet from his briefcase. He swiped a couple of times on it and handed it to me. “Here it is.” On it was a scanned document of the contract, the one I signed. My signature was at the bottom of every page. I read it frantically until I reached the important part of the document. The part where it said, “The two parties will remain married for five years or longer if the earlier condition is met within five years.” I don’t remember reading this part. It was towards the end of the document, after all the frivolous stipulations of the wedding ceremony. At that point, I was flipping through the pages and not reading carefully. Fuck.

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