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Ragazzi Perduti - Lost Boys
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Bagheria, Sicilia
CITTÁ DI BAGHERIA IS where every Battaglia male before Don Giovanni, for over two hundred years, was born. The name Bagheria originates from the Sicilian term Baarìa. And to the Sicilians Bagheria means land that descends into the sea. In 1990 shortly after Don Giovanni Battaglia had believed his new African American lover was dead, the final movie in the Godfather series by Frances Ford Coppola—which was filmed in Bagheria—was released. The tourists flooded his territory and Giovanni Battaglia made a fortune thanks to the rich history of his family’s land, culture, and the many cafes and souvenir shops he owned. He’d even been invited to have a celebratory dinner with the director and actors. Of course, he refused. Don Giovanni was far too busy drinking away his sorrow and killing Calderone’s to give a shit about some fictional depiction of the life he was cursed too.
That was then.
This was different.
Bagheria no longer held the promise of heritage and pride. The Battaglia’s were, like Michael Corleone at the end of the movie saga, damned. And years later his reflection upon his life would make the consequences of the curse crystal clear. He’d remember the day that changed it all. The moment he decided that brother, cousin, blood, none of it matter in the face of omertà.
It was a season of death for the Battaglia’s. Today he buried the last matriarch of his family. To escape his grief and anger he insisted on taking a walk alone. Once again, he was drawn to the beach and cliffs where his childhood began. Along the way he was stopped by the sea. The memories like the tide washed over him. He felt his feet sink into the sand. The Don removed his shoes and socks. He waded in. He wore dark trousers, a button-down shirt from his wife’s high-end men’s fashion line. To his back were his men, armed, and watchful—also dressed in black silk suits with dark sunglasses to beat back the glare of the sun broadcasting heat across the shoreline. They paced along the private beach tense and angry. Every man had a gun. Every man was ready to take down any of the Battaglia’s enemies. Didn’t they know? The enemy was within him.
The ocean was as vast and deep as his problems. There were too many to count. Where did it all begin? If he understood the beginning, he could figure out the ending.
Lorenzo was his brother.
Maybe? Maybe not?
Rocco was dead. The rotten son-of-a-bitch deserved much worse.
Maybe he was lying? Maybe not?
Catalina was gone. She vowed never to return to him or her family.
Maybe she could be convinced or forced to do so? Maybe not?
His Bella was pregnant when all the doctors had warned against another pregnancy. The child could possibly not make it to term. And if the child lived the poisons in his wife’s body had most certainly polluted her womb. There would be consequences. And to add to all of his distress, his empire had fallen.
Maybe he could hold it all together. Maybe not?
The water pressure squeezed his thighs and his feet crushed sea shells and pebbles as he kept walking into the sea. The salt spray of the waves hitting his chest splashed his face and cooled his temper. It was a good cover over his tears for all that he mourned that day. Don Giovanni was nearly shoulder deep before he began to swim into the waves. He was weak. The recovery was slow and strenuous. But in the ocean, he felt like a man again. His own tears blinding him. He succumbed to the pressure and went under.
***
Doma, Tanzania - Africa
THE HEAT THAWED THE coldness in his heart. It boiled the air that he breathed and made him exhale fire from his lungs. Carlo wiped his hand down his sweaty face. It was hotter than Hades in Africa. And even hotter than that in the room. There was smoke clouding his vision. It curled like a milky wave up around his face. At first confused, he couldn’t discern the source. And then he realized he’d exhaled it from his nostrils. The Kuhani burned candles and frankincense in copper pots. She hung scarves off the bedposts and used them to cover the windows and lamp shades. In doing so the room was cast in deep red shadows. And she’d fucked him until he wheezed fire and mirth from his throat and teetered between despair and giddiness. If he had the mental strength he’d beg for death, but instead he only groaned in his native tongue for pussy. Then darkness descended over his consciousness and he was lost.
He woke again. This time not beneath her but seated in a chair with his face resting in his hand. He’d lost time. It happened when he visited the danguro.
“Carlo,” she said and gestured for him to join her. Did the opium make him dream he fucked her? Was he always in the chair? Who had put chains on him and shut the door to purgatory? He didn’t know. He couldn’t ask. The only common language they shared were their names. He could pour out his soul to her and she wouldn’t understand a word. In fact, he had confessed his crimes and sins between drags of the opium pipe she gifted him with.
“Carrrrrloooow,” she purred. His name rolled off her tongue singed by the bristle of her Swahilian accent. She cast aside the thin sheet wrapped around her body and revealed her beauty. Her curves were a deep flawless umber brown. She was slick with sweat. Pearls of moisture glistened over her skin in the red heat. The tips of her breast were black as was the trimmed triangle of hair coiled and flattened over her sex. A smile curved the corner of her mouth and revealed stark white teeth beneath the sexiest pair of lips he’d seen on a woman. Her hair was cut short, coiled into tight coils like wool. Her name was Abedi (a-BEH-dee) and in her language the name meant worshiper. It was her deep, hypnotic, brown eyes and his drug induced state that reminded him compare her beauty to Shae. Carlo chuckled. She picked up the bottle of pombe and took a sip. Every woman, African or Italian reminded him of Shae. He’d even let himself care for Adara because of the inexplainable resemblance. However, Abedi's eyes were so similar he felt weak whenever he stared into them too long. In the past he could never escape his first love. But he had learned how to mentally replace her. Abedi and the opium helped.
The temptress sat forward and spoke to him while keeping her thighs parted and feet flat to the bed. Her arm was extended. It rested on top of her left knee. He tried to focus on her speech. Her language tickled like musical chimes in his ears. He liked her voice even if he didn’t understand her. He closed his eyes and drifted on the sound of the words she formed. He wanted to feel nothing—but when fucking her he did. He felt free. When Carlo opened his eyes, she approached from the side of the bed. Abedi’s movements were graceful. Her long legs were slender but her thighs and ass thick and round like his Shae’s. Her breasts perfect with erect nipples and hips womanly—all were like Shae.
She touched his face.
“Kijana mzuri,” she said good boy in Swahili. With her finger she lifted his chin and his head tilted back under her hypnotic control. She straddled his lap and sat on his dick. She put the pipe to his lips as the silky walls of her wet pussy glided over his erection causing it to stiffen. She went down on him inch by inch. The whores before her in the brothel had done nothing more than emptied his pockets. Abedi was different. She understood his demon and nurtured it through opium. All she wanted in return was his soul. Carlo took a long drag of the pipe and his regrets lessened. He exhaled the smoke through his nostrils. She kissed his face and he felt alive.
“Close your eyes,” she said in Italian.
He frowned.
Did she speak Italian or was it the opium talking?
He closed his eyes.
He saw nothing.
He heard nothing.
He felt everything. Her pussy, the heat of her body and even the warmth of her breath. He felt the way the fatty part of her ass cheeks bumped his thighs when she moved. He felt the urge to release swell like lava in his ball sack, on the verge of a nuclear climax. The sex was good. She was good. But he was dying.
Death was bliss.
“You’re going to kill yourself. Is that what you want?”
Carlo’s lashes fluttered, and his lids parted. His vision blurred by the frankincense and deep magenta-red shadows.
“Please stop. I’m begging you, please,” a woman wept. “Let go... so you can have some peace.”
At first, he thought it was Marietta, pleading for her life. He’d heard it enough to conjure her voice in his dreams. But this was different. He wasn’t asleep. He wasn’t awake. He was trapped somewhere between opium and hell. And he was trapped alone. The shadows cleared like dissipating smoke. Like a shadow stepping into moonlight she emerged. Adara. Despite her betrayal the sight of someone that he cared for helped. But the more his vision cleared the more clarity there was. It wasn’t Adara. Shae had returned and the knife in his chest twisted deeper.
“You’re going to kill yourself. Is that what you want?” Shae asked.
“It’s inevitable,” he answered without parting his lips.
“No. It’s not. You could stop this. All of it. Why won’t you stop?”
“No, è il destino a decidere—what will be will be. Now go away, bitch. Don’t pretend you care.” He closed his eyes and summoned the emptiness and found pleasure again in the void. But that changed. He went from sitting with his sorceress riding his cock to lying on his side in bed. He opened his eyes. A woman lay next to him. Her hand smoothly went over his chest, her lips grazed his chin. “Please don’t die Carlo. I love you.” Adara’s curly hair fell like the ringlets of an angel over her face. “I’m sorry. I betrayed you. But I never wanted this, I never meant for this to happen.”
“Get the fuck off of me,” he said, too weak to push her away. Adara kissed his lips and chuckled. Carlo winced. The kiss burned through him. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly to endure the insurmountable pain. He opened his eyes to see Adara and Shae together. In bed with him. He lay between the women. Shae was the first to rise. She straddled him and ran her hands down his chest. Her vaginal walls constricted on his penis like a silk cuffed vice upon her descent. Adara traced his lips with her tongue and it cooled the burn she had left before. Then her mouth covered his and her tongue eased in deeper. Adara was a good kisser. Passion tilted his head back and lifted his chin. Ruled by desire he kissed her hard while gripping Shae’s thigh and working his hips to feed her more of his cock.
Carlo groaned with pleasure. Shae rode him slow and steady. When Adara finished giving him the kiss of life she eased over him and sat her sweet plump pink vagina on his face. Carlo swirled his tongue upward and penetrated her hole between licks and laps that swiped all the way up to her clit. Her round ass bounced and jiggled on his forehead. He didn’t have to see them to witness what came next. He knew it. Shae had Adara by the face and was kissing her deeply, enjoying the way Adara’s tongue danced in your mouth when kissed. He knew it because he had lived this deep passion with Shae before. The women loved each other and loved him.
Shae kept grooving. Back and forth, up and down they went until he grabbed Shae’s hips and forced her to slow the pace while he balanced the need to breathe against the intoxicating taste of her. But the relief only came in spurts as both women worked him to cataclysmic bliss. And he nearly smothered under Adara’s pussy with her hard gyrations as she reached climax.
Then like a puff of smoke they were gone. He couldn’t taste Adara’s pussy or feel Shae’s heavenly walls any longer. He turned his head in search of them. The ladies stood at the side of the bed in zombie like trance with red and black serpent eyes.
“You’re so fucking weak!” Shae spat. “I needed a real man. A real man would have come inside that house with his gun and dragged me out. A real man wouldn’t run away and leave me behind.”
“I didn’t run from you—”
“You did! When I was weak you were supposed to be strong! You’re a cripple! Pathetic!” Shae spat. “A pit-bull junkie that no one wants. What did I ever see in you? What? Why don’t you do us both a favor and put the gun in your mouth and pull the trigger!”
Adara laughed. She laughed and tossed her long curls to the side of her shoulder. “How easy was it for me Carlo, to take everything from you, to turn on you? The butcher? You are no butcher. You’re a puppy! My puppy. All I had to do is pretend to care. You’re so desperate for attention you’d take it from anyone. My bosses laughed. We had a good laugh at you. Why do you think Giovanni sent you away with Marietta? Because you’re a useless piece of shit! Un patetico perdente!”
“Fuck you both!” he snarled like a mad dog and tried to rise. He could not. He was tied to the bed. He frowned at the restraints fastened to his wrists and snatched hard to break free.
The women stepped aside. Marietta appeared. She had her hand over her belly, and shook her head smiling. “He’s a monster. A woman killer. A baby killer,” she said. “Il macellaio. The Butcher. He will die like monsters do. And he will burn in hell forever.”
More women came.
Whores.
Victims of his cruelty.
Some were dead.
Some were half-dead.
Some were barely alive.
Carlo felt himself seizure with guilt as they all shouted his crimes against them.
“Get out! Get out of my fucking head!” He yelled and when the shouting and fighting defeated him he broke down in sobs. He hadn’t cried so hard and so genuinely since his baby sister died. He hadn’t felt so broken and scared, since he was convicted to a man’s prison as a teenager. He hadn’t hated himself so much since he lost Shae. He cried.
“Shhhh...” Shae whispered. She was lying next to him again. “I’m here, daddy. It’s okay my tough guy. I’m here.”
“Stop torturing me!” Carlo choked on his plea. “Just leave me the fuck alone!”
She did not. She rolled on top of him and straddled him once more with her soft thighs. She moved on him with slow back and forth pelvic thrusts. “Remember Carlo? Remember this? Remember how good it was? I was the one who taught you how to love me, how to be loved. Don’t you remember?”
Carlo wept. He didn’t cry over the loss of his father. He never cried in jail when he fought off rapists and attackers. He only cried for the death of Ciro with the help of Shae. But he did cry when he lost her. She taught him how to love. When she broke his heart, she taught him why he didn’t deserve love.
“I’ll help you die. When it’s time Carlo I’ll be there. At the end. I promise,” Shae said.
He pulled her down and kissed her and she bounced with precision on his dick. Carlo’s wrists were no longer in cuffs but in ribbons, that were torn from the posts when he rolled Shae over and kissed her neck, thrust into her nice and slow, savored the sweet strawberry flavor of her skin.
“Ti amo così tanto, Shae. Only you,” he said over and over.
He lifted his head from sucking her nipple while buried deep in her and saw Adara. She smiled at him. Carlo only hesitated for a moment. He swept his tongue up into Adara’s mouth and pounded his lust and regrets into her soft core. A shudder of a breath escaped her before their tongues disengaged and he was loving Shae once more. And on and on the cycle went, until madness was no longer his enemy.
***
CARLO?
The vision was over. Carlo opened his eyes. He could see again. As clear as his drugged state would allow. Abedi dragged her tongue from his pelvis to his neck. Her lips captured his and he kissed her. Shae was gone. Adara was gone. Marietta was gone. The women from his past were all gone.
“We do again? No?” Abedi asked. “I like your demon, Carlo. We rise him again?” she said in Italian. He was wrong all along. She knew his language. And she waited until his submission was complete to reveal it.
Carlo nodded and Abedi left the bed. She went to get more opium. He closed his eyes and waited to die but this time in Shae’s arms.
***
Firenze, Italy
DOMINIC KNOCKED.
No answer.
He knocked again. He waited.
No answer.
Dominic pounded on the door with his fist. She answered a few seconds later. The moment she saw him she tried to shove the door close, but he forced his way in. He won the battle. Sera hurried away. Dominic slammed the door behind him.
“Gee—iiit ouuuut,” she stammered.
“And go where?” he asked.
She looked at him and his state. She shook her head. She shook all over with fear. “Have you been drinking? Are you coming to me drunk?” she said in fear. Dominic was his cruelest to her when drunk. He regretted what he’d done in the past because of his anger mixed with liquor.
“I buried my uncle today. I had a few drinks on the plane. Flew here from Sicily.”
“Why? Why come to me? Haven’t you done enough? You’ve destroyed my life!”
Dominic shrugged. “Have I?”
“I’m calling the polizia. She ran over to the phone. He didn’t bother to stop her. He wasn’t fazed by her threats. And she knew it.
“You threatened me. You’re threatening my family. I had to quit my job after you killed my colleagues.”
“I never told you to quit the hospital,” he said. “The killing was only to silence those who you confided in. I warned you.”
“It’s murder! It’s unethical what you made me do! And when they find Dr. Gillian’s body I’ll be in a prison cell next to you.”
Dominic walked over to the chair in the room and dropped in it.
Sera’s eyes stretched. “You can’t stay here. Just leave. Please.”
“Pack your things. Giovanni wants you moved. They have found his body.”
“What? They have? And Dr. Pace? Did they find him too?”
“Pack. You’re leaving.”
“To where?”
“Doesn’t matter. We leave in the morning.” He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair. His right hand was in a salute at his brow as he shut his eyes. He’d had a shitty day and it wasn’t getting any better. The memory of Rocco in the casket and the screams and tears of the family around him would follow him for many days to come. “Fix me a drink, something to eat.”
“I can’t fix you, Dominic. I tried that. Remember? You replaced an old demon with a new one every time I see you. I can’t do anything for you. I’m not here to be your servant.”
“Fuck my demons. Fuck servitude. I’m not looking to be fixed doctor. You have a job to do. And I’m here to make sure you do it.” He looked up at her. He’d hoped to fuck her and let exhaustion force sleep on him. But he’d lost his appetite for her pussy. He’d find a room in a hostel close. Sleep off the night and collect her in the morning. After all, where could she run too? Her big mouth had gotten her doctor friends killed. She knew the Battaglia’s played for keeps. He started for the door.
“I’ll be back in the morning. My men will be outside so don’t try to run.”
“Wait,” she grabbed his arm. “Just wait, damn it! If you’re hungry I can fix something.”
Dominic cast her a curious look from over his shoulder. The doctor let his arm go. She paced with her hands to her head. There was a battle going on inside of her. One she’d already lost. But he was mildly amused by her attempts at strength. Dominic waited for her to convince herself to give him what he needed.
“When is this over Domi? When are we done?” she pleaded.
“After Lorenzo and Marietta pay for their crimes your debt to Giovanni will be wiped clean.”
“Pay for their crimes? What kind of repayment?”
“You know the answer to that question, doctor. You've been in my head.”
“I’m scared!”
“Don’t be.”
“I’m not a criminal like you and that maniac Don of yours!”
“Neither am I.”
“I’ve seen it. You know what you’ve done! What we’ve done. This whole thing terrifies me.”
Dominic pulled his hands out of his pockets to open his arms. Sera stared at him as if uncertain of what to trust. The man who exposed and ripped her life to shreds, or the boy in Dominic that just wanted to be loved. Dominic nodded that she was safe with either man. She went into his embrace. He held her but felt nothing. The moment she lifted her head from his chest he kissed her. He continued to feel nothing. She didn’t resist and for that he was grateful because he had so little control over the emptiness that the darkness had left in him lately. Stripping off her clothes was no hard task. They peeled away from her bare skin easily. When they entered her bedroom, he found himself fucking her against the wall and then with her on all fours on the floor before she collapsed and he took her to bed. After sex she slept in his arms. Dominic felt nothing. He stared at the ceiling. Exhaustion wasn’t enough to bring him peace. Nothing and no one mattered since he lost Catalina. It was then he realized what the repayment of salvation would cost. No matter what he had to find Catalina and bring her home. Or he’d never feel anything again.
***
Tossa de Mar, Spain
LORENZO SLAMMED THE door. He paced like a caged bull. With flared nostrils and hands to his waist. She was gone. He’d fucked up and managed to do the one thing he swore he wouldn’t let happen. He let Giovanni take his wife. Consumed by rage and guilt he smashed everything he could lift. The chairs he grabbed were reduced to splinters. Windows were shattered sending glass shards out into the night.
He cursed and yelled and cursed again until his voice went hoarse from the strain. And when there was nothing left to destroy he turned the pain on himself, beating his fist over and over into the wall until the skin on his knuckles split and his hand dripped blood.
Alik’s people tracked Giovanni’s plane to Greece. Lorenzo had hope. He truly believed that they’d uncover the destination. Then hope gave way to rage. The flight logs they paid for were falsified. She was gone.
Lorenzo collapsed to the ground with his elbows to his knees and head in his hands. If he didn’t find her soon it was the end. If Giovanni did anything to harm her, he swore on the life of his unborn child he’d retaliate with fire and bullets on the Battaglia’s.
There was a knock at the door.
“Go the fuck away!” he shouted at the highest reach of his voice.
The door flung open. He didn’t hear anything after that. Not the person who entered. He didn’t hear the door close. All he heard was the debate in his head over how he’d do the impossible and save his wife. The debate that he was steadily losing.
“Lorenzo,” a soft voice said. “Lorenzo?”
Catalina knelt in front of him and touched his arms. He lifted his head from his hands and looked at her tear-stained face. “Today is the day. Today they buried Rocco,” she said on the verge of a complete melt down. “He’s gone, Lo. Rocco’s really dead.”
Lorenzo blinked out of his rage induced stupor. For a minute he was able to think of someone other than Marietta. The news Catalina shared was sobering.
“They put him in the ground and we didn’t say goodbye. Dead.” Catalina wept. “Gio and Domi buried him without us. He’s gone forever, and I didn’t say bye.”
All he saw was the little girl he and Giovanni raised. Their piccoleta. He pulled her into an embrace and held her while sitting with his back to the wall. She cried against his chest as she often did as a little girl. There had been nothing but anger and insults between them both since he killed Armando. But in that moment, they needed so much more. They needed faith. Lorenzo closed his eyes and pretended to have some. For both their sakes.