Antonio
My heart was pounding. I had never felt anything like it before in my life. I didn’t understand what was going on. How was Callie’s mother still alive? It didn’t make sense. She died the same day that my mother had died. But then, if Callie’s mother was alive, was my mom still alive as well? I could feel a sense of hope rising in me, but I didn’t want to play my cards too soon. I had no idea what was going to happen. I looked back at Jimmy. He was holding Callie. She just wanted to go to her mom. I looked over at my dad. “What’s going on? I don’t understand.”
“She was part of my revenge,” he said, shrugging.
“What do you mean?”
“Your mother slept with her husband. I thought it was only proper that I take his wife.”
“But she died of cancer,” Callie said. “I don’t understand.”
“I did have cancer, but it went into remission,” Phillipa said. “They stole me in the middle of the night, and they brought me here.”
“We didn’t bring you here,” Luisa said softly. “We brought you to the house at first until you had the kid.” My jaw dropped. I looked at Alessandro, and he looked at me. His eyes widened.
“What do you mean until you had a kid?” Callie said, and she pulled away from Jimmy. Jimmy swore under his breath, and I shook my head. Callie needed to go to her mother. I was about to grab a hold of her when Tommasso placed his gun to Callie’s mother’s forehead.
“Don’t make another move,” he said, looking around the room. He held the gun up to the ceiling and shot. Debris came crashing down, then he held it back to Phillipa’s head. “I have nothing to lose right now. You have disgraced me. You have disgraced my family. You all deserve to die. I will not put up with this any longer.” He took a step toward me. “This is all your doing, Antonio.”
“This is my doing?” I said. “My doing?”
“My father is the one that took Callie’s mother. My father is the one. Your father was going to reward me. You were going to marry Serena. I was going to become a powerhouse. The Romanos and the Marchesis, my grandchildren would be Don.”
My jaw dropped. “This is all about power?”
“What else do you think it’s about, Antonio? Wasn’t it about power for you as well?”
I stood there staring at him. “If you were to ask me that question a month ago,” I said softly, “I may have said that it was about power because power is everything in our world. Being the don is everything.”
“And then you met her,” Tommasso snorted, “and your life changed. Cry me a river, Antonio. Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft.”
“I’m not soft.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t carry through with your plan as much as you thought you would, did you?” he said spitefully and then looked her up and down. “She’s not even anything special. She doesn’t hold a candle to my Serena, my beautiful, darling Serena that you defiled and used. Does she know that you were with Serena just this very afternoon?” He looked at Callie. She turned to look at me, her eyes wide with hurt. I pressed my lips together. “Does she know exactly who you are?”
“She knows that I am Antonio ‘the wolf’ Marchesi, the underboss to the Marchesi famiglia. She knows that I—”
“Just stop it,” Callie said. “Please just let me go. Let my mom go. We just…”
“You think you’re going to walk out of here?” Tommasso laughed and then looked over at my father. “Don Roberto, does this little girl think she’s going to walk out of here with her life?” Don Roberto smirked and shook his head.
“I don’t know what to tell you. Antonio, I told you to leave it all alone. I told you that this was not going to end well.”
“Are you threatening me, Father?” I said softly. I could see Alessandro getting ready. I looked over my shoulder at Jimmy. His gun was cocked and poised, ready to shoot as well. I took a step forward.
“Watch where you’re going,” Tommasso said, panicking slightly. He had all the talk but wasn’t much of a fighter.
“What do you want, Tommasso?” I asked. “Let Phillipa go. Let Callie go.”
“Why do you care so much about them?” he said. “They’re nothing to you. They ruined your life. If it wasn’t for them, your mother would still be here.”
“No,” I said. “What did they have to do with my mother?” I stared him dead in the eye, and then I looked at Callie. She was whimpering and trying to stay strong. For the first time in my life, I was ashamed of who I was. I’d always joked and laughed that I knew I was going to end up in hell one day, but this was the first time I fully understood how horrible that would be because this was the first time I understood that I had a heart. I would be absolutely devastated if anything ever happened to Callie. She was so much more to me than just a sweet little lamb and innocent college student. She was so much more to me than a means to revenge, and I’d been blind to it, even though she captivated me from the very first time I’d seen her standing there in the garden. I pressed my lips together. “Tommasso, I’m going to ask you one more time.”
“You’re going to ask me what one more time?” he said. I put my gun in front of me and pulled the trigger.
“Let her go.” The next few moments happened in a blur. Tommasso pushed Phillipa in front of him, then turned the gun toward Callie. “No!” I shouted as he pulled the trigger and shot. I released bullets, Alessandro released bullets, and then I watched as Jimmy went diving straight toward Callie and grabbed her, rolling to the ground as he kept firing. Phillipa started screaming, and so did Callie. I wasn’t sure what was going on. All I could hear were bodies falling to the ground.
“You okay, bro?” Alessandro said as we stood there. I nodded. Tommasso was groaning. He’d been hit in the shoulder and the thigh. My father was also lying there. He’d been hit, but I wasn’t sure by who. Luisa had crouched down and was next to him.
“Oh my God,” Callie said, crying, and I rushed over to her.
“Are you okay?” I grabbed her face and checked her eyes. “You’re okay?”
“I’m okay,” she said, nodding, “But Jimmy, he’s been shot.”
“What?” I said, looking down at Jimmy. He had a dazed expression in his eyes and a half-smile on his face.
“Hey, boss,” he said weakly.
“What’s going on? Where have you been hit?” I asked him. I looked down at his body and saw that he had a wound going through his abdomen. “Oh my God. Alessandro, go and get the car. We got to get Jimmy to the hospital. He’s bleeding out.”
“It’s okay, boss,” Jimmy said, grabbing my hand. “It’s okay.”
“What do you mean, it’s okay, Jimmy? It’s not okay. We’ve got to get you to the hospital.”
“I just need to say one thing, boss,” he said weakly, squeezing my hand. “Please.” His eyes pleaded with mine, and I could feel my heart racing.
“What is it, Jimmy?”
“Don’t ruin your shot at love, boss,” he said, nodding over to Callie, who was staring at us with wide eyes.
“Hold on, Jimmy. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”
“If I don’t make it, I want you to know you’re my best friend, boss. I’d give my life for you, and I know you’d give your life for her.” He looked over at Callie and then back at me. “She’s real pretty, boss. Real pretty.” And then his eyes fluttered closed, and his hand dropped from mine.
“Alessandro, what the fuck are you still doing standing there?” I looked back at him. I could hear my father and Tommasso laughing as if they thought the situation was funny. I pressed my hand to Jimmy’s chest and started trying to give him CPR. “Help me; somebody help me.” Callie squeezed my shoulder. Her eyes were full of tears, and she started sobbing.
“He didn’t make it,” she said, shaking her head. “He saved my life, but I don’t think he made it.” She started wailing. I touched his forehead. He was already going cold. I grabbed his wrist and tried to feel for a pulse, but there was nothing. Alessandro grabbed Callie and her mother and pulled them into his arms.
“Antonio, we’ve got to go,” he said. He came over to me and pulled me up. “We’ve got to go. Jimmy’s gone.” I couldn’t believe it. My best friend died. His life had been taken from him in mere moments, and it was because of me. He’d given his life to save and protect Callie because he knew. He knew how I felt about her even when I hadn’t been able to admit it to myself. I looked over at Callie, and my heart thudded. All I could see was anger and pain. I didn’t think she would ever forgive me, but I knew if I had to choose between Jimmy or Callie, it would’ve been Callie, and Jimmy knew that. He was the best friend a guy could ever ask for. I felt like I was walking on air in a dream. I felt like I wanted to cry, yet tears would not come. I walked over to my father and Tommasso. Luisa was crying as she held my father’s hand.
“We did bad things, Antonio. I know that. I have a conscience. I tried to do my best by Elisabetta. I wanted to be the woman she needed for a mother, but it hurt. It hurt to know that he had a child with her.” She spat at Phillipa. “And not with me.”
Roberto looked at her. “You were never my type, Luisa. You were just a good-time gal.”
“But I loved you, Roberto. I always loved you. I did bad things for you. You did bad things.”
Roberto grinned. “That’s life, Luisa. I’m Don Roberto Marchesi.”
“Did you ever love me?” she asked. I could see my father looking contemplatively at her, then at me, and then at Alessandro.
“The only thing I ever loved in my life,” he said, “was the way men feared me and the way women loved me. I could look at a woman, and she would drop to her knees and suck my cock, and I didn’t even have to ask her. So take that as you will, Luisa.”
She stared at me. “I’m sorry,” she said. And before I knew what was happening, she’d grabbed my father’s gun from his hand and shot him dead in the heart.
“Luisa, stop!” I yelled. But before I could stop her, she’d shot herself as well. She fell to the ground on top of him. Callie and her mother were both screaming in Alessandro’s arms. He looked at me and shook his head. His face was grim.
“We gotta go, bro.”
Tommasso looked up at me, bitterness in his eyes. “I guess that saying’s true. Live by the sword, die by the sword.”
“You don’t even care,” I said, “about any of this.”
Tommasso shrugged. “I just wanted a taste of power,” he said. “It should have been me. I would’ve made a better Don. I could have been someone. I could have taken over this country.”
I bit down on my lower lip. “Is that really Callie’s mom?” I asked, wondering if this was some sort of trick.
“No,” he said and then burst out laughing. “Yeah, it’s Callie’s mom. I took her. Your dad wanted me to. She’s been locked up for years now. Hey, at least she wasn’t lonely, right?”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Well, he had a bit of Phillipa, and I heard she enjoyed it.” Callie gasped, and Phillipa started sobbing even more.
“Are you saying my father raped her?”
“I don’t know,” Tommasso said. “I don’t care if it was willing or not.”
I grabbed my gun and pointed it at him. This man did not deserve to live. “Is my mom alive, too?” I asked him, wondering if perhaps this whole nightmare would be ended if I could just hold my mom again. I knew she could hug me and tell me that it was all okay, that she was still here as well. Maybe she was locked up somewhere, too.
“No,” Tommasso said, his eyes shuddering slightly.
“Are you sure? Is my mother alive, Tommasso?” His eyes flickered open, and he looked at me. There was an evil smile on his face.
“No.” He cackled. “I made sure she was dead after the crash.”
My eyes widened. “What did you say?”
“I said I made sure she was dead after I crashed into her and Callie’s dad. He left the scene. I guess he thought she was dead, but she wasn’t.” He shook his head. “At least not till I took care of it. I’m consigliere. I just listened to orders, you know? I don’t make them.” Before he could say anything else, I shot him.
I looked over at Alessandro. “Let’s go.” I could see Callie staring at me. She looked like she was going to pass out. This was definitely her worst nightmare. I’d probably scarred her for life; the old me would’ve loved that. The new me, who knew I loved her, wished I could kill myself right now as well. I’d ruined life for her. She would no longer see the world through the naive, beautiful lens that she did. It would always be marred with blood and evil, and I was responsible for that, and I didn’t think she’d ever forgive me. And I didn’t blame her because I didn’t think I’d ever be able to forgive myself.
“Let’s go, bro,” Alessandro said as he carried the two women out of the room.
“I’m coming,” I said. I walked back over to Jimmy and bent down on my knees. I gave him a kiss on the forehead. “I love you, bro. You’re the best friend a guy could have ever asked for. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve to go out this way, but I know that you did it for me, and I know you did it because you knew what I didn’t know. I do love her, Jimmy, and I’m going to fight for her. I just hope it’s enough.” Tears rolled out of my eyes and onto his forehead, and I jumped up. I had to go.