Alessandro DeLuca

CHAPTER SIX – MILA (2 Years Later)

Staring in the mirror, I still haven’t quite become accustomed to this “new me.” The healing process has been long and intensive, from the number of surgeries I’ve endured to the healing through infections and therapy for my mental well-being.

I’ve spent time with numerous doctors over the last two years and a few counselors until we found the one that fits me. With their help, I have healed physically as much as possible. There’s still some scar tissue on various parts of my body, but none that can’t be covered and none that are too bad thanks to the best plastic surgery money could buy.

My psychological healing has been the product of counseling and support from the family I’ve become closer with through these two years. Emotionally? There’s a gaping hole there that I cannot explain nor one that anyone can touch.

But I smile, say what they expect to hear, and fake my way through every encounter with my doctors, therapist, and family.

My life hasn’t been the same in the last two years. A simple decision to celebrate my husband’s and my anniversary at Fuoco turned into a disastrous event. It cost me my marriage because my husband died in the explosion, and it cost my heart, Zoe, my little angel.

It also cost me my life. The day I learned a hit had been taken out on my life, Zahra Valentino ceased to exist, and Mila Campbell breathed her first breath of life.

The FBI became involved, and I was placed into protective custody. When the agents in charge of my case learned that my husband was Italian and had family in Naples, Italy, arrangements were made to send me out of the country to Italy.

The Santoros, Carlo’s mother’s brother, is a wealthy family and had the means to care for me and pay for the required surgeries and therapies. It’s been a long and rocky road.

I continue to stare in the mirror, and the woman staring back at me is a stranger. A knock at the door pulls me away.

“Come in,” I call out.

“Dinner’s ready, Mila,” Paola, Carlo’s cousin, says.

“I’ll be down in just a minute,” I reply, smiling at her until she closes my bedroom door.

Walking to my dresser, I remove the lining in the third drawer and pull the locket from underneath. Cradling it in my hands, I smile lovingly down at my child, my precious Zoe, who is no longer with me on this Earth. Tears fill my eyes as I stare down at her picture.

Anger replaces the sadness, and all I can think about is revenge. I wish I knew who did this to us and why. My jaw clenches so tightly it hurts. I’m not supposed to have this picture or any reminders of my previous life, but one of the officers with the APD snuck it back to me before I was taken away to be hidden in protective custody.

I was told I spent two weeks in Grady Memorial Hospital’s burn unit before being transferred to protective custody. I can only recall the last two days of that second week. Agents were stationed outside my room, and I was interviewed intensely to learn all they could about what happened.

My husband’s family has done all they can to make me comfortable and feel at home among them. Even before moving here, I’ve always had a good relationship with them, but I still miss my husband and daughter.

Putting the picture away, I close my eyes. Conjuring memories of my parents, more tears prick at my eyes, but I can’t allow myself to break down now. It hurts to know that the only two people remaining in this world who truly know me believe that I’m dead.

I cannot imagine my parents' pain believing their only child is dead. They were told that the explosion only left our remains, so we had a closed casket funeral.

Knowing that my parents had to bury all three of us on the same day breaks my heart in a way that I cannot explain. My parents have always been strong people. My father, a former big-time drug dealer, made a fortune selling drugs, and my mother stood by him to oversee his empire.

That’s the family I was raised in, with a woman standing by her man in the good and the bad and holding it down in the streets. They were happy when I met Carlo and were thankful we were making a different life than the one I’d grown up in. With all the danger from my parents’ lifestyle, how the hell did they manage to survive, yet the three of us who lived an upstanding, respectable life came to this?

I step into the little bathroom down the hall from my bedroom and clean my face before heading downstairs to dinner. When I arrive, everyone is already at the table, my husband’s uncle Alfonso, his wife, Leona, his daughters Paola and Irene, and their sons, Carmine and Dario, and Dario’s wife and children.

“How are you feeling?” Aunt Leona asks.

“I’m well,” I say, smiling and taking my place at the table.

The food is blessed, and as I normally do, I hide at this table full of people and dig into my food. The dining room is large with a table that seats fourteen, and each space is taken. The conversation is plentiful, loud, and hearty.

“Did you hear about my interview, Pops?” Carmine speaks up.

Uncle Alfonso frowns. “What interview?” he asks, stuffing food into his mouth.

It’s a known fact that he expects all his children to work for the family’s textile business.

“Discorso Communications is hiring for an operations manager.”

“That the new communications company the DeLuca family opened?” Uncle Alfonso asks with a hint of distaste in his voice.