“What else do you want to know that’s not on paper?”
“Everything, Bellezza. I want to know everything.”
“I want to know everything about you too.”
“Okay then the first thing you should know is I like you.”
I smile back at him. “I like you too.”
* * *
We spent most of the day on the beach and when we went back we had dinner on the terrace of my room.
Candace and Dominic weren’t around when we got back in so we just brought up the food the maids made and enjoyed the company of each other.
I had Tristan all to myself all day and all night.
I fell asleep cocooned in his arms, safe. But then I was stolen away by my dreams. Taken away captive to the memories that enslave me to the past.
That is where I’m truly helpless against my will. Kidnapped by my memories of the nightmares that haunt me.
Fog fills the room thick and stifling.
I’m here again.
I’m on the stairs.
I’ve been here so often I’ve become part of the fog, part of the memory that won’t leave me.
My mother screams and I run to find her on the floor. My father, that wicked devil stabs her over and over again.
Blood is everywhere. Mama’s head rolls to the side and she looks at me with cold dead eyes. Seeing me but not seeing me.
“No!” I scream as my father continues to stab her.
He doesn’t stop, but I see that man behind him.
His face comes into view clearer than before.
His crooked nose seems more pronounced and his brown eyes hold a dark sheen to them as he stares back at me .
I’m paralyzed by his stare. I wait to be taken away like last time but the arms that bound me don’t come tonight.
I realize then that whoever that person was knew what was going on. They knew my mother was being killed too and did nothing.
I wait for something to happen, anything. I’m just stuck here standing around waiting. Staring at the scene before me as everyone stays where they are, frozen in time.
the fog suddenly thickens and then their gone. Gone but replaced by something else. another memory.
I see myself this time sneaking down the passageway of somewhere dark. I’m young. Maybe twelve… yes… I remember this. I am twelve. I’m at Nikoli’s house. His was the first home I stayed in when I moved to the States.
It’s dark and I remember hearing voices.
I creep in the passageway and stop in the shadows where I can see three men. My father, Nikoli and that man from the night my mother was murdered.
“You have proven your worth,” my father says to the Italian man. “You have been a true brother in arms for enough years and now the time has come for us to accept you as a member of the fold. We will form the Kruv’ omertà. The blood code between Russia and Italia.”
They raise drinks and clink glasses then set them on the table. Then one by one they take a knife and pierce the tops of their fingers. Blood drips on to a piece of paper and one by one and they all say ‘kruv’ omertà.