by S. W. Frank
Gunshots rang out and Sergio ordered the guard to stay with his wife and he rushed toward the sounds with the others.
They hurried to the edge of a massive construction site on the coast of Palermo to view a dock in disrepair with the backdrop of the ocean and ships sailing leisurely in the distance.
They descended a dirt embankment to get closer a crew working at first glance, however they wore no hard hats or safety gear and immediately Sergio knew different.
The area they entered was situated to the left of a major port with mounds of dirt and rock and a leveled line of buildings with large containers spread everywhere.
A bulldozer hummed loudly, as a man unfamiliar with its operation sought to climb down as it continued toward the rocks.
Lorenzo spotted Maher. He brandished a gun as he navigated his way to the sediment, shouting at figures running along the shoreline shooting at the ocean.
Sergio looked near the line of stalwarts and saw a container floating with its door open and saw feet gripping the edge. He did not see anything more. However, there was.
Nico’s torso dangled as he gripped on to Alfonzo as he worked his way to the upper section after being submerged below after striking his head when the container toppled.
Nico pressed his forehead against Alfonzo’s hard skull, gripping the neck of the younger man. His hot breath had mixtures of blood. “There’s a Latin word…Amoroso. Do you know what that means kid?”
Alfonzo was dropping low, but Nico held on, not letting Alfonzo’s head go under the water. With one hand, Nico displayed his strength. During intervals it waned, yet when needed, increased with such trials.
Alfonzo’s answer emanated with heavy pants. “Yeah –I think –so!”
“Then you stand kid. Do what the hell you have to and live for her!”
The chains were tugging at Alfonzo’s legs. His clothes were soaked and the gash on his head bled into his eye. He fought for strength because he made his wife a promise, but dammit, he thought, keeping it was getting hard.
He looked up. Nico was bleeding from his shoulder. His neck muscles protruded to his ears, there was tension to every vein and Alfonzo felt Nico’s grasp loosen and then tighten.
“Let go Nico,” he panted. “Do it, you’re adding weight to the top!”
“Ne kid, I’m getting you home.”
The thin smile in response told Nico, Alfonzo was aware he was full of shit.
The container was sinking. Water was at Alfonzo’s neck and Nico was bending in an acrobatic fashion similar to a skydiver, his chest expanded and he rolled to the side as a bullet pinged over his head. Then Alfonzo heard Nico’s grunt when more bullets resounded. He’d been hit.
“Dammit Nico, you’ve done enough. Stop trying to save me. Go home!” Alfonzo exclaimed and then gurgled a mouthful of water. His chin rose, his eyes were brilliant with heartache that Nico meant to die and he had to watch his ultimate sacrifice the same way he did with Vin.
“You don’t owe me shit Nico. I owe you my life. I’m ordering you Nico to leave,” Alfonzo said tiredly, hoping Nico finally listened and obeyed an order.
Sergio froze when he spotted what appeared to be a person clinging to the top of a metal shipping box that bumped against a formation of rocks and he ran –ran –ran to get there –ran to save the man he recognized as Nico.
“Oh shit, that’s Nico they’re shooting at!”
Aaron and Darren sprint to his side.
“I’m going after Maher,” Lorenzo said and then went in the opposite direction.
Sergio and his brothers were booking. The twin’s panther strides weren’t as fast as their eldest brother who out of necessity acquired swiftness to outrun police in New York. They were together, going hard for famiglia and love.
The procession of gunfire in the distance accelerated along with Sergio’s feet.
Darren saw his dad fall into the water. He broke away from his brothers shouting, “I’m getting dad, cover me!” He tossed his gun to Aaron and raced to the edge of a huge boulder and dove into the sea.
The water was cold.
Darren swam best. Aaron didn’t demand his brother return because he had faith in Darren’s skills. Instead, his sneakers glided over pebbles and his fingers depressed the triggers to fire bullets at the figures in the distance. He picked off a man. Sergio’s bullet slapped another fleeing for cover.
Darren took long strokes and made it to his dad.
He took hold of his father’s arm, flipping him on his back and then looked toward the shore. He had a short distance to go, but with the extra weight it seemed far. He recalled the lifeguard in Barbados state a passive victim is better than a panicked one. Then he glanced at his dad, noticed the rise of his chest and he took a calming breath. The cross-chest carry was the technique he performed to lug his dad toward the rocky shore.
Every muscle burned, yet he swam refusing to release the load until he got his dad to the shore. Darren fell on his knees, dripping water on the rock bed and his dad’s bruised face. He panted heavily from the exertion of having to drag his father to dry land.
Sergio and Aaron scurried to help Darren. They turned Nico over, examined his wounds, and then tears flowed from Aaron because his pop looked bad.
Sergio placed his hand on Nico’s bloody chest. There was a strong heartbeat or maybe it was his metatarsal pulse before he flopped on his ass beside the injured man. Sergio couldn’t cry. The sorrow was indescribable at what the sonovabitch did to his wife and now his father might die.
Life!
The fire to Sergio’s limbs happened and he sat up. No way, was he letting Nico lay his ass down on the job. Sergio began performing CPR, yelling at the figure until he saw the eyes fluttering.
“You get up old man. Do you hear me pop you get the hell up. I need you –we need you and you can’t quit on us!”
The brothers were in a huddle over their father as Lorenzo pursued Maher.
Lorenzo was on Maher’s heels. He aimed at his spine, popped him in the back and the coward smacked the ground, dropping his weapon and then desperately wriggling after the piece with silverfish movements.
Lorenzo walked leisurely to Maher, listening to the grunting pants of a wounded animal. The sounds of distress were fitting for a sick veterinarian. He kicked the weapon away as Maher dragged himself on the dirt. Maher stopped his movements, perhaps he recognized the futility of his actions or he simply tired. Whatever the reason, he rolled over and looked up at Lorenzo with a rebellious glare.
“Did you like the party?” he asked. He remembered the man well. Lorenzo’s bullet that night grazed his calf and he stitched it himself at the animal clinic.
The insult struck hard, as solid as Lorenzo’s boot to Maher’s mouth. Teeth broke and Maher choked on the human porcelain.
“That’s for my mother, father and Pappoús!” Lorenzo sneered and then he shot Maher in the arm. “That’s is for my sister and cousins.” He squeezed and another bullet ripped through the bleeding man’s leg. “That is for the Tsiakrokis’.”
Maher whimpered, squirming in his blood, his eyes wide with the realization he’d die in agony. A bullet pierced Maher’s gut.
Lorenzo’s eyes squinted. The tension in his body began to ebb. The vengeance he sought for his loves was at hand. Maybe, now he could live without the searing pain every day.
He fired at Maher’s heart.
Maher stilled.
“That is for me!” Lorenzo seethed and then he emptied shells into Maher’s skull until his brains were potatoes and ketchup.
When Lorenzo joined the others, he peered out at the water. “The other, where is Alfonzo? Where is he?”
The trio slowly rose.
Alfonzo?
Nico coughed, coming to life in a combative state. “Alfonzo! No!”
Lorenzo dropped his gun. He threw his jacket to the ground, kicked off his boots and hurried to the edge and dived over. The short distance from the
rocky shoreline to the ocean was incomparable to the high cliffs of Hawaii.
He’d sworn to try or die.
“Bring back my heart,” his wife had cried and he planned to return the body.
He dove into the water, letting the cold kill the stings to healing gunshot wounds, oblivious to the staples snagging on his clothes and tearing off skin as they floated beneath his shirt.
In the distance Alfonzo’s legs were cut on the end of the jagged bar when the container flipped down the embankment. The edge of the thick rod had been weakened then and suddenly broke loose under the heavy water pressure. His legs were no longer held to the sinking container, his arms were. A large pair of bolts prevented him from slipping the cuffs off the pole and he calmed.
Alfonzo knew what he needed to do to break loose. Literally, snap his hands.
He pressed the sides of his thumbs against the solid rod where the scaphoid bones lie.
He grimaced and blinked as the water rose over his head. Luckily, he’d taken a deep breath right before the large wave.
The bones popped.
The shit hurt badly, however adrenalin caused the pain to feel hellishly good.
The cartilage became pliable and with twisting-pulling motions he was opening a beer and the flesh being cut at the wrist was the bottle top made from skin. He experienced such fatigue fighting the liquid mass and hurt from head to foot. There’s a period he considered quitting. The toil against nature can have a person think that sometimes, especially when facing humongous odds.
Alfonzo felt truly small.
Then, he saw the faces of his children beckoning and the sweet beautiful things that made life worth living. He thought of the tragedy he didn’t want to be for them, or the devastation he’d cause to a woman who had already suffered many indescribable losses.
He’d been her lifeline so long and she’d been his. To lose the connection, he’d bring her great sorrow, and thinking that stirred his limbs.
Selange believed in him, and he couldn’t break his promise to fight his way back to her arms.
Alfonzo heaved, he was not going out without a struggle and he called on every muscle, and whatever energy in reserve to dislodge his hands from metal.
His hands were free.
In an explosive burst, he forced his battered body, weighted by chains to the surface with dolphin-simulated kicks.
The action consumed the remainder of his strength. He was a neutral particle at the whim of the sea. He coughed out fluids as he twisted supine to float calmly on a wave, which he’d done on very hot days in Puerto Rico.
Alfonzo’s eyes were heavy as they viewed the firmament and his body became a concrete slab resting on water.
His brain had a jackhammer pounding every side.
Fatigued, he let music sing him to bed.
‘When your legs don’t work like they used to before,
And I can’t sweep you off of your feet,
Will your mouth still remember the taste of my love?
Darling I will be loving you until we’re seventy,
And baby my heart could still fall as hard at twenty-three…
So, honey now,
Take me into your loving arms….’
“I tried to make it back, babe, I tried.” He croaked at the fading sky.
The chains were causing his feet to sink. It was difficult to swim with broken limbs, so he simply drifted with the currents, not fighting the sea, certain he’d lose.
He blinked, stretching his eyes, forcing himself awake.
‘…People fall in love in mysterious ways,
Maybe just a touch of hand,
Me I fall in love with you every single day…
So, honey now-ow-ow,
Take me into your loving arms,
Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars,
Place your hand on my beating heart….’
The fine threads woven to the image of his woman were unraveling.
Alfonzo faded with the song.
The sea shed tears.
A force greater than a man revealed its mighty hand.
Alfonzo’s lower extremities were dragged to the murky depths and a tired man could not battle fate.
Nico mentioned the word amoroso, which is the sweetest affection, but also music played lovingly. That’s what Alfonzo had in his heart for family while sinking.
Just as his eyes closed, there was jerk on his clothes. Alfonzo’s head lifted to the world above and didn’t question the tug on his collar. He was grateful for the help.
He expelled the water from his mouth, leaving trails of fluid on his chest that was cleaned away by an ocean bath.
When the spurts of fluid that brought racking coughs ceased, his rescuer’s accented voice resounded. “Nice lump on the head.”
“Yeah,” Alfonzo answered wearily.
Luck can also be thought of as a blessing.
Lorenzo, Vin’s offspring had changed a dying man’s fate.
Alfonzo slipped to sleep unknowingly.
Chapter 30
Giuseppe entered the hall. His jacket opened and he flashed the gun at his waist, daring the armed security to lift theirs. His face was as stern as marble, thinking of Selange’s insufferable stubbornness. Alfonzo should take her over his knee; he deliberated as the weapon toting figures flanked his sides.
He entered the conference room and everyone turned toward the door. They were holding wine glasses, chatting and mingling civilly. His fratellino’s wife stood among criminals, looking pretty as if she were at a ball.
Selange tilted her head toward Giuseppe. “My brother-in-law has arrived to escort me. Thank all of you for a productive meeting.”
She walked around shaking hands as he looked on incredulously. Had she implied he was her damn chauffeur?
When she gathered her case, Giuseppe took hold of her arm, deliberately pressing hard as he led her to the doors. “What bargain have you struck without approval?” He seethed.
Giuseppe pulled her along, not waiting for an answer.
They were on the sidewalk, when Giuseppe received the call Alfonzo, Nico and Lucia had been found. He sighed with relief and then pointed to his car. “Get in –ora!” he shouted, placing a palm on her ass to give her a hand and she slapped it away.
Sal waited in the back seat with a sheepish grin.
“Sorry mom, I called Uncle.”
“They are found and at the clinic,” Giuseppe told the pair while scooting in and shutting the door.
The vehicle sped from the curb.
Sal smiled. Aaron had already given him the good news.
His mother’s reaction was a gasp of relief. She hugged Sal tightly, tearing up and kissing his head with sharp intakes of breath.
Selange breathed because nothing was as glorious as hearing she’d have more time with her love. That’s what she had prayed for all day. She’d worn the watch she’d given Alfonzo on his birthday, because that’s when he claimed a piece of her heart. The Rolex had ticked and supplied the missing beat to the chamber that had been empty during his absence.
Inside the confines of Giuseppe’s luxury vehicle, Selange endured a tongue lashing, but she didn’t mind. Giuseppe had to flex his muscle. She smiled as the tears flowed and then Giuseppe’s admonishments ceased and he put his arms around his brother’s family.
“I am happy as well that he is safe. Ssssh no more tears Donna, I have seen too many and believe I am drowned by them, capisce?”
The second they reached the facility, Sal and his mom bolted out the car. A nurse pointed out where Alfonzo recuperated after broken bones and a near dro
wning.
They entered the room Alfonzo shared with Nico. Both men had IV’s, bandages and looked like shit, yet seeing them alive was a pretty sight.
Selange approached with Sal.
Alfonzo observed with a thin smile. “Hi babe, hijo,” he said.
“Hi honey.” Selange replied and went to take his hand but then noticed they were in splints. She gave him a kiss on the lips and put her hand on his heart. “Don’t scare me again.”
Sal held the bed railing. “Yeah dad.” He put his fist to his dad’s chin. “We missed you.”
“I wasn’t absent long enough for that to happen hijo.”
“It seemed like forever to us,” Selange replied.
“Babe, I heard what you did. We’ll talk when I’m better.”
“Si, do that!” Giuseppe bellowed marching in and waking Nico with a pat to the leg. “Buongiorno cazzo!”
Nico groaned. “Ssssh Geo.”
Giuseppe laughed and then turned his attention on Alfonzo as Ari raced in with the twins. She made no bones about her emotions. She hugged Nico, whispering endearments and giving him pecks on the face.
“Oh my gosh, Nico, I swear you’re aging me faster than the kids!” Ari kissed her husband several more times on the mouth. “I love you…god I love you!”
Nico smirked, but it was a sad half smile. “I know you do.” His solemn stare caused her eyes to flood before he announced what she already learned the moment she arrived home. “Anna’s dead.”
Her lip quivered. She had grown fond of Anna and so had Nico. The death of the young woman hurt them all. “I know sweetheart. I know you would have taken a bullet to save her.”
Nico frowned. He had wanted to die for the girl. Instead, the cowards refused to give him what he requested. He sighed. “I love you Ari darling.” He stretched his neck, looking around for his daughter. “Where’s ‘Mira?”
Ari’s eyes bulged out of her head at the memory of the pack of children wolves running and screeching during play and reality slapped her. Oh goodness, she’d have a house full, wouldn’t she?
“She’s at Al’s place with the other children,” she replied, although she wanted to add, ‘can’t they all live there and we visit once in a while?’
Nico nodded. He’d been informed his daughter slept through the entire nightmare in his bed until Selange found her the next morning. Thank goodness!