Mad Mafia Love

by Jamila Jasper

  Once inside, Nico asked, “Do you have a plastic bag?”

  * * *

  Eve sat down at her dining table and nodded, pointing to a shelf in her kitchen. Nico grabbed the heavy duty garbage bags and walked outside. Eve already knew what he was doing. Shoes. Gloves. Shirt. Bat. All of them would go into the bag. Eve imagined Nico bagging it twice and then sliding it into a compartment in his trunk.

  * * *

  All the evidence would be washed away by morning.

  * * *

  Eve knew he was mafia. There was no doubt in her mind, but her question was how deep Nico was involved. She could love him, but she could never marry a man who truly lived like that and had no desire for more. Eve mused bitterly about how badly she’d been craving “adventure” only a month or so before. This was hardly the kind of adventure she’d had in mind. But now, she was here with no choice but to live it.

  * * *

  Nico came back inside, shirtless. Again, something else that made it impossible to truly be angry with him. Eve resented his effect on her sometimes. Unconsciously, her teeth bit down on her lower lip. Nico noticed and smiled.

  * * *

  “I need a shower beautiful.”

  * * *

  “Upstairs,” Eve said quietly.

  * * *

  Nico bounded upstairs without waiting for her. Eve checked her windows and then locked her house. She was safe with Nico. No matter what his father had said, this sense of safety couldn’t be faked. Eve noted that her heart was still racing.

  * * *

  By the time Nico walked out of the shower with her starched white towels wrapped around his waist, Eve had worked up the courage to speak to him about everything she’d experienced that day. He hugged her, he kissed her forehead and he asked her if she was all right.

  * * *

  “Yes, I’m okay. But we need to talk Nico.”

  * * *

  He sat down, still in his towel. Eve tried to keep her mind focused on anything but what was underneath it.

  * * *

  Eve continued, “Your father stopped by the store today. Why did you never mention this to me about Giuseppe?”

  * * *

  Nico sighed and widened his stance. He rested his head in his hands momentarily and then spoke.

  * * *

  “Yes, he’s my father. And I figure the less you know, the better.”

  * * *

  “Why? Do you have something to hide?”

  * * *

  Eve had intended a softer tone.

  * * *

  “No. I have nothing to hide. It’s to keep you safe.”

  * * *

  “And you’re sure that you have absolutely nothing to hide?” Eve stood up and got herself a glass of water.

  * * *

  She poured one out for Nico and set it on the table next to him. He drank the entire thing before replying.

  * * *

  “I have nothing to hide.”

  * * *

  “So then I can ask you more questions?”

  * * *

  “Yes. Go ahead.”

  * * *

  “Is your mother dead?”

  * * *

  Nico nodded, “Yes. She’s been dead a long time.”

  * * *

  “Is your brother dead?”

  * * *

  Nico nodded, “Yes, my brother is dead.”

  * * *

  “Luca?”

  * * *

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  “Did you kill him? Did you kill him because you wanted to steal from your family?”

  * * *

  Eve was trying not to cry, but just acknowledging that what she’d heard from Giuseppe might be true, sent her into terrified sobs.

  * * *

  “I killed my brother… But it’s not what you think. It’s not how Giuseppe told you.”

  * * *

  “How can I be sure?” Eve whispered through her tears.

  * * *

  “Because I’ll tell you the truth. And because I’ll prove it to you.”

  * * *

  Nico’s facial expression hadn’t changed. Maybe there was a little more sadness behind his eyes, but he didn’t seem like a man who’d been caught in a lie. Eve sat back and drank some of her water. Whatever Nico’s story was, she had a feeling it would be a good one. And if it were a lie, Eve needed to be awake enough to hear it. She gazed at Nico and waited for him to explain everything.

  * * *

  “My brother Luca is my twin. I have his watch, I gave it to my cousin. You know this, right?”

  * * *

  Eve nodded.

  * * *

  “It’s true that I killed Luca, but he left me with no choice. After what my father ordered him to do. Before I came back to America, I had been in Italy for years. I had a girlfriend and she had a child. The child was not mine but I loved her and the boy all the same. We were going to be together. I was planning to exit the life my father had laid out for me. I was tired. Of the fighting. Of the drugs. Of the lying.”

  * * *

  “A girlfriend?” Eve repeated. She knew that she was focusing on what was perhaps the least important part. But she’d never known about Nico’s life before her. He’d never even hinted at it, choosing instead to dance around his past.

  * * *

  “Yes. She agreed to marry me if I quit working for my father and with my brother. She despised Luca. She said that Luca would kill me if he had the chance and I didn’t believe her. I thought it was jealousy because we were twins or something else. I wish I had listened.”

  * * *

  Nico sighed, deep and heavy in his chest.

  * * *

  “I was never stronger than Luca. Never. He was the athlete, I was the one who wanted desperately to remain in school. But my father said school wasn’t important. All that was important was power and learning how to get it. Luca followed him, I didn’t. And that made him very angry.”

  * * *

  “Luca began to sell our mother’s jewels. He got me involved but had me thinking he was selling something else — just from theft I supposed. So I didn’t stop him. When my father confronted him, he said it was me. Then he said I was thinking about leaving the life with my girlfriend. That I wanted to betray them.”

  * * *

  Eve gasped. She had a feeling that Giuseppe learning of his son’s betrayal wasn’t something that had gone over well.

  * * *

  “Giuseppe ordered my brother to bring me to him so he could dole out the punishment himself. Luca arrived at the manor drunk, high off cocaine, demanding to see me. My lover… she was trying to protect me. She had the boy in her arms. Luca grabbed the boy and stabbed him, flinging his body across the room before her very eyes. She tried to fight back. She went crazy. At this point I was running through the house, trying to find a weapon. I knew something terrible was happening. She tried to fight Luca but he won. He pushed her down and slit her throat. He began to beat her head into the side of our coffee table after she was dead. When I came into the living room, I saw their bodies. I had my gun…”

  * * *

  He paused. The pause was long and pregnant.

  * * *

  “But a gun wasn’t enough. I shot Luca in the knee caps. He screamed and moaned. I went to make sure they were really dead. And they were. Luca had never failed to kill someone he’d set out to kill. But he didn't think I would fight back, just like all the times I didn’t fight back when we were children.”

  * * *

  Nico bent forward and then rested his face in his hands. When he lifted his head, tears covered his face.

  * * *

  “I’m not proud of what I did. I am ashamed. I took his knife, covered in the blood of the love of my life… And I killed him. I killed my twin brother because I had no choice. I searched his body, found my mother’s heirlooms that he was planning to sell. I took 500€ out of his pocket and I ran. I ran and I ra
n until I could call someone who I knew would be loyal to me. I got a ride to my aunt’s home.”

  * * *

  “Your aunt?”

  * * *

  “Yes, Domenico’s mother. She helped me break down the heirloom into individual diamonds. She helped me flee Italy. She helped me plan what I would do for revenge. She even sent her son to America, risked his life just to help me take revenge on Giuseppe.”

  * * *

  Nico pulled out his wallet and took out a photograph. The warmth of the Italian country side shone through the grainy photograph. There was Nico, his cousin, and his aunt. His eyes were haunted despite his smile. His gold crucifix still dangled on his neck. Nico wept. Tears gushed out of him and he began to sob.

  * * *

  Eve believed him. She believed every word of what he said.

  6

  Domination

  After Eve had calmed down, Nico had showered and dressed and they’d had dinner, Nico told Eve that he didn’t think they should stay the night.

  * * *

  “Why not?”

  * * *

  “I just don’t think it’s safe here Eve.”

  * * *

  “This is my apartment!”

  * * *

  “And they know where you live.”

  * * *

  “And what about you? Can’t they follow you and find out where you live?”

  * * *

  Nico shrugged, “My place is fortified. And I think I’ll be able to lose them if they follow me.”

  * * *

  “I don’t know…”

  * * *

  “Please, Eve, you need to trust me. Things are getting dangerous and I suspect my father knows that we are…”

  * * *

  Eve wanted to ask him to finish that sentence. Because what were they really? Sure, she was enmeshed with Nico, they’d made love countless wonderful times, but there was nothing there besides that. Nico certainly wasn’t her boyfriend; they could never be seen together. And he had never even said that he loved her. For all she knew, they would only be “something” until Nico found away to escape his father and get rid of her.

  * * *

  “What are we?” Eve blurted out, knowing that it was exactly the wrong time. She squeezed her eyes shut waiting for Nico to embarrass her. But he skirted right past her question without even acknowledging it.

  * * *

  “We need to get out of here. By the time we get to sleep, he could have men in this house to kill me. We need to hurry before he gets a chance to figure out what happened.”

  * * *

  “Fine. I’ll come with you then.”

  * * *

  “Perfect…”

  * * *

  Eve packed an overnight bag upstairs.

  * * *

  “I never meant for you to get hurt.”

  * * *

  Eve shrugged, “Well it’s too late now.”

  * * *

  Her bag was packed and she started to change, finding that her legs could barely move out of her pants.

  * * *

  “What’s wrong?”

  * * *

  “I think I have a bruise from earlier.”

  * * *

  “Let me see.”

  * * *

  Eve felt suddenly shy around Nico. He had already seen her naked but there was something about the painful throbbing bruise that felt more intimate. Nico helped Eve slide out of her pants and he helped her sit down on her bed. Nico held onto her leg while his eyes slid up and down determining whether she’d been bruised.

  * * *

  Nico saw a dark purple splotch on her thigh, probably where she’d hit the ground. He pressed two fingers to her flesh gently. Eve recoiled from his touch.

  * * *

  “Ouch…” She mumbled.

  * * *

  “I’m sorry… Eve… I’m so so sorry.”

  * * *

  “It’s fine,” Eve replied, pulling her leg away.

  * * *

  “Do you have a dress? Something… flowing?”

  * * *

  He seemed to question his English for the first time. The lack of confidence contrasted with the Nico that Eve knew. She couldn’t help but grin and her grin turned into a big full belly laugh. Nico watched Eve in confusion as she burst out laughing. She steadied herself on the bed and laughed until she cried.

  * * *

  “Something funny?” Nico asked when she was done.

  * * *

  Eve grinned, “You’ll make me laugh all over again.”

  * * *

  “Yeah?”

  * * *

  “Yes. Suffice it to say I never thought we’d be in a situation like this.”

  * * *

  “I know.”

  * * *

  “There’s a blue dress hanging in my closet. I’ll wear that.”

  * * *

  Nico helped her slide into the blue maxi dress and then he checked all the windows in Eve’s house. There were no cars on the street that shouldn’t have been there. There was no chance that Giuseppe or any of his goons had seen them.

  * * *

  Nico led Eve out of the house. His leather jacket was wrapped around her shoulders. Eve loved the feeling of his arms hovering protectively over her until she got into the car. The evenings were starting to get warmer and Eve barely needed her jacket once she settled into the passenger seat.

  * * *

  Nico pulled the car out of the driveway slowly and started to head South, towards Cambridge. Eve guessed that he lived in Cambridge because it would the perfect place to become invisible from Giuseppe. It was a place that he would have never thought to look.

  * * *

  Traffic was heavy towards Cambridge. Eve found herself looking back behind the car far too many times. Nico caught her looking back and he rested a palm on her thighs.

  * * *

  “Relax. I will take care of you Eve.”

  * * *

  Relax. That was easy for him to say. He was accustomed to living on the edge and living on the run. Eve wasn’t. But she tried to relax, if for no other reason than to not make Nico’s life any harder.

  * * *

  Just as Eve had predicted, Nico slowed the car down in Cambridge. He weaved from side street to side street until he came to a townhouse that looked bigger than any of the other townhouses usually rented out to college students. Eve knew it was the one before Nico pulled his car around to the secure location off the street.

  * * *

  Eve was starting to realize just how much Nico was paralyzed about safety. He might have been able to fake all manner of things, but he couldn’t hide the fact that he was terrified. If he was terrified, it had to be because he feared what Giuseppe would do. Eve relaxed even more as she realized that Nico must have been telling the truth about his father and brother.

  * * *

  Because of them, he’d lost a lover and a child.

  * * *

  Eve realized that he was terrified of the same thing happening to her. This was Nico’s chance to save someone’s life when he couldn’t do so in the past. Eve wondered if he would ever open up to her about this — or about anything. Nico held the door open and helped Eve out. She limped as she took her first step. Her stride grew accustomed to the jolts of pain shooting up through her leg.

  * * *

  She leaned on Nico until they got to the door. Nico did something that Eve couldn’t quite make out in the dark. There was a soft, nearly inaudible beep. He turned his keys in the lock and then they limped into his home. For the first time, Nico had let Eve into his life. She could get a glimpse of what the man was really like.