by Sadie Black
“I advised you,” the doctor said. The words stung like a slap across the face, and Luka’s sorrow flash-froze into scathing rage. He released the curtain and turned to face the doctor in full. How could he be so callous? Marcello had been a father. A mentor. A friend. Luka had lost one of the most pivotal people in his life, and this man spoke about him like he was a cow for the slaughter.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Luka hissed, eyes narrowing and shoulders squaring. “Get the fuck out, or I swear to god you will never work in this city again.”
“If you continue to threaten me, I’ll call security,” the doctor announced calmly. It seemed his balls had dropped since their little encounter in the hallway, but Luka wasn’t about to back down. The animal inside wanted out.
“What kind of loyal goons do you have that would escort the mayor of New York City out when he is fucking mourning the loss of his fucking father, doc? Because I might just have to investigate you for criminal connections if you have men that loyal to you. Wouldn’t that be fun, a criminal inquiry?”
The doctor frowned, shoving his hands into the pockets of his white lab coat. The blood on his scrubs, did it belong to Marcello? Luka’s stomach turned again, and bile rose up his throat. With great effort he choked it back.
“You’ve seen the body,” the doctor said, ignoring Luka’s most recent comment. “Now that you’ve confirmed the death with your own eyes, will you please return to the hallway with me? Your family is waiting. You should be with them.”
Then what? Luka turned back to the corpse, the coppery aroma of blood — his father’s blood — pungent on the air. Then he’d never see his father again. Never have a chance to touch his skin or catch a whiff of his cologne. Never again would they have dinners, or butt heads. Never again would he hear his father’s laugh, or suffer his father’s criticisms, or...
“I need a little longer. Just a little.”
Luka’s feet worked on autopilot, dragging him to his father’s side. A hard swallow held back a fresh wave of nausea, and Luka ran a hand tenderly down his father’s arm.
“It wasn’t your time yet,” he whispered. His eyes focused on the gold Bs at his father’s wrist; it was impossible to look at what remained of his face. “You weren’t supposed to go now. What about the wedding? What about my career? I still need you, Dad.”
Tears stung at his eyes, and Luka brushed them away with the back of his arm.
“Sir—”
“SHUT UP!”
But Luka knew what the doctor meant; there was no good in talking to the dead. With care, Luka unclasped the gold cuff links and clenched them in his palm, warming them with his body heat.
“I love you, Dad.” He uttered, a crack breaking the end of his sentence as wracking sobs threatened to burst free from inside. Luka pushed them away and turned from his father for the final time. It was time to take care of the living. It was time to make sure his mother would be okay.
“Thank you for your time, doctor,” he said in cool monotone. Luka pushed his way through the door, back down the hallway to where Ciara cradled his mother in her arms.
From top of the world to crushed beneath it, Luka’s life would never feel the same again.
* * *
Ciara
“Wouldn’t you like to be a doctor, Ciara? You’re so smart that you could be if you wanted to and worked hard enough for it.”
The words of Ciara’s second grade teacher rang in her ears as she ran her palm up and down Camilla’s back. A plump woman with a round face and dark skin, Mrs. Morris had always doted on her a little bit more than the other students. In retrospect, likely because she was the only child of color in her class.
“I think blood is gross and death is sad,”Ciara had replied. She still remembered, at that age, her exposure to death was limited to what she had read from Charlotte’s Web. Times were simpler then. “I don’t want to be a doctor. I want to be a newsgirl. Being on tv would be fun!”
Time had matured her tastes and given her a love of writing, but the dream had never died, just changed. Time had not changed the fact that she hated hospitals and dreaded visits to the doctor.
“I’m sorry,” Camilla sobbed against her shoulder, the words next to incomprehensible. “I can’t— can’t stop crying. He’s g-gone. Why w-would he leave me?”
Ciara pursed her lips and held Camilla closer, hand moving from her back to her hairless scalp. Careful fingertips ran across the skin there, caressing her as though she were a child. When struck with such deep grief, no one was accountable for much more than that.
“Did they tell you what happened?” Ciara asked in a low, soothing tone. Future daughter-in-law and mother-in-law had reversed roles. Ciara would care for Camilla for as long as it took.
When Luka broke down, as she knew he would, Ciara would be there for him as well. No one welcomed death, and as hard as it would be on the both of them, she was glad she could be there to help. Luka’s family was her family now, Camilla was already a better mother to her than the one she’d been born to. Although she hadn’t known Marcello well, or cared for him nearly as much, Ciara knew he’d leave a gaping hole in their lives.
“He was cr-crossing the street to get t-to a meeting,” Camilla sobbed, her grip on Ciara tightening, “and he...”
“It’s okay,” Ciara whispered, “take your time. It hurts now, but it’ll feel better getting it out.”
Camilla sobbed pathetically. A tremble ran down the length of her body, and Ciara hoped that her health would not suffer for all that had happened. The woman had just finished her last treatment, not even a week ago. The entire family was remaining positive that she would be cancer free soon.
“He was h-hit by a van,” she said, the words warbling.
Accidents happened all the time, but something about this didn’t sit well with Ciara. Marcello wasn’t a fresh face in New York; he knew the streets, and he certainly knew how to safely cross even the busiest avenues.
“Did Giles drive him to the meeting?” The reporter in her emerged, looking to get the story that lay at the bottom of this.
“Yes,” Camilla whimpered.
Then why didn’t he park on the same side as the venue? Ciara set her lips and continued to run her fingertips soothingly over Camilla’s scalp. Little by little, the woman was calming down.
“What kind of a meeting was it?” she pried further.
“I-I don’t know,” Camilla said. “Marcello did what he did. I didn’t bother h-him with questions. All he said was he was going to see f-friends.”
Friends. The word was spoken with purity from Camilla’s lips, but based on what she knew of the Belmonte family, Ciara wondered. After Vittore sent his lackeys to kill her, Luka came clean about his connections with the mafia.
In his prime, Marcello had become mayor from stepping stones laid down by the mafia. When Luka’s race looked doomed, Marcello had put him in touch with the Don, Vittore Lombardo. Since then, Luka regretted his mistake. Not only did Vittore nearly kill Luka’s best friend, but when Luka stepped in to save Ciara’s life, the Don made it clear that he wasn’t impressed. Was Marcello’s death an accident, or a message?
“Did they get the guy driving the van?”
“N-no. No witnesses, e-either.”
In New York, how was that possible? Nothing about this added up, but all Ciara had was a hunch to work with.
“Camilla, I—” Ciara stopped when Luka dropped down into the chair beside his mother. Legs spread, posture oddly rigid, Luka sank back against the chair and threw his head back, covering his eyes with both hands. He did not sob, or sigh, or scream, but his silence was more telling than any noise. Ciara’s heart dropped. Seeing Luka so torn up over something was unusual and uncomfortable, and she wished she could make it better, but there was nothing to be done.
Feeling a body sink into the chair beside her, Camilla pulled herself from Ciara’s chest and turned to see who it was.
“Luka,” she sobbed, worked into an
instant fit. The sight of her son, so much like his father, hit hard. Ciara couldn’t find fault in her weakness — in many ways, Luka was Marcello’s ghost.
“Mom,” he uttered, dropping his hands from his face to tend to her needs instead. Confident, able hands pulled his mother into his arms, and Luka held her close. “Mom, I have to stay here for a little longer. I can’t drive. Not like this. My hands won’t stop shaking.”
“I’ll drive the car back,” Ciara said. “Luka, take your mother home in a taxi, I’ll be right behind you, but I have to do something first. It’ll just be a couple more minutes.”
Luka and Camilla nodded silently, too caught up in their grief to comment. Ciara understood her role, and didn’t take their distance to heart. Instead, she occupied herself with finding the young doctor Luka had spoken with. The man was down the hall tending to some charts when she found him.
“Excuse me.”
The doctor did not look thrilled to be disturbed once more. He turned toward her and squared his shoulders defensively, expecting harsh treatment.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry to bug you — I know that Luka can be a handful. I just have a few quick questions, if you wouldn’t mind, and then I promise I’ll go away.” Without a pad or paper to take notes with, Ciara would have to commit his statements to memory. With any luck, it wouldn’t be that difficult.
“Fine.”
“The hit and run, can you tell from the body whether it was a single strike, or if there were multiple blows done?”
“The body caught on the front of the vehicle,” the doctor explained, “and was dragged until enough of it was torn off that it could slip beneath the chassis.”
What a gruesome way to go. Still, the facts were the facts, and Ciara had to try to shed her subjectivity. Right now she was on the job.
“In your opinion, what kind of vehicle might have been able to do this?” She imagined every car she had owned, and the infrequent times when she’d driven over roadkill. Even a skunk was enough to rattle the car; she couldn’t imagine what striking and dragging a human body would feel like.
“Something big, like a van or a truck,” the doctor said. “But what I find the most troubling is that the vehicle must’ve struck at high speed, and then accelerated to explain the damage done. Whoever did it had no intention of stopping. In most cases, the vehicle brakes and the body is cast aside, and damage is scattered. In this case, the body was injured uniformly; there was no moment where the driver attempted to stop.”
It was all she needed to know. Without evidence, the case was weak, but the parts were fitting together a bit too well — Marcello’s death was intentional. Ciara was sure Vittore was behind it.
“Thank you for your time, doctor,” she said, bowing her head as she turned and left.
“Take care,” he said in parting.
How should she to approach Luka with her suspicions? Ciara mulled over her options as she drove the impressive machine back to the Belmonte estate. True to her word, she arrived only moments after they had. After she finished helping Luka put Camilla to bed, she would speak with him. It was better to tell him immediately than dwell on her suspicions, just in case Vittore was plotting something else.
Together they escorted Camilla to her room, where Luka tucked her into bed. As soon as the bedroom door was closed behind them, Ciara took Luka by the hand and squeezed it in hers.
“Can we go somewhere private?” she asked. “I need to talk to you about something.”
There was hollow defeat in Luka’s eyes, as though he were a shell of a person rather than a vibrant young man with the world before him. With a nod he brought her down the hall into another bedroom, and the two of them sank together onto the bed.
“I don’t think that your father’s death was an accident,” Ciara said, keeping her voice low.
“What do you mean?” Luka asked.
“I mean, it wasn’t long ago that Vittore paid us a visit, and the details of the accident just aren’t adding up, and—”
“No,” Luka insisted. “No, it was an accident, Ciara. Don’t read into this.” Despite his hot temper, it wasn’t anger in his voice, but resignation and vulnerability. Luka lay back upon the bed and hooked an arm over his face, hiding his eyes. He hadn’t even taken off his coat yet. Ciara lay down with him, stroking his chest to try to sooth him. As much as she wanted to present her evidence, Luka wasn’t up for it right now. It would have to wait. His mental health was the most important matter at hand.
“It’s just so hard to think that he’s not here anymore,” Luka whispered, opening up to her as she comforted him. “He was supposed to be there for my first day in office, for the wedding... How am I supposed to do this on my own?”
“We’ll put off the wedding,” Ciara murmured. It would mean she wouldn’t be welcomed to live at Gracie Mansion for that much longer, but they would get by. Living in the condo wasn’t bad at all, and Luka’s morning commute wouldn’t take all that long. What was another year? Taking care of Luka and the Belmonte family was more important than signing a few papers.
“No. No, we won’t.” Luka lifted his arm from his face and turned to look at her. Although she hadn’t witnessed him shed a tear, his eyes were red and inflamed. “My dad wouldn’t have wanted that.”
Luka rolled onto his side and tucked his arm over Ciara’s waist, pulling her close. “There was one year, my cousin on my mom’s side, Rochelle, was getting married at the last minute in Boston. They sent out invitations a week before the date, and the wedding landed right in the middle of a conference my dad had to be speak at in Florida. Dad couldn’t get out of the conference, so we all went to Florida. The whole way he was on the phone with all these sales reps, ironing out details. I’m talking airlines, car rental places, the works.” Ciara watched grief slacken from Luka’s face as he spoke.
“The day before the wedding, we flew out to Boston as soon as he was done speaking. We went to the wedding, and as soon as the rice was thrown, dad rushed us out and into a waiting car with all our bags. We caught a flight back so he could finish up with meetings he’d postponed ‘til the evening. No matter what was happening in his life, family was his priority, and he did everything in his power to make sure we looked after our own.”
A moment passed between them.
“Nothing stands in the way of family, not even with him gone.” Luka’s voice cracked and he swallowed hard before continuing. “The wedding’s going to go on like we planned it. It’s what he would’ve wanted.”
At last, Luka could take no more. He choked back tears. The man had lost his father, his inspiration, and his mentor all in one devastating blow. It was up to her to be there and to be strong for him during this difficult time.
“I need to be strong for mom,” he choked. “I need to be strong for you...”
“It’s okay,” she whispered, drawing closer to lend him comfort and hush him. She pressed a soft kiss to his lips and drew away. “I’m here for you no matter what, Luka. We’re in this together now, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Luka’s gaze rose to meet hers, and beyond the sorrow, there was softness. Greedy fingers ran through her hair, and with gentle affection he returned the kiss. She’d never seen this more delicate side to him, and Ciara cherished this moment as a sacred memory. When he returned the kiss, she did not deny him, and when he began to slip the coat from her shoulders, she turned her body to help him in his.
The soft stroking of hands on skin led into tender embraces, and still the slow, meaningful kiss continued. There was no lust or greed between them, only the pure warmth that only love could provide. Each step progressed naturally, and each time Ciara waited for Luka to take the lead. In that moment, being near him was all she wanted. But as the kiss continued and the warmth pooled, Ciara knew that whatever he wanted, she wanted, too. The gentler side of her fiancé was one she seldom got to experience, and the sweetness of the man behind the tough exterior melted her.
In
a haze of lazy passion and the urge to be close to one another, each article of clothing was shed. Nude, Luka paused their kiss to murmur against her lips.
“I need to be with you,” he whispered. “Let me feel you. Let me be close.”
In those words was heartbreak, Ciara blinked away tears at how distraught he sounded.
“I want that, too,” she whispered back. One of her thighs found its way between Luka’s, and with mild pressure he turned their bodies so that she lay back as he rested above her. Tonight, to escape the sorrow and live for the light, Luka would make love to her, and Ciara would give herself to him entirely.
Slow, sensuous, rolling hips. Low, elongated moans. Pleasure that smoldered deep and consistent. That night, Luka made love to her for the first time. They’d spent more hours than she could count writhing in ecstasy from passionate sex. But as Luka slowly tasted every inch of her rich skin, she realized this was the first time they’d ever truly been intimate.
When at last he did fall asleep, she took a long while to consider all that had passed between them, and as she did, she knew that he would be just fine. As much as Luka hurt, his father had instilled in him a love of family, and it would see him rise above his grief. With a sickly, widowed mother to look after, and a young fiance to shower with affection, he would find purpose again. In the dredges of his grief, Luka had already started to seek that purpose out.
Dawn would come, and another dawn after that. While life would never be quite the same, it would get better — and Ciara would be there at his side to make sure of it.
* * *
Luka
In lieu of flowers, the Belmonte family requests donations be made to New York’s Children’s Hospital.
But as the flowers arrived by the truckload, Luka began to think that donations were better invested in a literacy program. Bouquets sat on decorative pillars near his father’s urn, while countless others cluttered the floor. Every color of flower imaginable was left to shrivel and die alongside his father’s remains. The symbolism was not lost on him; the hurt had not yet subsided.