by Paige Dearth
Emma seated herself next to Izzy, who was already waiting for her dinner.
“Salvatore made me macaroni and cheese,” the child piped up, letting her aunt know she was special.
Just then Salvatore walked into the room carrying Izzy’s food and placed it in front of her. A moment later, he returned with a large platter filled with blackened swordfish and penne pasta in vodka sauce. Emma’s senses whirled in the delicious aromas that wafted up her nostrils and she gobbled down the food as though she had never eaten before.
“So did you cook all of this yourself?” she finally asked, sitting back in her chair, full, and rubbing her belly with satisfaction.
Salvatore smiled like a delighted young boy. “Let’s just say I helped.”
“Helped how?” Emma teased.
“My boy, Tony, in the kitchen,” he motioned toward the door, “did the actual cooking, but I told him what I wanted him to make.”
Tony popped his head into the dining room. “Yeah,” he said, “he wishes he could cook like I do.”
Emma laughed, but was a little startled to realize that there were other people in the apartment whom she didn’t know about.
“How many other people are here in the apartment with us?” she asked in a low voice, curious and more than a little embarrassed that they all knew what Ethan and Pete had done to her.
“Oh, just Tony and Vincent are here,” Salvatore replied. “You can always find them here around dinnertime. That’s what they do best—EAT!” he said, yelling the words loud enough for his friends to hear. They responded by yelling something back in Italian that Emma didn’t understand. Salvatore laughed at the words and turned his attention back to her.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. “You were in pretty bad shape when we found you in your apartment.”
Emma felt the blood rush to her face. “I’m feeling much better,” she said in a low voice, suddenly overcome by shyness. “I’m still sore, but at least I can breathe now without feeling excruciating pain.”
“Good, Bella, good,” he replied, patting the top of her hand.
“In a couple of days I should feel well enough to go back to my own apartment,” she assured him. “But first I have to figure out how I’m going to deal with Ethan.” She looked down at her plate as she spoke. “I think you’ll understand this, so I’ll just say it: his days are numbered. I won’t let him get away with this. The situation could have been a lot worse. They could’ve hurt Izzy. I can’t risk that anymore.”
Salvatore smiled at her. “I completely understand,” he said. “In my business, we deal with the things that need to be dealt with.” He turned to Izzy. “Come, sweetheart, let’s get you ready for bed.”
He took her by the hand and led her into a bedroom across the hall from her aunt’s. Emma hobbled behind them, slow to catch up. Then Salvatore flung the bedroom door open and she nearly gasped. This was perfection itself. Done up in shades of pink and purple, the room was based on a princess theme. It had been decorated for Salvatore’s niece when his sister came to visit from New York. But in an effort to make Izzy feel completely at home, while her aunt lay unconscious in the other room, he had told Isabella that the room was decorated especially for her.
“Wow, Izzy!” her aunt said. “This is the greatest room ever!”
“I know!” the child responded, bubbling with excitement. “Salvatore said it’s going to be my room while we’re sleeping over here. Look, Aunt Em, I have my own TV too!”
Emma sat on the chair in the corner while Salvatore helped Izzy out of her clothes and into her nightgown. Once he had tucked her in bed, he helped Emma across the room so that she could give the child a kiss.
“Goodnight, sweetie,” Emma whispered to her precious niece.
Then Salvatore led Emma out into the living room. He sat her on the sofa, gave her a warm blanket to cover herself with and a glass of wine to help her relax.
“We need to talk,” he said.
His tone was so serious Emma suspected he was withholding bad news that involved either Izzy or her.
He picked up a newspaper and sat down beside her. He was nervous, unsure of how she would react to the news. The last thing Salvatore wanted was to lose her after waiting for so long.
“What you said about Ethan a little while ago,” he began tentatively. “Well, I have some news for you. Something happened a couple of days ago.”
Salvatore said no more. He leaned over and put the newspaper in her lap.
Emma read the headline:
LOCAL MAN’S BODY FOUND
Investigating a complaint from neighbors of a foul smell emanating from an abandoned row house in Norristown on Monday morning, police discovered an unidentified naked, limbless torso in an advanced stage of decomposition. On Tuesday morning, a man’s head was found on the banks of the Schuylkill River near Boat House Row by a group of University of Pennsylvania students. DNA tests subsequently carried out confirmed that both the head and the torso, found in separate locations, belong to a West Ambler resident Ethan Miller, 28. Police have no leads so far. According to investigators, no eyewitnesses have come forward with information that can help the investigation. Nor has any motive been found for this “particularly gruesome murder,” a police source told our reporter. Local police are assisting state investigators, but were not forthcoming with any further details on the case, claiming it would be premature to make a comment.
Emma looked up from the newspaper and stared at Salvatore.
“It appears to me that Ethan finally lost his head. Such a shame,” was all he said. He looked at her anxiously, waiting for a reaction, the smallest sign that she was relieved to know the news.
Slowly she began to smile. “Well, I guess Ethan must have pissed someone off really bad to make them do that to him, you’re right, that is a shame,” she said and lifted her wine glass in the air to Salvatore.
“Salute,” he said, tapping her glass with his own. Emma understood that Salvatore would never admit to her that he had Ethan killed. Hell, she thought, he may have even done it himself. She preferred that he didn’t admit killing him because if his involvement in the murder remained unspoken, it kept her from owing him anything in return. She beamed at Salvatore, quite impressed not only with the way he had handled it already, but with the symbolic way in which he did it. In the end, he had made Ethan regret the words he’d used so often to threaten her.
Chapter Eighty
As the weeks passed, Emma and Izzy remained at the apartment with Salvatore, primarily because of his insistence that they weren’t ready to go back home. Besides, as she was quick to admit to herself, Emma had never lived in such luxury, and having given her a small taste of this lifestyle, it was easy for Salvatore to convince her to stay.
Tony and Vincent also enjoyed having Emma and Isabella at the apartment. They were a lively diversion to the work they performed everyday as gangsters. On one occasion, after eating spaghetti and meatballs, Izzy sat at the kitchen table coloring. Tony nudged his friend and they shared a smile. “Hey, Iz,” Tony began, “don’t cha have to color inside the lines?”
She looked up at him with indignation. “Yes, you do, and I am.”
“Nah, look, see here where your crayon isn’t in the line?” he teased.
“Yeah, I see dat too, Tony,” Vincent confirmed, chiming in on the fun.
Isabella hopped off the chair and planted her feet firmly on the floor. With her hands swinging in the air above her head she ranted, “You two don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m coloring in the lines. See?” she glowered and pointed to the coloring book. “Besides, I bet you can’t even color. You probably don’t know how to, and I’m gonna tell Aunt Em that you’re acting mean to me,” she raved, stomping off into the living room to find her aunt.
Ten minutes later she came back in the kitchen with her homework. “What happened, Iz? I thought you were gonna tell on us,” Vincent reminded her, the grown men getting their kicks out of teasing her.<
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“I did tell on you, but Aunt Em said I have to do my homework.” She opened up her binder and looked at the simple addition and subtraction problems. She cleverly turned to them. “Can you help me with my math homework?” she inquired innocently.
Vincent looked over at Tony. “I ain’t no good in math, you’re gonna have to help her.”
“Me?” Tony argued. “I don’t know nothing ’bout math. What do I look like, an accountant?”
Isabella began to giggle at them and they quickly realized she was getting back at them for teasing her. “You think you’re real smart, do ya?” Tony said, playfully lifting her into the air over his head.
“Smarter than you two,” she giggled. “I gotcha!”
Salvatore, Emma, and Isabella loved being together. Each of them with their unique personalities made it a fun and relaxing place to live. They watched movies and ate dinner together at least three or four nights a week. On the nights that Salvatore had to be away, he explained that he had business to take care of. Then he would be gone all night, only reappearing the next morning. Emma never questioned him about these absences, because she knew it was none of her business. They weren’t romantically involved and she considered her time at his apartment a gift from him to Izzy and her.
Salvatore’s feelings for Emma had become more intense. Now that he had her so close to him, he found his love for her growing. He worked hard at keeping his feelings to himself, but could not help dropping subtle hints that he was attracted to her. His gaze would linger a little longer when he looked at her, and when he accidentally touched or bumped into her, the two of them would giggle like school children. He suspected that she was drawn to him as well, but neither would admit it in so many words.
Salvatore was captivated by her beauty and resilience. Emma was in awe of his power, fearlessness, and luxurious lifestyle. An impartial observer would have known, looking at them, that the two shared a special bond, the kind between a man and a woman who wanted each other desperately. Their physical attraction for each other ran deep. Yet they kept their distance from each other, not wanting to make the other feel self-conscious or uncomfortable, reluctant to ruin the friendship they had forged so painstakingly, but most of all, working to prolong indefinitely the initial stage of their relationship that drew its sustenance from banter and flirtation and meaningful smiles.
It was finally Salvatore who made the first move. It was a Friday night and they had just finished watching The Little Mermaid with Izzy. Having put the child to bed, Emma joined Salvatore in the living room for wine. As he handed her the glass, their fingertips brushed. The sensation was like electricity zapping their bodies. He sat close to her on the sofa, closer than he usually did. That made her both nervous and excited.
“Em,” he began, “I would like to take you out on a real date. You know just you and me, spending a romantic evening together.” He stared at her steadily, unblinking, waiting for her response.
“Um, sure,” she said, her heart fluttering. “That’s fine. But when you say ‘romantic,’ do you mean going out as a couple?”
“Yeah,” he smiled, “as a couple.”
He leaned in and kissed her softly on the cheek. She blushed as desire for him flared within her. It had been so long since Ethan had made love to her. It wasn’t sex she missed, but the kind of tenderness they had shared when she first started dating him. She longed for Salvatore to kiss her now, passionately, but he didn’t.
All he did was brush her hair back from her face and say, “I’ll take that as a yes. Next Saturday night. All right?”
She nodded, her eyes screaming with the desire she felt for him. Hard as it was for him to resist her in that moment, he forced himself to say goodnight and leave the room. He wanted to keep that desire unquenched until neither of them could endure it anymore. It gave him something to look forward to and made him come alive with feelings he hadn’t experienced in a long, long time.
While living at the apartment, Emma had observed how men were always coming and going. They would follow Salvatore into his office and emerge smoking cigars and shaking hands with him. Tony and Vincent, his two main men, were at the apartment every day. Always present at dinnertime, they taught Emma how to cook different Italian dishes after she had sufficiently healed. Salvatore, Emma, and Izzy ate their evening meal in the dining room, while Tony and Vincent almost always had theirs in the kitchen, where they preferred to eat.
Emma never needed to go out, even after she had completely healed, because everything was taken care of for her. Groceries were delivered to the apartment, a stylist from Nordstrom was sent over to fit her for clothes, and anything else she needed was taken care of by Salvatore, who made sure it was delivered to her. In fact, Emma looked forward to her date with him, not merely because she was drawn to him, but also for the opportunity to get out of the apartment. It struck her one day that she didn’t even know which part of the city she was staying in. She had been so wrapped up in her fantasy life that everything else seemed to have come to a standstill.
The following Saturday afternoon, Emma was sitting in the living room reading to Izzy when there was a knock at the door. Five minutes later, Tony came back with a young woman in her early thirties.
“Hey, Em,” Tony announced. “Macie here is my kid sister. She’s gonna babysit Izzy for ya tonight while you two go out. She came early to meet the kid.”
Emma looked up at Macie and smiled. “Hi, Macie, I’m Emma and this is Izzy,” she said. “I hadn’t really thought about who was going to watch Izzy tonight. Kind of stupid of me, I guess.”
A plain woman who seemed to teeter on the edge of homely looking, Macie wore black pants and a baggy gray sweater.
“It’s fine,” she told Emma. “Salvatore wanted me to come over so Isabella could get to know me a little.” She approached Izzy and got down on her knees so that her head was level with the little girl’s. “Hi, Isabella, I’m Macie,” she said with ease. “You and I are going to hang out tonight. We can play some games or watch movies. How does that sound?”
Izzy eyed her warily then looked at Emma, who gave her a nod of reassurance.
“Yay,” she yelled excitedly and taking Macie by the hand. “Do you want to come and see my room? It’s a princess room and Salvatore made it just for me. Come on!”
Emma heard Izzy chattering away to Macie in her high voice as she led her down the long hallway to her bedroom. She smiled to herself, thinking of the evening ahead. Salvatore had refused to tell her where they were going. He wanted it to be a surprise and had only disclosed that it was a wonderful restaurant and she would need her stylist to get her a cocktail dress. Emma felt as if she were living in a dream, but a seed of apprehension continued to gnaw at her gut. Is he everything he seems to be, she wondered, or will he turn out to be just like the other men in my life? If he turned out to be a tyrant and a sadist like the others, the type of man who would end up abusing her, getting rid of him would be far, far more difficult. These fears continued to fester inside her, but at five o’clock, Emma put them aside and went to get ready for her date.
Chapter Eighty-One
At six thirty, there was a knock on Emma’s bedroom door. When she opened it and peeked out, Macie was standing there.
“Salvatore wanted me to find out if you were ready,” she told her shyly. “Your reservations are for seven o’clock and he’s particular about being punctual.”
Macie’s formal ways made Emma a little uneasy, but she considered that given Salvatore’s identity and stature within his circle, this was the way people acted around him. She didn’t know that it was Macie’s strict upbringing that made her so formal, unlike her brother Tony, who had always felt he belonged to the “family.” After all, Salvatore, Vincent, and Tony had gone to school together since the first grade. They knew each other better than their own parents knew them.
“Tell him I’ll be out in a minute,” she told Macie.
Emma approached her full-length mirror
and gave herself a quick once-over. Satisfied that she had chosen the right outfit for the occasion, she walked out into the living room to meet Salvatore.
Seated in his favorite chair, he was sipping a glass of wine when she entered. His eyes followed her into the room and traveled from the top of her head to the tips of her toes as she approached. He had to admit to himself that he had never experienced such pleasure in looking at a woman as he did now, a sensation so intense that it bordered on pain. He could not decide if it was his overactive hormones or Emma’s stunning beauty that prompted his response. Nor did he care. He thought she was the most magnificent woman he’d ever laid eyes on.
She stood before him in a knee-length figure-hugging red dress with a plunging round neckline that showed off the upper curves of her beautiful, perky breasts. The red silk tulle overlay gave it just the right touch of sophistication. Her long blond hair fell past her shoulders and her green eyes sparkled with desire as they met his gaze. Observing the eagerness with which his eyes took in every detail of her appearance, her lips parted in a tiny smile. Emma enjoyed the hunger in his gaze, his yearning for her, his desire to be near her.
Salvatore stood slowly, unable to take his eyes off her.
“You look incredible,” he murmured. “I mean, you always look great, but tonight, you are more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.” He moved toward her and gently took her hand. “Are you ready to go?” he asked.
Basking in his adoring gaze, Emma felt beautiful. She knelt to kiss Izzy, who had come in to say goodnight and was star-struck enough to claim that her aunt looked like the “prettiest princess ever.” Then Emma turned back to Salvatore. She linked her arm through his and instructed Macie to put Izzy to bed by eight thirty.
“Of course,” Macie responded sweetly.
Going down in the elevator, Salvatore leaned over and kissed her softly on the neck. She felt for his hand and firmly laced her fingers through his. Out on the street, Emma was awakened from her trance by all of the people strolling on the sidewalk, many of them turning to admire the handsome couple as they made their way into the black sedan waiting at the curb for them.