Mafia Bride

by Burns, Rachel

  They went into supper when Señora Raposa called them.

  Pamela was Anna’s opposite; she held the conversation afloat. She jabbered on and on about what she had all seen and how surprised she had been when Francesco had shown up.

  Antonio and Anna listened and smiled.

  Francesco then joined in, telling them about the time he had spent with Pamela.

  They went to bed very late. Antonio kissed Anna goodnight and shut off the light. She had her period so she couldn’t work off her frustration with sex.

  Chapter 32

  “Anna, here you are. I’ve searched everywhere for you.” Pamela entered the laundry room and glanced around.

  “Did you tell Antonio that you were looking for me?” Anna’s eyes widened.

  “No, but I was about to. Don’t you have people who do that sort of stuff for you?” her mother said in a snobby way.

  “Well, no. They won’t listen to me. They don’t like me.” She continued to iron her mother’s blouse.

  “Why shouldn’t Antonio know that I was looking for you?” Her mother fanned herself with her hand. It was unbearably hot in here.

  “He thinks I should have the servants under control. He gets mad at me when things aren’t done right. I have to take the blame, and the servants think that is funny so they won’t work. So I keep the house up myself.” She shrugged her shoulders, trying to make light of the situation.

  “That’s silly. Turn the iron off and show me where the servants are.” She grabbed Anna’s hand and pulled her out of the room. “Well, where are they?”

  Anna pointed to the kitchen door.

  Her mother charged in there with her head held high. “Who is in charge of the laundry?” she demanded to know.

  The servants looked at each other, and they didn’t answer. Anna hid behind her mother.

  Her mother grabbed a maid by the hand and tugged her along with her. She went back to the laundry room and made a motion for the maid to start working. The maid reluctantly did. Her mother stood in the doorway with folded arms and watched the maid awhile, and then she turned to her daughter. “What else needs to be done?”

  “Your rooms need to be cleaned and fresh towels brought in.” Anna was unsure about all of this. She definitely didn’t want to eat any food that got put in front of her this afternoon.

  Her mother grabbed hold of the other maid and steered her to her room and gave her a mean look until the maid started to clean up.

  “I think we should check up on the first maid. She probably isn’t working anymore.” Anna knew that this wouldn’t last.

  Her mother walked past her and went to the laundry room. The maid was gone again. Her mother found her in the kitchen and scooted her right back to the laundry room.

  She stood out in the courtyard and scolded Anna. “You have to get them to do their jobs. They are getting paid for their time here. You have to keep at them until they function appropriately.”

  “I know that. It is just that they hate me. They won’t listen once you are gone. They do it on purpose to get me into trouble.”

  “Stop whining. You have to stand your ground. You square your shoulders and keep your head held high.” Her mother wiggled her shoulders to show her daughter what she meant.

  Anna smiled for the first time in a long time.

  Antonio stepped out of his office and saw his wife smiling. It broke his heart that he couldn’t get her to smile like that, but he was glad that her mother was doing it. He feared that Anna suffered from depression. She wanted a baby so badly, and he hadn’t given her one. He too worried that the fall had broken her beyond repair.

  He went back to work, knowing that his wife was in good hands with her mother.

  “You don’t understand. Antonio doesn’t either,” Anna told her mother.

  “Don’t start bad mouthing your generous husband.” She lifted up the necklace around her daughter’s neck and dropped it again.

  Pamela went up to check on the maid cleaning the bedrooms. She was nowhere to be found.

  Pamela marched down to the kitchen. It was empty. Only the maid in the laundry room was still working.

  Anna and Pamela stayed in the courtyard and kept an eye on the laundry room door. Anna was glad to have a moment to do nothing.

  “What else is wrong? I figured that you would be pregnant by now. Antonio and his family sounded as if they wouldn’t mind having a baby right off the bat.”

  “I’m late every month, but then I get my period.” Anna frowned. Tears were running down her cheeks.

  “Have you gone to see a doctor?” Pamela hugged her daughter.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Do you want me to talk to Antonio and suggest it?” Pamela knew that her daughter wouldn’t go to the doctor’s without someone giving her a push.

  “Maybe, that would be best.”

  “I’ll tell him about your problems with the servants too.”

  “No, don’t do that.” Anna shook her head.

  “Of course, I will. Have you ever thought that was the problem? You might be losing your babies because of all the work you’re doing?”

  “So it’s my fault?” Anna bawled. Why was everything always her fault? She was feeling especially sensitive.

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t risk it. Antonio can fire of few workers, and then the others will listen to you. You need your rest if you want to have a baby.”

  “Of course, I want to have a baby.” Anna got up and went to her room to cry. She knew that Antonio was going to be livid with her. She was a failure at being the lady of the house and at being a wife. And worse of all, she couldn’t even give him a baby.

  Pamela took a deep breath before she knocked on Antonio’s office door. He was in there with several men. Francesco was also in there.

  Pamela smiled every time she looked at him. It was a wonderful feeling to be in love. God had blessed her with two loves of her life, first Anna’s father and now Francesco.

  “Antonio, do you have a moment for me?” She smiled at the men. The older ones were thinking that she was a woman who had aged well. Their admiration was plain in their eyes.

  Francesco cleared his throat, and they returned to their work.

  Antonio was grinning as he left the room. “To what do I owe this honor?” he asked her, still smiling.

  “I’m worried about Anna,” Pamela confessed.

  He nodded. “I think we should take a walk outside.” He opened the door to the pool.

  Once they were far enough away from the house, Antonio spoke. “Anna cries every month when she gets her period. It’s my fault. I talked about having children too often before we got married. I put the pressure on her. If I could go back in time, I would. I’d say that I wanted children in a few years, further down the road. Anna thinks that she’s disappointing me.”

  Pamela nodded. “She also fears that her tumble down the stairs may have ruined her. I think she should see a doctor. If the doctor says that she can’t have children, then I beg you to consider adoption. My daughter would be a wonderful mother. Any baby would be lucky to get her.”

  Antonio nodded along with Pamela.

  They walked on, and he explained the coffee business to her, telling her about the plants, and the beans they produced. When the moment was right, he asked Pamela about Francesco.

  “He says he likes my eyes,” Pamela blushed. “I’m nervous about meeting his sons. I hope they’ll like me. Francesco’s wife has been dead for seven years already. My husband hasn’t been dead for a year yet. I fear that Anna thinks it’s too soon.”

  “I’ll talk to her. Finding your happiness is the most important aspect in life. Maybe once Anna has found hers, she won’t begrudge you yours?”

  “I hope so. She was a daddy’s girl. He doted on her, and she adored him. He died young. We thought that we still had time to save up for our future. Getting Anna through college was the most important thing. It killed her to leave school. One of her teachers found
a job for her in New York of all places. Can you imagine, my baby in New York?”

  “I met her there,” Antonio smiled, remembering it.

  “I never thought she would go through with it, but she is a lot tougher than we think.” Pamela was so proud of her daughter.

  “She’s amazing. I love her dearly,” Antonio confessed.

  “So do I.”

  Chapter 33

  “Anna!”

  Damn, what did Antonio want now, she thought. She was watering the plants in the courtyard and taking care of them again. She put down the watering can and hurried to his side.

  “What are you doing?” Antonio asked.

  “The plants looked a little dry. Lots of famous people do their own gardening,” she informed him.

  “I see.” Antonio didn’t want to say anything that might upset Anna. “Francesco has been asking the maids for a blow dryer for days. See to it that he gets one, now.”

  “I’m on it.” She nodded and quickly ran past her mother into the kitchen. Antonio went back to his office.

  “I need a hairdryer, please tell me where I can find one.” She went right to Señora Raposa.

  The older woman smiled at her. She threw her head back and laughed at her, and then she said something in Spanish.

  Tears rolled down Anna’s face. She turned and left. Her mother was waiting outside of the door for her.

  Anna only glanced at her for a second and then ran past her. She needed to find an extra hairdryer, and she needed one now.

  Her mother followed her as she went from room to room searching.

  “Anna, stop!” Her mother reached out to her. “Why can’t you talk to your husband?”

  “Listen, I have to get this taken care of.” She took off searching again. She hurried down the stairs and look through a couple of storage rooms.

  “Anna, I’m talking to you.” She followed her daughter around again.

  Anna sighed. She had found one in an empty bedroom. She hugged it to her chest with relief.

  “Anna, what would have happened if you hadn’t found one?” Pamela asked. Her daughter was acting too weird for her not to ask.

  “All hell would have broken loose.” Anna left the room to bring the hairdryer to Francesco’s room. She had already been in here earlier to make his bed and clean his bathroom. She was also finished in her mother’s room.

  “I have to talk to Antonio. This can’t go on.” Pamela shook her head. Common sense told her to go to Antonio and kick him in the butt for not noticing what was going on in his house.

  “No, mom, no, please no,” Anna begged. “He would take it out on me. You wouldn’t be doing me a favor, at all.”

  “Anna this is getting to be too much. I’m sure he will understand when he hears everything.”

  “Mom, stop. Don’t.” Anna grabbed her arm to hold her in place. “He says the servants are my job. I have to take care of it, but they won’t listen to me. He would get mad if he found out, trust me, I know him better than you do.”

  “I would hope that he would get mad. He should fire all the servants and find ones who actually work.”

  “He wouldn’t get mad at them. He would get mad at me,” Anna explained.

  “Maybe you should have been wiser in your choice of a husband.” Pamela scolded her daughter.

  “I didn’t have a choice. Please don’t make my life anymore complicated than it already is.”

  “Anna you used to be a pretty girl, but this is ridiculous. You’re running yourself ragged instead of talking to your husband. If you can’t talk to him, then he isn’t the right one for you.”

  “He’ll punish me if I try to walk out of the door. I may not leave, at all, ever.”

  “What nonsense?”

  “Please, keep everything to yourself. Antonio isn’t quite right in the head. He would … just don’t say anything.”

  “Anna, if you don’t like or respect your husband, why did you marry him?” She laid her hands on her hips and stared her daughter down.

  “Like I said, I didn’t have a choice.” Anna went back to the courtyard to finish her work there. Here there was at least a bit of sun for her to enjoy.

  Her mother had followed her again. She stood behind her daughter watching her work.

  “And divorce?” she whispered to her daughter.

  “Not in the mafia, mom.”

  “Mafia? Really Anna. I think you are being overly dramatic.”

  “Drug money, mom. Everything you see was bought with drug money. The coffee business is a hobby, the cover-up.”

  “Anna, you can’t live off money from drugs.” Pamela was shocked.

  “I don’t. I hardy ever eat a thing. I’m not the one living high off the hog and taking a three-month cruise and going shopping. That’s you. I truly have nothing from all this. And don’t think that Francesco’s hands are clean either. They all want a piece of the pie. No, leave me alone so I can get everything done that I need to.” Anna wiped the tears out of her eyes and went back to work. It would be suppertime soon, and she was due a very disgusting meal for the scene that she had made in the kitchen.

  “Anna, are you serious?” Pamela followed her daughter. They weren’t finished with their talk.

  “He kidnapped me off the street, Mom. That was why you didn’t hear from me for so long. He married me because I was a virgin. He convinced himself that he loves me, but the virgin thing meant so much to him.”

  “I want you to pack. You’re leaving with me.” Pamela saw a clear and direct path to take. She was leaving, and she was taking her daughter with her.

  “Do you want to know why brought you here for the wedding?”

  “Why?”

  “So he would have someone here who I cared about. He told me that he would kill you if I didn’t say yes.”

  Pamela gasped and covered her mouth. “We need to call the police.”

  “The mafia isn’t afraid of the police, Mom. I’m stuck here.”

  “I’ll talk to Francesco. I’ll explain, and he’ll know what to do.” Pamela wanted to solve this problem for her daughter.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you. You’re happy, don’t ruin that. Let me work, please.”

  Pamela bent down and help her daughter. They worked in complete silence as they thought about the hopelessness of the situation.

  Anna knocked on Francesco’s door. She knew that he was alone.

  He opened the door and smiled at her. “Anna, how nice to see you.” Anna and her mother had the same eyes.

  “I brought you this. It’s a book I read recently and liked. I think you’ll like it too.” She held the book out to him.

  “Thank you, Anna. I’ll read it and let you know what I think.”

  “I hope you like it.” Anna turned away from him.

  “Anna, I wanted to talk to you anyway. I wanted to know how you feel about your mother and I dating?”

  Anna turned back to him and frowned. “I don’t seem to be ready to move on. My father was taken from us so suddenly. I’m not used to the fact that he’s gone. However, my mother is ready to move on, so I think she should. Please be good to her. I know that she loves you.”

  “Thank you, Anna. Your blessing means the world to me.”

  Anna smiled at him and went back to her work.

  Francesco adored the idea that Anna would be his true daughter when Pamela married him. She was a sweet and beautiful girl, a dying breed. He felt lucky to have found someone like Pamela. She was a real lady.

  Chapter 34

  Antonio laid his arm around his wife as they stood in the doorway and waved to their departing guests. “Wasn’t that nice, having visitors?”

  Anna nodded at him. “Let’s go for a little walk. We have a few topics that we need to talk about.” He took Anna’s hand and strolled down a nearby path.

  Anna gazed around at what there was to see. She saw things that she had only seen from her window before. They walked past tennis courts and the football field and int
o the trees. He stopped and turned her to him.

  “I found a note on my desk this morning. It was from your mother. She wants me to pay closer attention to you. She thinks I’m neglecting you. Do you think that too?”

  “No, I know how busy you are. I understand.”

  “Anna, I think she’s right. I need to spend more time with you. We’ve been married for over three months now and this is our first walk.”

  “This is nice,” Anna agreed.

  Sometimes, she had moments like this one when she completely forgot how they had met and what had happened. This was one of those moments. Walking and listening to the birds was making her feel much better.

  “I don’t think that Señora Raposa likes me. She doesn’t listen to me. I don’t know what to do,” Anna confessed.

  “I’ll have a word with her husband. He has been with me for over fifteen years.”

  “Do you think that will help?” Anna asked him. She was certain that he didn’t like her either.

  “Why wouldn’t it?” Antonio shrugged his shoulders. “It does sound a lot like junior high school stuff. My wife thinks that your wife doesn’t like her.”

  “Never mind. Forget that I said anything. Let’s just walk and talk.” She took hold of his hand as they walked on. Anna was feeling too tired to argue with him. She longed for peace.

  When they got home from their walk, Anna was exhausted and went to bed. She decided that she would worry about the housework tomorrow.

  Anna was still tired when she woke in the morning. Antonio had pulled her close and kissed her neck. His hand had wandered to her breast. He played with it, making it clear that he wanted to make love to her.

  “My beautiful Anna, I missed you at dinner last night. I had to eat alone.” He looked into her eyes. “You fell asleep in your clothes. I didn’t have the heart to wake you last night.” He helped her out of her dress, bra and panties.