Bindi shoved her phone into her jeans’ pocket. “It pisses me off that you’d let me go on about how much I valued your honesty knowing you were lying to me. I only made the deal with Drew because I thought you were having me followed. All I knew at that point was that you appeared no different from the other men who used me. I was protecting myself.”
“I had to do it to find my father.”
“And I had to do what I did to get a job and support myself. That was the deal I had with Drew Ross. Why is what I did so much worse than what you did?”
Santino completely ignored her challenge. “You’d work for that asshole? After what he said to you? I’m angry with you right now, and I’d still hurt him to make him sorry he handled you like that.”
Images of bloody fistfights surfacing on every tabloid’s front page danced in front of her. “Stay out of it. I can handle scum like Drew, and I did. Like I said, the deal’s over. And it sounds as if we’re over.” The words hurt more than she could have ever imagined, as though someone had reached inside of her and was methodically tearing everything to shreds.
“What were we before tonight, before I found that recording on your phone?”
“Friends. But my friends don’t stay. So go.”
“We were not friends. We were more than that, and you know it.”
“Go,” she said again, moving past him to open the door for emphasis. When he stormed out, she shut the door and it almost broke her.
She retrieved her phone again. How had people screwed up their lives before cell phones anyway? She didn’t want to delete the recording for the very reason she’d recorded it to begin with. But she wished she and Santino had started off honest and whole, instead of self-protective and scarred.
No, that wasn’t even true. She wished they could’ve started off honest in spite of being self-protective and scarred. But maybe that was impossible. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be, and the past they shared would always overshadow whatever they might have wanted.
She absently scrolled the recent calls. Her mother had phoned again, and once again she hadn’t left a voice mail message. This time, Bindi dialed her back.
“What can I do for you, Mom?” she said when Daphne answered.
“We—Roscoe and I—have been thinking about you. A while ago you mentioned you were playing with the idea of visiting home?”
“No, I’d said I wanted to come home, and you clearly didn’t find that a desirable idea.”
“Oh.” Daphne gently cleared her throat. “Bindi. Would you like to come home? Your father and I could accommodate you.”
Here her mother was asking her to come back to Illinois, yet she was spinning it as though Bindi had called her for a favor. “Of course, Mom. I’d appreciate that. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Uh—tomorrow?”
“Yes. Warn Daddy.” Bindi hung up, gripped her phone. And when she sank back into her sofa in her quiet Las Vegas apartment, there was no one to offer her a shoulder as she cried. She should be used to it, but now…now that she’d had her first taste of having someone be there for her?
She’d never felt so alone.
Chapter 10
Alessandro prayed for sleep. With his rosary in his grip, he lay awake on the makeshift bed in his room above Tonio’s market and stared again at the ceiling. Dulled and cracked, it looked tired. He’d been tired for so long that he no longer felt tired. His aged body had adjusted to the physical fatigue and mental weariness. He maintained strength to complete his chores, could eat his meals and appreciate liquor and partake in card games that continued to test his gambling abilities. But in the late hours, Gloria didn’t come, and he missed her.
In the late hours, he could clearly recall what he’d done in the States and why he’d let Gian help him find an underground escape from the falling consequences. He recalled the events with as much lucidity as he had the afternoon that stranger—Zaf, was it?—had come to him with those photos of his son and his ex-fiancée. Alessandro had left Santino in such an angry state the last time they’d spoken. And Bindi Paxton… Alessandro hadn’t known what to do with the woman’s vivacious, ambitious spirit but to douse it. But that’d been a long time ago.
It made a strange sort of sense that Santino and Bindi would heal each other. A man didn’t kiss a woman that way and mean nothing behind it. A woman didn’t hold a man that tightly if she intended to immediately let him go. A couple didn’t come together the way they appeared in the photos if there was no pull between them.
But it’d happened while Alessandro was preparing to go to the Seychelles and reclaim his money and Bindi. All she’d had to do was stay on her holiday, and once he’d found her, he would’ve been able to convince her to either come with him or silently watch him go.
Zaf, who’d reeked of an unspoken agenda, had been right.
If you can’t trust your son, who can you trust?
Alessandro couldn’t trust either of his sons. Nate had transferred his loyalty to his woman. Santino had touched Bindi Paxton. No…he’d fallen for her. It was all there in the photos.
There was no one to trust anymore. He couldn’t trust himself to not get himself killed in a tiny Italian fishing village. Clarity faded in and out during the day, but it had felt terrifying and fortifying to recall and convey Gian coming to him with a business proposition when Gloria had died.
The grief will pass when your percentage of the money comes in. The bigger the payout, amico mio, the less pain you feel.
He’d taken the highest risks he could, had won a few hands, but soon the losses had begun to add up. Gian had guided his hands at every step, yet the man was free to operate his exclusive casino in Las Vegas, while Alessandro was here and praying for sleep.
In sleep, he would find Gloria. She was all he needed now, and as he sat up and let his gaze chase the shadows of the room, he began to mourn her again. Mourning hurt more than the fear that Gian would retaliate against him for talking to Zaf’s camera. Gian wouldn’t understand the beauty of unburdening oneself when the end of struggle was close enough to brush with your fingers. It was rapture.
Alessandro scratched his scraggly beard, slowly getting to his feet. The bed, one thin mattress stacked on top of another, groaned and complained. He walked on shaky legs to the door, opened it and took the stairs carefully into the darkness.
At the bottom, he started to turn on the lights, but someone else did it for him. Tonio had timed him right. Though the room was now illuminated, all of a sudden Alessandro couldn’t see clearly.
“Gian DiGorgio wants you relocated in the morning,” Tonio said, his breath rattling against the phlegm in his lungs working its way into his throat. He sat on a stool with a slab of luncheon meat within reach and his hands folded on his round belly. “I don’t think you want that trip.”
Alessandro briefly closed his eyes. The stranger named Zaf must’ve traveled back to the States and shown Gian the recording. He shouldn’t have talked, but Gloria had been in the room and he’d wanted to explain how he’d become enfolded and engulfed in something he couldn’t escape.
“Al…Al, come closer.” Tonio reached up to fold his paws over Alessandro’s shoulders. “He says you’ve been in Sicily too long. The woman you depended on left the island early, and when Gian checked on the account you claimed she had, he found out it was closed. There’s no money. He can’t take more risks for you. And he says you have information you can’t be trusted to keep quiet about.”
Apparently, Gian didn’t know that Alessandro had talked. But he was having him “relocated” anyway.
“Gian’s my friend,” Alessandro whispered, bewildered.
“I want you to think about something tonight.” Tonio nudged a tiny wrapped bundle across the counter. “Unwrap it.”
Alessandro’s fingers worked slowly, but finally he had the bundle open. A razor blade.
Tonio pointed to Alessandro’s chin. “Clean yourself up. Run a bath. Make sure it’s warm. Take a walk.” The
man got up and shuffled over to kiss his cheek once, briskly, then he waddled back to the door. “When you walk, go down the road. Don’t cross the street.”
Tonio left and Alessandro carried the blade upstairs to the little bathroom with the cracked mirror. He would shave, and Gloria would see him smooth faced with his hair dark. She might see the man she married, and her smile would brighten her lovely brown face.
Alessandro shaved carefully, going slowly to avoid nicking his skin. When he was done, he nodded and looked toward the stream of daybreak intruding on him. Bending toward the tub, he ran a warm bath.
He started to put on fresh clothes, a pair of shoes, to retain some sense of dignity. Yet his mistakes had drained any semblance of pride from his life, and he no longer deserved any.
Sitting in the warm water, he watched the water engulf his legs, and when he submerged his arms, the hair darkened against his tanned skin. Considering his arms, he pushed up his sleeves.
Down the road, Tonio had said. Not across the street.
Alessandro positioned the razor blade. And he thought of his sons.
*
A car was waiting at Chicago Midway International Airport to collect Bindi and escort her directly to her parents’ sprawling Georgian-style house in the Highland Park suburb north of Chicago. She’d packed for a three-night stay—she couldn’t imagine Roscoe or Daphne insisting that she linger any longer than that.
But she would enter their home with a positive outlook and faith in her heart. Because she loved her parents, despite their feelings toward her and their inability to mesh as a family during her formative years. Perhaps they’d gotten past their frustration with her, and that was why her mother had made efforts to contact her.
Bindi couldn’t fight her smile as the luxury car slowed in front of the mansion she remembered. Oh, that was right. Once this had been her home, too.
She checked her makeup in her compact mirror. You couldn’t tell that she’d cried last night over losing her friend to Iowa and then breaking up with her someone.
“I’ll bring your bags to the servants’ entry. Feel free to step out here, Ms. Paxton,” the driver said in polite sternness. He didn’t get out to come around the car and open her door to the March chill, but that didn’t bother her.
The actual wintry wind that said hello the moment she stepped out of the warm private car? That got to her, penetrating her Burberry trench coat, which, accessorized with an umbrella, was all the real weather protection she’d needed for Nevada winters. Snow clung to bushes and tree branches that must be laden with fat leaves from spring through fall. Astonishingly, she didn’t remember whether she’d ever climbed any of these robust trees. Pity if she hadn’t. They looked perfect for a more youthful version of herself to climb.
Ten years was a long time to be away from home. Today she wore a deep gray midlength dress, stilettos, pearls and a pair of tortoise-colored sunglasses. She wouldn’t be swinging and scaling her way up through the branches and limbs toward that pale blue sky. Too bad.
Clutching her sleek purse, she took the winding front walk fast, dodging spots of ice and playfully disturbing the snow-coated hedges she passed on her journey to the antique double doors.
Tessa, a maid who had been in her family’s employ for as long as Bindi could remember, welcomed her cheerfully, taking her coat and complimenting her dress as she led her into the interior of the mansion. People cut across their path busily, barely sparing a glance in her direction.
“Am I interrupting anything?” Bindi asked Tessa.
“No, it’s only your father’s campaign staff. Ignore them. It’s what they prefer,” Tessa confided.
The wide hallways and mahogany walls and the original artwork that her parents had proudly collected during her childhood all began to replace her optimism with trepidation. She should be excited to see her father and mother after ten years away from Illinois. Maybe it was because even though she’d called Daphne to update that she’d made it safely into town and was on her way, no one but a maid had greeted her at the door.
They’re busy people. It’s not as if I gave them much of a heads-up.
Bindi watched the maid step into a spacious room, speak with somebody then return to the doorway. “Welcome home, Ms. Paxton. Ask for me if there’s anything you need during your stay. I’ll go fetch your luggage. Mrs. Paxton already requested that we prepare your childhood room.”
“That’s fine.” The formality had her palms feeling a bit clammy. “Thank you, Tessa.”
Tessa gave her a friendly wink, then strode off.
“Come in,” a strong, deep male voice commanded, and Bindi startled.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said, finding him standing in front of a tall fireplace with two other men and a woman. Her mother, she realized, seeing that Daphne had allowed her dark hair to gray in silvery streaks throughout the short tresses. “Hi, Mom.”
Daphne’s gaze brushed her up and down. “Bindi, oh, get over here and hug your mother. I’ve never seen a more stunning woman.”
Bindi hugged Daphne, then moved over to her father. The last time she’d seen him, he’d fired her from his campaign team and she was packing suitcases in a big dramatic scene that had left household staff in tears as they’d begged her to reconsider.
Illinois Democratic Senator Roscoe Rayburn Paxton hadn’t appreciated being outed as unfaithful to his wife, which Bindi herself had been instrumental in seeing happen. She’d known about the affair, and when she’d tried to tell her mother, Daphne had shushed her and reprimanded her for saying such a thing without proof. So Bindi had obtained video proof and had had it publicly leaked so that even if Daphne refused to believe her, the general public wouldn’t.
Her father faced her in a crisp suit with an American flag pin stuck to a lapel. His dark skin creased with shallow wrinkles she didn’t remember him having the last time she saw him. Still, he had that strong, confident jaw, short and wavy hair and secret-seeking eyes. “Bindi.”
“Hi, Daddy,” she said again, taking off her sunglasses to look him in the eye.
Roscoe banded his arms around her and she went gratefully, sighing into his chest because she could hear his heartbeat and it’d been much too long since she’d known either of her parents’ embraces. “How long before Las Vegas calls you back?” he asked her.
“I brought enough clothes for a few days,” she said, almost adding that she’d travel home again soon if he and Daphne wanted her back as family. If they could just try again…
“Roscoe, you have eternity with her. She’s your girl. What about the rest of us old fools?” someone said, and she leaned back to see Mort Jeffries, one of her father’s longtime friends.
“Uncle Mort!” She pecked his grizzled cheek.
“What? No, kiss me like you mean it.”
Everyone laughed gently and Bindi gave him a noisy smooch.
“What are you doing with yourself now, young lady?” Mort asked, cutting his eyes at her parents. “Roscoe—Daphne—you’re supposed to keep an eye on your only child. Don’t let her stay away for another ten years.”
Daphne stood beside her. “Bindi’s very much a part of our lives. In fact, we’d like to include her in Roscoe’s presidential run.”
Presidential…what? Bindi shook her head. This had to be jet lag playing tricks. Her father had resigned from Congress when she was in college, shortly after the cheating scandal had jarred him out of the public’s favor. No longer America’s “Boy Scout,” he’d stepped back from politics and, the last she’d heard, was focusing on backing organizations he believed in and improving his squash game.
“You’re organizing a presidential campaign, Daddy?”
“I am, Bindi. It’s time to return to politics, to get in front again. I have very influential supporters and I managed to twist Mort’s arm to head up the campaign. Mort’s campaigns are winners. His candidates have never lost. True fact,” he said with a grin toward his friend.
“I thought you were done
with politics, though,” she said, still confused. She didn’t like the pressure senatorial races and councilmen races had put on him, the strain it had applied to the Paxton family, the role she’d played in helping her father succeed. “You and Mom are supposed to be enjoying your retirement.”
“I’m a volunteer,” Daphne piped up. “Three museums in the city.”
“And I’m always going to be a politician. Welcome home, Bindi. Let’s get you oriented with what we’re doing.”
Surprised that she hadn’t been released to visit her bedroom and unpack, Bindi took a seat in the office. Everyone else continued to stand.
“My platform is diversity,” her father announced in his booming vibrato.
“Really? Mom converted to Christianity and stopped speaking to Grandma because Grandma kept insisting that she and I would always be Jewish. You, Daddy, insist on identifying as African-American even though you’re multiracial.”
The others glanced around. A few people cleared their throats and someone whispered, “You said she wouldn’t be problematic.”
Daphne came closer. “Bindi, I know you didn’t take it especially well when my ma died and she and I had all those hurt feelings between us. But she loved you and was so grateful that you wanted to maintain a connection to her. You have her dreidel still, don’t you?”
“I do. I have everything that reminds me of where and who I come from.”
“Perfect. You’re the face of the…the new average American, Bindi. Your father would be in an excellent position should you work with him on this campaign and show your support for this family.”
“And if I don’t cooperate with something I’m hesitant to believe in?”
“Bindi, politics is about gray areas,” her mother said gently. “You want to see your father succeed, don’t you? You love your daddy, don’t you? He depends upon you and I to back him up. I need your help.”
Bindi swallowed, her throat tight. “I’ll think about it. But did you call me because of this campaign assembly, Mom? Respect me enough to be honest, please.”
Mine Tonight Page 17