“His daughter Isabella is pregnant,” Pagolo began. “And not married.” He shook his head. “Benito’s very old school. Very old school. He won’t let his son back in the house because he has a husband. And he is very shamed by Isabella. He would like to force the father of her child to marry her, but the only problem with that is that Isabella has no clue who the father is. She apparently went to a bar, got very intoxicated on tequila, ended up in a hotel room with a gentleman she’s never met before, and the next morning, said gentleman was gone. When Benito pressed, he discovered that she never knew either the first or last name of this gentleman, and she was the one who checked into the hotel room, so…” Pagolo shrugged. “It could literally be anybody.”
I nodded my head. It was a bad story, to be sure, for Isabella. But what did any of that had to do with me? “And?” I was missing something, but what was it?
“And, well, you could strike a deal with Benito. You could offer to marry Isabella in exchange for Benito backing off.” He cocked his head, trying to judge my reaction to this whole scenario.
I felt like laughing in his face, but he looked so calm and serious, I thought better of it. “Pagolo, I don’t know how that would work. Honestly. I would be asking Benito for something major, because if he could take over this organization, he would be twice as powerful and wealthy as any of the major families working on the Eastern Seaboard. He knows this. Even taking some of our territory would make his organization more powerful than the Azzarra organization. He would give that chance up simply so that his daughter could be married?”
Pagolo simply raised an eyebrow. “I do not think that you understand. You could offer a merger, in more ways than one. You offer to marry Isabella so that nobody in his social circle would be the wiser about the paternity of her baby, and you offer a company merger. A merger, not a takeover. That would consolidate power so that the Azzarra organization, combined with the Fattore organization, would be a conglomerate that nobody would ever try to bring down.” He nodded his head. “Right now, the way that it is, you’re vulnerable. But if you merge the Azzarras with the Fattores, you not only will not be vulnerable, but you can have the kind of power that will be durable. Lasting. And the Fattores have strengths that the Azzarra’s do not.”
I studied my fingers, knowing that Pagolo had a point. That was the main reason why the Fattores wanted a hostile takeover of my company so badly. Where my company had a multi-million dollar computer hacking division, which was so sophisticated that my men were able to hack into computers all over the world, including many government computers of hostile countries and many major banks, not to mention a highly successful on-line gambling operation and ownership of casinos around the world, the Fattores earned money differently. Their operation was involved in shaking down governments in 18 different countries in an effort to monopolize alternative energy markets. They also ran a highly sophisticated prostitution ring and was involved in the international heroin market.
No doubt about it, if our two organizations merged, we would have all the bases covered. And I could breathe easier, knowing that there wasn’t any way that another family was going to hit me. Nobody would be able to touch us if the Azzarras partnered up with the Fattores. Nobody.
I closed my eyes, knowing that, deep down, I didn’t want to do this. It wasn’t even because I didn’t want to partner with Benito. I didn’t, not really, but I really wanted to grab a chance to consolidate power and wealth, so I knew that it would be a good move. No, something else was gnawing at me. That something else was upstairs, even as we spoke. That something else had beautiful green eyes, a voluptuous body, and a fiery spirit that I couldn’t get out of my mind. That something else made me hard every time I thought about it. About her. Bianca. Isabella’s sister.
I couldn’t tell Pagolo what I was thinking, though. He would think that I was crazy. I barely knew Bianca. In fact, I was behind her kidnapping. Chances were that she would have nothing to do with me anyhow. But no matter, I felt inextricably drawn to her. Pagolo would never take that excuse, though. He would rightly want to smack me upside the head for even considering not offering this kind of a deal to Benito, just because I was infatuated with the wrong daughter. Because Bianca was apparently the wrong daughter. She was the daughter who was now off-limits, because I was going to have to offer to marry her sister. That made me want to throw up.
“How do you know all of this – about Isabella?” I asked Pagolo. That was the only thing that I thought to ask. Nothing else really came to mind. I was trying to buy time, trying to stall. I didn’t want to do this, but I didn’t want Pagolo to know this.
“I have my ears and eyes in Benito’s organization,” Pagolo said. “My sources have told me about Isabella. They do not tell me much more than that, because they are afraid to divulge much more. But they have told me about Isabella’s predicament and Benito’s reaction to it. Benito needs somebody to marry Isabella soon, for obvious reasons. People can do math, so if a marriage happened, say, three months from now, everybody would know the truth. Benito needs somebody to marry her as early as this weekend.”
“And that person is me? What if he laughs in my face?”
“He won’t. You need to paint the picture for him – that he may have two problems solved in one move. One, he gets a husband for Isabella. Two, he gets to consolidate power.” He leaned forward. “Benito probably needs the power consolidation. The third most powerful family, the De Luca family, is coming up strong. They’ve been making noises that maybe they’re going to try to take on the Fattores. That is why Benito has been so ruthless in making moves against this family. His back is against the wall. If you present your case well, I believe that he will not only listen to you, but will go along with the deal that you propose.”
I sighed. “And what do I get out of this?”
“I explained that to you. You get to consolidate with another powerful family, and our business can branch out into areas that we do not have a foothold in. And my intelligence about the De Luca family is that they are a potential threat. You can hold off both the Fattore threat and the De Luca potential threat with one stroke of the pen.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know Isabella. I didn’t know her, and…
“Do you believe in love at first sight?” I asked Pagolo. Those words were blurted out of my mouth before I could even think about them. As soon as I said them, though, I knew why I asked Pagolo this.
Pagolo screwed up his face as if to say what are you talking about? But then he said something that surprised me. “Yes.” He drew a breath. “I’ve been married for forty years to Carmela. Don’t get me wrong – I love her very much. It was an arranged marriage, and we’ve grown very comfortable with one another. But….”
He got very quiet, and I wondered what was on his mind.
“There was a girl. I saw her on the train one day. I was going to Milan to Prague, and she was sitting across from me. For eight hours, I watched her. I didn’t know what to say to her.” He shook his head. “This was before I met Carmela. Every day since that day, I’ve thought about this girl. I never even got her name.” He chuckled. “I felt so stupid. I went back to that train every Wednesday after that day, hoping to run into her, but I never did.”
I sighed. “So…”
“Why do you ask that question, Lucca?”
It was my turn to be quiet. I didn’t know how to explain to Pagolo my strong feelings for Bianca. I knew that it didn’t matter how I felt about her, I was going to have to go with this plan. I was going to have to make the proposal to Benito that I would marry Isabella, and that I would agree to merge the families’ businesses as well. That would safeguard everybody, and Isabella could have a baby that would not be “illegitimate.” It was silly to me, in a way, to think that way. It was the 21st Century – who cares if a child is born out of wedlock?
Old school Italians like Benito, that’s who.
I finally spoke. “Bianca. The girl who I arranged to have kidnapped
.” I swallowed hard. “I…” I shook my head. “Never mind. Okay, then, can you arrange a meeting with Benito?”
“I will. Of course, the fact that you had his daughter kidnapped won’t endear you to him, but that will not dissuade him from taking this deal. That is just my hunch, though.”
“Good.” I wondered if he could see through me – why I asked about the love at first sight thing. Because I couldn’t explain how I could be so drawn to Bianca. “Well, I’ll go upstairs and talk to Bianca and give her the good news.”
“Let me arrange the meeting, and then you can tell her.”
“Thank you.”
In two hours, Pagolo found me and informed me that the meeting with Benito had been planned. “You may speak with him tomorrow. He understands that you have Bianca, and he only asks that you bring her back, no questions asked.”
I nodded my head. “Well, then, I’ll go and talk to her. I’m sure she’ll be happy.”
At that, I went up to see Bianca. She was laying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and I felt badly for her. I isolated her, and now that I was going to let her go, she suffered for no reason.
She stood up. “Can I help you?”
“You’re going home tomorrow. I arranged a meeting with your father, so I met my objective.”
“Oh, good for you. Yes, great. You met your objective.” She scowled. “I’m so happy that you did.”
“Listen, Bianca…” I didn’t quite know how to approach her about this. “I’m sorry for everything. If I would have known about what those three men were going to do, I…”
“You what? You wouldn’t have kidnapped me, or you would have sent three nice normal guys to do it?” The sarcasm was dripping from her voice. “Why do I think that your answer is none of the above?”
“I took care of them.”
“Good for you.” She continued to glare at me. “Now, what do you want?”
“I told you, I’m going to take you home. Well, not home, but to Benito’s. You have to come with me so that he knows that you are safe.”
“Am I safe?”
“Yes.” I wanted to tell her that she was completely safe with me. I was sure that she didn’t feel that way, but I knew that I would never hurt her. “You’re very safe.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Okay. My father agreed to meet with you because he was worried about me? Or was there something else?” She seemed genuinely curious, not at all sarcastic, and I wondered if she knew something I didn’t. That maybe she was surprised that her father would care enough about her that he would accede to my demands.
“There was something else.” No use trying to hide it from her. “Your sister, Isabella, is pregnant. I’m sure that you know this.”
She crossed her arms in front of her. “Of course I know this.” She rolled her eyes. “As if I wouldn’t know something like that about my own sister.”
“I knew that you would, that’s why I phrased my question in that manner. I assumed that you knew about her pregnancy.” I paused, not really wanting to address the question that clouded her eyes. “I sent my consigliere, Pagolo, to speak with Benito, and he approached your father with the understanding that I would marry Isabella. I would marry her, and then we are going to speak about possibly merging our businesses together.”
I looked into her eyes, trying to see how she was really feeling about this. I wondered if she felt as strongly about me as I did about her. I wondered if she felt the instant attraction, the instant infatuation. I didn’t think that she did, though. After all, I had her kidnapped. I was ultimately responsible for what those three goombahs did to her in that van. She probably hated me, and I didn’t blame her one bit.
For just one moment, I saw something in her eyes that showed me that she wasn’t happy about this development. Why she wasn’t happy, however, I didn’t know. Maybe she wasn’t happy because she didn’t like me for her sister because she felt that I was wrong for Isabella. Or maybe she wasn’t happy for other reasons.
“Isabella.” She shook her head. “No. No. You can’t marry her.” Her eyes got wide. “I mean, you can’t marry her because she deserves better than you. She deserves somebody who doesn’t kidnap innocent women and hold them for their own purposes. She deserves somebody who is normal and will treat her right. She certainly doesn’t deserve to be with somebody….”
I grabbed her and shook her lightly. I brought her face close to my own, so that our faces were mere inches away from one another. I could smell her scent, floral and rosemary and some kind of baby oil. Her eyes were burning, but not frightened. I saw passion in those eyes, passion that I had hoped would have been in there, but thought that I wouldn’t actually see.
“Let me go,” she said softly, but I could tell that she didn’t really mean it. She looked at my hands, which were gripping her shoulders, and looked back at me.
I let go of her, and I noticed that she was flushed. Her cheeks were red and it looked like she was out of breath. She sat back down on the bed, and small tears came to her eyes, which she immediately wiped away. “What time are you going to take me to see my father?” she asked.
“10 AM.” I hesitated. “So I’ll see you then.”
She nodded her head but said nothing.
I left the room, thinking about her the entire time.
Seven
Bianca
Lucca left, and I lay down on the bed, feeling absolutely devastated. I didn’t even know why I felt that way, except that I did. Isabella was pregnant, I already knew that, and I knew that she told my father that she had no idea who the father of her child was. Of course, she did know. Unfortunately the father of her child, whose name is Robert Simpson, was suffering from two different disqualifying features – one, he’s not Italian and two, he bailed on poor Izzy. He basically told her that he wasn’t going to marry her, so Izzy chose to lie to our father about the paternity of her baby to protect Robert. Izzy knew, as did Nico and Stefano, both of whom also knew the truth, that our father would literally kill Robert. No questions asked.
Izzy was undoubtedly in a tight spot, and there was a part of me that was happy that Lucca was going to step in to help her out. It was better than the alternative, which was that our father was going to send Izzy overseas to have her baby and lie to everyone about where she was and what she was doing. Our father seemed to be stuck in the 1950s with his mentality. At any rate, that was our father’s way of doing things, which would mean that Izzy would have had to give her baby up for adoption. She wanted to keep the baby, so our father’s plan was something that had caused a lot of conflict, to say the very least. Izzy was only 22, unemployed, and had no skills, so she was still dependent upon our father’s largesse.
On the other hand….I sighed. What was the other hand? The man had me kidnapped. For no reason. Well, he had a reason, but it was a selfish one and his reason had nothing to do with me. I was an innocent party. He was responsible for my being molested in that fucking van. Yes, I was drawn to him, more drawn to him than I had ever been drawn to anyone, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Lucca violated me and imprisoned me when I did nothing wrong. All because he wanted to speak with my father. There was no way I was going to forgive Lucca for doing that, let alone fantasize about being with him.
My heart started to pound as I thought about the first time I laid eyes on him. I initially thought that was a beautiful man, so proud and graceful and handsome. Then he spoke and I recognized his voice as the voice in the garage instructing his man to put a pillowcase over my head, and I was immediately infuriated. Not frightened, though. I saw in his eyes that, although he was somebody to be feared by many, I had nothing to fear from him. I didn’t see hardness or violence in those eyes. If anything, I saw compassion. As strange as that might sound, considering what he did to me.
Now he was going to be my brother-in-law. The thought made me want to vomit.
The next day, he came and got me. He looked very serious, and I thought that maybe he was frig
htened. If he was, I didn’t blame him. My father was a very intimidating man. He had been in this business for a long time and I knew that he was going to feel that Lucca was a young guy who didn’t earn his respect. That was how he reacted to people like Lucca, who was young, inexperienced and had apparently just inherited his powerful position. In my father’s view, Lucca wasn’t fit to shine his shoes. Yet he was even more powerful than my father – that had to hurt.
He gave me his hand. “Come, Bianca,” he said.
I drew a breath and took his hand. It was warm and smooth, just like his voice. And his eyes. “Am I allowed to see where I am?” I didn’t know if he was going to have to blind-fold me like he did before, because he didn’t want me to realize where he lived. That is, assuming that this place was his home.
He smiled. “Of course. Now that I have what I was aiming for, there’s no reason for skulduggery.”
“Hm,” I said, feeling suspicious. “I guess not.”
We walked through the house, which was a huge home that seemed to be a country place. Hardwood floors, a fireplace in the living room, exposed brick, leather furniture and colorful throw rugs. I looked outside and saw leaves falling on an enormous yard. Horses grazed out in the grass, three of them. One was completely brown with a black mane, one was dappled and one was pure white. I loved horses perhaps more than anything else, because they were such gentle creatures.
“This is…”
“My home in Connecticut. I have an apartment on the Upper East Side as well, but this is the place that feels most like home to me.” He paused. “I grew up in Palermo, a city with less than a million people, so I’m not exactly used to enormous cities like New York. Not that Palermo is a small town, but, compared to New York, it’s a bit of a hamlet.”
Lucca: Azzarra Crime Family Book Two Page 5