by Sienna Mynx
“Yes sir.”
“What do you have to add to this case?” the judge asked.
“I’m not a witness. But I do have something to add. I know Jilly has been before this court numerous times. I know when you read her case file it’s worse than that of a person twice her age. But sir, you have to ask yourself how do we lose them so young. Does the system help to save these kids’ lives or seal their fate? I ask myself that, because I was once Jilly. I was a foster child. I was on the streets before I was old enough to have a drivers permit. I had to do it all on my way down before I found my way up. In the past few months that Jilly has been with me she has made her best efforts to change. And she has nothing more than these courts, a string of foster care homes to pull on for moral understanding and justice. That gang was a family to her, the wrong family. I’ve offered her a new family. I want you to grant her another chance. To invest in her like I will. She isn’t a lost cause, judge. She’s a naive girl who was manipulated by adults who pretended to care about her and then cast her aside. Please. Give her a chance. Give her to me.”
The judge stared at Shae for a moment, then nodded. “You can return to your seat. Thank you for your testimony.”
Shae wiped the tears from her eyes. She walked past Jilly and winked at her to be brave. Jilly dropped her head in shame but Shae could tell she was on her best behavior in front of the judge.
“Young lady. I’ve heard many reasons why you should face the consequences of your actions. Today was the first time I heard why you deserve another chance.” The judge sat back in his chair. “Ms. Compton, please stand.”
Jilly and her attorney stood. Shae stood as well. She had to. Her heart raced so fast and strong she couldn’t remain seated.
“You have not been an active participant in the exchange of the contraband found in your book bag but you are as guilty as your gang. This court knows them well. A notorious group of thieves and killers that have terrorized this community for the past two years. I don’t believe that you don’t understand the seriousness of your gang’s actions because this is the third time you’ve appeared before this court for charges of theft, assault, and possession with the intent to distribute. Any conviction I hand down will stand on our record until you are 19. But even if you are freed your behavior may not change.”
The judge sighed.
“That woman is offering you a second chance. A real chance. And I want to see a kid like you make it when the whole world says you won’t. So I’m going to sentence you to thirty days in juvenile detention—”
Shae gasped.
“—which sentence will be suspended if you complete a hundred hours of community service, attend anger management courses, and work towards your GED. I will remand you over to your guardian. Ms. Dennis we need more people to care like you. I can only do so much from this bench. If you really do care about the future of Jilly, I might suggest you secure your guardianship, because the next time she is before me she will be a ward of the state. Case dismissed.”
“Thank you, your honor!” Shae exclaimed. Jilly turned and ran over to her. She hugged her to her breasts as the young girl wept and held to her waist. “It’s okay. We’re going home. Jewel needs us. We need you, Jilly.”
“Thank you, Ms. Shae. Thank you so much for helping me.”
Shae smiled. She picked up her purse and put her arm around Jilly’s shoulder.
“Ms. Dennis, if you come to my office next week we can start the paperwork. Good luck, Jilly,” the attorney said. “Stay out of trouble.”
“I will. I promise.”
Shae said a few more words to Jilly’s caseworker before they left. When they were in the car, Jilly cried. Shae understood the tears. They were tears of relief.
“Does this mean I can stay with you? Permanently?”
“I only have temporary guardianship right now.”
“What paperwork was Ms. Peters talking about?” asked Jilly.
“Jewel needs a sister. Do you think you can do the job?” Shae asked.
“Of being a sister?” The stunned expression of genuine happiness and disbelief was all the answer Shae needed. One look into Jilly’s eyes and she understood why God took Carlo away from her. He needed her to do something greater. Jilly threw her arms around Shae’s waist and hugged her so tightly, Shae too joined her in crying with relief. They would be fine. She would make sure of it.
“CARLO?” ADARA WALKED out of the baby room with his son in her arms. “I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow?”
Carlo gave a nod to the boys who were now residing with Rolando in a three level split apartment home. Six young roughnecks got up and collected their things before saying goodbye to Adara and hello to Carlo. Carlo bought a place blocks away for his boys. So they were always close. Adara had, of course, started welcoming them into their new home and cooking for them. She said she liked the company.
“When was the last time you slept? You look... tired.”
“Any trouble? Anything strange?” he asked.
“Strange? Everything is strange,” Adara half-laughed.
Carlo reached for his son. He kissed him and the baby squirmed as if he didn’t like his Papa disturbing his sleep. He stepped to the window. They were on the third level of their split three level apartment villa. The bedrooms were below. The kitchen and entertainment room was on the third level. And it was where Adara and his son preferred to be. From this view he could see street. Several luxury apartment homes were stacked up the side of the mountain and nestled between narrow winding roads.
“Carlo?” Adara kissed his arm. “Have you eaten?”
He opened his arm and pulled her in close. He kissed the top of her head. “I want you to plan to stay inside for the next few days.
“I only go to the market and to the shops, nowhere far.”
“I insist.”
“Is there something I should know?”
Carlo didn’t bother to answer. There would never be safety as long as she was his woman. He had so many enemies the driver behind the red Peugeot could have a hundred different faces. Still he hadn’t expected the person to turn tail and run from him. A real bastard, assassin, or hitman would have stood his ground and got the job done. Something felt wrong to him about the entire thing.
“Let me put him down.” She took the baby from him and walked away from the window. Carlo put both his hands in his hair. He let go a deep breath to relax himself. Adara returned. She walked over and eased her arms around him. He closed his eyes and let her loving embrace comfort him.
“I want to feed you. Arielle gave me the best recipe for soup. I’ve had it simmering all day. You are going to love it.”
Carlo turned on her and captured her face. He stared down into her eyes. She had the longest dark lashes he’d ever seen on a woman. They made her eyes and features almost dreamlike. He kissed her brow. He kissed her nose. He kissed her lips.
“I do love you, cara. ”
“I know that,” she said.
“I think I will stay for the next few days. Help you with my boy.”
“But I thought you had work? You just got back from Sicily. Giovanni put you in charge. You can’t just take off days.”
“I’m a capu , they all work for me.”
“You’ve taken too much time as it is Carlo. You yourself said that Giovanni isn’t as trusting of you as he was before Africa.”
“Trust? He’s the one that shouldn’t be trusted.”
“Why?” Adara looked at him alarmed.
“Nothing. I shouldn’t have said that. Gio’s headed to visit an old friend. When he returns I will be ready.”
“What is it? Things were good, now... but you seem worried, different,” she said.
He let her face go. He leaned back against the window glass. “Different how?”
“The way you talk about Giovanni. The time you spend here instead of working with Renaldo. And the boys... they, um. They said that Umberto is dead. Is that true?”
The answer couldn’t part his lips. He’d learned since he was a boy and sentenced for an adult crime the less you said was often best.
“What else did the boys tell you?”
Adara lowered her gaze. “Don’t be angry with them.”
“I’m not. Talk to me.”
“A rumor. One I told them to never repeat. One I refuse to believe.”
“Tell me.”
“They call her the Pink Lady. Your American girlfriend. Shae?”
Carlo’s stomach dropped and his back stiffened.
“They said she came to Italy and Umberto sent her away. They said you found out that he sent her away and you killed him. Cut him up so bad that they had to make several trips to load his body into the boat before they dropped him into the sea.”
Carlo laughed. “Do you believe I’m capable of such bullshit? Umberto was a capu . If I had done that I wouldn’t be here to tell the story.”
“Exactly, what I thought at first. Now, I know the truth.”
“That it’s all lies?”
“If that story was really a lie you would’ve stormed out of here in a rage to break some necks. But you are here, frozen? It’s the lie that comes to you with such ease, Carlo. Never the truth.” She turned and walked away. Carlo’s sly smile slipped away. He stared after Adara. She sat on the sofa with her arms crossed over her chest. Damn the runts for fucking with her head. They were street kids. What the fuck did they know about discretion? They said and acted as they pleased. And he was a fool to leave her in their care. She was wrong about one thing. He’d pay them a visit soon and break all their fucking necks. Carlo walked over to the chair and picked it up by one hand. He brought it over to Adara and sat it in front of her.
“When I was a boy in Sicily. There was a rumor once. One that everyone whispered behind doors.”
Adara who had averted her gaze away turned her attention back to him.
“It was whispered because it was a rumor about one of the most ruthless Dons in Sicily. Don Marsuvio Mancini. If anyone loyal to the Mancini family heard you speak this rumor, that was it.” He made a gesture by dragging his finger across his neck as if to suggest it were a knife.
“How old were you?” she asked.
“Young, I think no more than six or seven when I first heard it. But the rumor started before then and lasted until his death.”
“What was the rumor?” she asked.
Carlo stared her in the eyes when he spoke. “Mancini had a woman outside of his marriage. An American woman. An American black woman.”
“Oh?”
“He had many businesses with the Americans. He’d often go there for long periods of time. To work. And to be with this woman.”
“Are you telling me you have another woman?”
“I’m telling you his story. The rumor.”
“Okay,” she said but her voice sounded shaky. She was young and fully vested in him and their family. He didn’t know how to tell her the truth without causing her pain. He knew that a lie would destroy them. They needed trust. It was the strongest bond they could share.
“The scandal was not that he’d have another woman. In our life most men of power do. There were many who didn’t want it to be a foreigner, and let alone a black lady. But the scandal cut deeper than that. The Don’s American woman became pregnant. She gave birth to what most thought was a boy. It wasn’t. You see, cara , with every rumor there is a bit of lie mixed in with the truth. To protect the innocent and the guilty. The real truth was the woman he made pregnant carried a girl. Twin girls.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“The baby girls, eventually would grow up. One of them to be our Donna. Donna Mirabella.”
“What does this have to do with Umberto? With Shae?”
Carlo leaned forward. He leaned in with his elbows to his knees and his hands clasped together.
“Nothing about me or my life is original. I was abandoned by my father. Those boys that hang around me are all fatherless. Hell, every man I know is fatherless. I was jailed when I was young, branded a criminal before I could finish grade school. Like I said, many men in this life are just like me. And my scandal, my rumor, it’s not original, it’s more of the same story.”
Carlo took down a deep breath and exhaled slow.
“So, the rumor you heard isn’t that my Pink Lady came to Italy. That I killed Umberto. And?” he asked.
“She had a baby?” Adara asked.
Carlo nodded. “All true. A little girl. She named her Jewel Carlotta Dennis.”
“When?” Adara asked with tears slipping down her cheeks.
“When?” she shouted at him.
“A week or so before you gave birth.”
Adara covered her mouth. She let more tears slip. She stood up to run from him but he stopped her by taking hold of her wrist.
“Wait, I beg you,” he said.
“Don’t touch me! You fucking liar!”
Carlo let her go. Adara moved as far from him as she could. “Tell me the truth. Do you want her? Do you love her, still? Is that what you are telling me? You want her now? You will leave me and your son?”
“No. I’ll never leave you.” Carlo hung his head in shame.
“Liar!” she wept. “You think I’m stupid. You could barely say you loved me. And you only married me because I was pregnant. You never loved me! Not like her!”
“I don’t love you like her. I love you different.”
“Fuck you!” Adara said. She wiped at her tears but they kept flowing. “Fuck you to hell!”
“I love you and I am in love with you. I need you and my son. You saved me. You made me whole again. She left. She made a different choice.”
“Then why kill Umberto? I’ll tell you why, because you realize that if he hadn’t interfered she would have been here waiting for you not me. She would have been the one you chose not me!”
Carlo sighed. “I killed him because he was fucking with my business. No one fucks with me. My relationship with Shae does not matter anymore. You saved me.”
“I’m not your fucking savior! I’m your wife.”
“And I love my wife,” Carlo insisted. “I do. I am here, cara , not in America chasing after her. I’m here. And I’m here because I want to be. My father left me when I was young. He breezed in and out of my life. One day I will explain to my American daughter my choice. But I will never betray you, or abandon our boy. Ever.”
“How did the story for Don Mancini end?” she asked.
Carlo stood. He took a step toward her. She didn’t back away. “He chose his family. He chose his son. He chose his wife.”
Adara eyes skittered back and forth. Her nose dripped snot and her bottom lip quivered. He didn’t dare touch her. She was tough as nails. But she was in pain and he hated himself for causing it. Then her gaze settled on him.
“Please don’t leave me,” Carlo pleaded. “I wanted our family, I want you. I love you so much. With all my heart.”
Adara hugged him. Carlo felt such deep pain in his heart it could burn a hole through his chest. He’d love his woman and child to the best of his ability and he would let Shae go. No matter how much it hurt him. He decided he’d never let her go.
“You’re all I have. We need you too, Carlo.”
He stroked her hair and held her.
“Promise me. Swear it to me. Swear she will never come between us.”
“I swear to you, cara . I’m your husband. For life.”
Adara rested her head against his chest and let go the deepest sigh of relief. He took her hand and led her away from the sitting room to their bedroom. He didn’t know how much longer they had before their son woke. But he’d make love to her with him only a few feet away. He’d show her love and give her what was left of his heart.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A Schoolgirls Dream A Capus’ Nightmare
Sorrento, Italy - Melanzana
EVE PUSHED UP FROM her chair. She hurried
to the window in her room. She’d been to the window several times before. Each time she turned away disappointed. This time was different. Their visitors were here. They had come! Filled with excitement, she rushed around her room in search of shoes. She couldn’t find. Her puppy had the annoying habit of carrying her shoes away to chew on them in a secret corner where she wouldn’t be caught.
She didn’t know where Boo-Boo ran off too but she couldn’t be far. She hurried out of her room careful to not be seen. If Cecilia found her she’d probably make her join her brothers in the playroom. If Zia found her she would want to take her into the kitchen and feed her. Belinda was no fun anymore. She stayed with Leo or the studio sketching and cutting fabric. When Eve tried to talk to her, she dismissed her or didn’t bother to listen. The new baby had done exactly what she thought. The baby was all her mother could think about. This was Eve’s chance. A real chance to escape and have fun. Eve knew school would replace all the boredom she felt inside. Papa made promises, and for a while he kept them, but eventually Papa left and she was alone. School was for her.
She had no choice but to take the stairs. She stood at the top of them and listened for the adults. She heard her mother greeting her guests. But she didn’t see them. If she didn’t see them that meant they wouldn’t see her. So she went down each step slowly. And sure enough, Boo-Boo arrived at her side. Her beloved pup matched her steps, careful not to trot down ahead of her. Eve stopped on the second to last step. She looked down at her companion and put a finger to her lips. The puppy cocked an ear and stared up at her with curiosity.
“Quiet Boo-Boo,” she whispered.
Eve continued down the next step. She headed to the edge of the staircase and then sat. From there she could hear the adults in the parlor.
“YOUR EXCELLENCY, BISHOP Bonicelli,” Mirabella greeted the Bishop with a curt nod. “I was surprised when I received the call that you would come personally.”
“Donna Mirabella, as soon as I received the call from your husband I knew the visit should be a personal one.”