by Laura Rossi
Filomena
A Scars novella
By Laura Rossi
Editing by Eleanor Lloyd-Jones of Shower of Schmidt
Cover by Book Cover Kingdom
© 2019, Laura Rossi
Self publishing
[email protected]
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Warning: this book contains dark mafia themes.
I dedicate this book to my brother Carlo and his lovely girlfriend Olga.
And to sacrifice, dark times and tables finally turning.
Prologue
Lie to me. Tell me it’s not too late to change; tell me to fight back; tell me everything will be okay in the end. Lies I can take: they help me push through. Lies are what got me to this point. I survived the truth holding on to what wasn’t real.
Lie to me, and I’ll pretend I believe you.
Pretend.
Yes, that’s what I do—that’s what life taught me. Pretend you are okay, pretend you are in control, pretend nothing hurts you… until one day, you are put face to face with your lies—the reality of your existence—and you can’t cover it up; you can’t hide or find your way out. Because in the end, the truth will always find its way back to you, destroying the life you’ve worked so hard to build for yourself and your loved ones.
The truth—that’s what I’d seen in Andrea’s cold, guarded eyes.
I’d seen the consequences of my mistakes. I’d seen a woman hurting, fighting for her son. I’d looked into her eyes and had seen myself. God knows I’d pretended it wasn’t true, but the truth had slapped me cold. She’d told me what deep down I already knew, and the words she wasn’t brave enough speak, I’d heard anyway: in her long silences, her soft sobs and pleas.
I’d seen a young mother, desperate to protect her son.
I’d looked into her eyes and had seen the old me.
Life has this strange habit of repeating itself. Not only the ghosts of my past and the mistakes of my youth haunt me day and night, but I’ve had to witness my children living through the same fate as mine—the children of my children...
I can stop this. I can.
“I need you to help me; I need you to help me save Eddy.” Andrea looks at me hopefully. I am the only person she is allowed to speak with. Alejandro keeps her isolated, far away from the outside world. She has no other choice. I am the only person she can trust, her last chance to save her son, but I am also Alejandro’s mother.
“You can’t ask me to betray my son.” I shake my head as tears pool in her light blue eyes.
Pain. I see it bloom inside her. It’s like looking into a mirror—just like me years back. And all of a sudden it all comes back to me, what I’ve done, what I’ve had to do to try to save my son.
I close my eyes tight and push away those memories, my breathing changing as thoughts of Alejandro and my husband try to knock down the wall I’d been so careful to build over the years.
No. No thinking about the past. I did what I had to, to protect Alejandro. I had to try, even though it didn’t work. I had been too late.
But it’s not too late for her, for them. Eddy is still a child—she can save him.
My eyes lock with Andrea’s then.
“Please, please help me. I can’t watch Eddy live like this. Hatred will consume him. He’ll grow up seeking revenge, wanting to destroy everything and everyone around him. He’ll grow up to be like Alejandro…” her voice trails off, but I know we are both thinking the same thing.
Like a monster.
I know what my son is. I know what he’s become: bloody and merciless like his father.
I can’t save him. I am too late.
After years, I find myself at the same crossroad, standing right in the middle of it with no other choice but make a choice and with no guarantee I’ll make the right decision. But I can’t pretend everything will be okay. Not this time. I have to do something. I have to try.
Do it for the family. Do it for your conscience. Don’t turn your head the other way until it’s too late, not this time. Make all the wrong right.
It doesn’t take me long to decide. I know what needs to be done: my guts have been telling me for so long, no matter how good I am at pretending, at lying to myself and the world. Deep down I have known this day would come—the day I have to stop Alejandro myself.
So I helped her. I helped Andrea. I’d gone against my own son for something greater: to protect my grandson from the insanity of his father.
Alejandro had been completely out of control: dangerous for himself and others. He wouldn’t listen to anyone, he couldn’t see things clearly. Revenge and hatred had been controlling his mind.
He’d been about to destroy an innocent child.
That day, I made a decision that changed the course of the events. I’d helped Andrea—played her game until it all blew up in our faces and the lies came to an end. I’d nearly lost them both: my son and my grandson. I nearly had. My heart had stopped when that gunshot was fired.
Days like this one, where I sit alone in a waiting room, I wish it had. I wish my heart had stopped together with Alejandro’s. I wish that bullet had have hit me, too.
“Signora Filomena De la Crux.” A young, distinguished police officer enters the room. I eye him quietly, as he walks to the table and takes a seat across from me, folder in hand.
He stares at me, like he knows me all too well—no need to open those files. He knows who I am, what I am and thinks he knows what I’ve just seen.
My son’s death.
You have no idea—no idea what I’ve seen or been through.
I want to tell him exactly that, but I don’t. I sit there, patiently, knowing there’s always time to speak and tell the truth. Now it’s not the time.
“Would you like to tell me what happened? What happened in that abandoned factory, your side of the story?” he asks, and I smile a little, meeting his stare.
“My side of the story…” I waver as the last fifty years of my life flash before my eyes.
Chapter 1
Don’t feel bad for me. I’m a sinner. I wear the cross. Not because I’m worthy of it but because I need it more than anyone else, more than any faithful, pure heart.
I need it like any other sinner, as a shield to help me not fall into the vortex of sin.
When I married Alonso De la Crux, I’d known what I’d been walking into—I’d known who he was.
‘The Bloody Columbian’ they’d called him. He’d been feared and respected by everyone in Rome, including my father, who had been the one to introduced us. My father, The Duke Antonio Del Monte, had been one of the last aristocrats in Italy: a very powerful and influential politician. Whatever had happened in Rome had been none other than my father’s will. Nobody had been able to move a single stone without his approval.
An aristocratic, political Mafioso—my father.
“I give you this, you give me that.”
“I let you build here, you give me permission to operate and take my trade there.”
The glamorous parties had been nothing but a cover up. My father had used them to make business with other powerful men like him. Alonso De la
Crux had come along to one of those soirees.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” he says to me, gently guiding me through the garden, greeting the guests sipping their cocktails by the pool.
“This is Alonso De la Crux, the son of one of my most trustworthy business partners,” he tells me.
A thirty-something-year-old man, dressed in a dark grey suit, his hair styled back with gel—like it was so popular in those days—with a flashy white smile and dark penetrating eyes. I’d known who he was: magnetic and charismatic, a smooth talker.
“Signorina Del Monte,” Alonso takes my hand and bends forward, his lips stopping inches from it like a real gentleman. His eyes swallow mine.
“I was told you were the prettiest girl in town, but I’d never have imagined you looked so beautiful.” He straightens up, letting my hand slip away from his slowly—so slowly I feel his fingers run through mine.
“Grazie.” I smile and tilt my head to the side, curious.
I hadn’t been the innocent young lady I looked. I’d known more than I cared to show, but in those days, girls were taught to pretend—not be bold and flirt with a good party. Still, I hadn’t been able to bite my tongue.
“I’ve heard stories about you.” It comes out of my mouth before I can even think to play innocent.
“Good ones I hope.” He nods, a crooked grin making his whole face twitch in a sensual smirk.
Many, many women scattered around the world, also known as The Lord of Cocaine, a strong man, a ruler…
“Interesting ones.” I smile back, and Alonso beams at my boldness.
“And they are all true.” He holds my stare and succeeds where every other man has failed up to now.
I look down, embarrassed, flushed.
I’d felt a pull towards him instantly. I hadn’t been sure why, but his voice had made me jump a little, my pulse speed up a little faster. I’d found it so difficult to say something then.
It had been the sixties, Italy, and I was a twenty-year-old girl who’d done nothing but go to school and church. I hadn’t been allowed much else besides attending the exclusive tennis club on Sunday afternoons. I’d seen the same people every day, mingled with aristocrats and people from my same background—people my father had wanted me to see: sons and daughters of his friends.
Alonso had been everything I’d been looking for: older, foreign, interesting and deliciously dangerous, adventurous and proud… the way he’d held his head high—a little higher than the rest… Not because he’d had blue blood running in his veins, but because he’d been a self-made man.
“My family is originally from Columbia. They moved to Italy a few years ago,” he tells me when I ask about his upbringing.
“I’ve always wanted to visit South America,” I comment, looking down, then up, into his eyes again, a soft smile playing on my lips.
“Perhaps one day,” he murmurs cheekily, “you could be my guest.”
A guest, in Alonso De la Crux’s house. In Colombia. My heart flutters.
What a dream that would be.
I’d wanted nothing more than to escape from Rome, run free and find a man that could give me the world. I’d continued to study him, mesmerized by this magnetic man who’d wanted to meet me so badly. Me: Filomena Del Monte, thin and fragile and fresh out of school.
It had been my very first encounter with the outside world, and I’d been drunk on his words.
I’d wanted to know about his country, his adventures. We’d stood there, at a corner of the pool, talking for so long that I hadn’t even noticed until the end that my father had been looking at us from his table.
That was when the music changed and people had moved towards the small marquee they’d assembled on our lawn. Alonso had taken my hand—my heart in my mouth—and guided me towards the dancefloor.
Ah the sixties.
We’d danced cheek to cheek, one of his hands holding mine, the other one down my back. His finger touched my skin where my light blue dress had been slightly open on my spine, and I’d looked sideways at him. He’d smiled, holding that head high again.
I hadn’t known I was his winnings; I hadn’t known he’d come to collect.
The last man I really trusted had been my father.
He broke me the day he let that man dance me down to hell with him.
Chapter 2
It sounds like I had been tricked into loving Alonso, and in a way I had. My father and Alonso’s father had been good business partners: the Duke Del Monte had closed his eyes and smoothed the way for the De la Crux’s drug trade in Rome, letting them settle nicely in the outskirts of the city. The De la Crux had paid him quite handsomely.
But alliances are always sort of fragile if based solely on money.
Money makes men cheaters, liars, untrustworthy… What could have been better than a marriage of convenience to strengthen the alliance between two families?
Alonso had easily complied. He’d set his eyes on me: the youngest daughter of Del Monte.
I know my father had tried to change his mind. I’d found out years later.
My sisters had all been the right age for marriage, but Alonso hadn’t wanted to hear of it. He’d wanted me: the youngest, daddy’s girl… I think he’d known how big of a sacrifice it would have been for my father to give up his youngest.
It had been a trade. I’d been part of the bargain—nothing but a product, an investment, a bridge between the two families.
I’d find out later I’d been sacrificed to seal a deal, not just to strengthen their trade. My father had given the De la Crux permission to get their hands on the building of new apartment blocks in a neighbourhood in Rome known as The Market. De la Crux had been able to launder their money in there and make more money out of it, but for how long? How long Del Monte would allow them to thrive, nobody had known.
Balances are so hard to achieve, but when blood and family are involved, the bonds are tighter.
“We’ll give you a part of the earnings; you’ll be the richest man in the town. We can do so much together if our two strong families unite.”
Alonso had convinced him with time.
Money, money, money…
I’m yet to meet a man who won’t get down on his hands and knees for money.
I hadn’t been forced to love him. It had been easy to fall for Alonso. I’d had little experience with men: I’d only kissed one before—a school friend during gym class. We’d hidden behind the lockers.
Kissing Alonso had been completely different. He’d kissed me out in the open, no hesitation, no embarrassment, without hiding. He’d kissed me at a screening of Breakfast at Tiffany’s under the stars.
Long and slow, he’d held my hand and whispered in my ears how beautiful I was.
I don’t remember a single thing about that movie, about that night, other than his scent, his eyes, his tongue…
“I can’t concentrate much; I’m too distracted by you,” he whispers in my ear, careful so no one could hear us.
My cheeks are on fire.
“Filomena, Filomena.” His Spanish accent makes my name sound so alluring, exotic, foreign and sensuous, and when Alonso holds my hand as we walk back to his car later, shivers run down my back. The tips of his fingers trace down my wrist, and I turn my palm up and let him tickle my skin. I explore his hand too.
“Tell me, bella Filomena, have you ever kissed a man?” His dark eyes look straight into mine, one finger brushed against my pink lips.
I shake my head gently as he leans a little forward, stopping inches from my mouth, tilting his head a little as if studying me well.
No, I had never kissed a man. A boy yes, but not a man like Alonso.
I’d lied, pretended I was the innocent young girl he wanted me to be—pretended I’d never been touched before—but I’d been so eager to explore, to venture out in the world and leave the restrictions of my house. I’d wanted to see everything and I’d wanted a man, determined and strong like Alonso, by my sid
e.
“You make me feel like I’m on top of the world,” Alonso whispers. “Like I’m the luckiest man on Earth to have had the pleasure of taking out the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever set eyes on. Can I see you again?”
“Well, it depends,” I murmur, my voice so fragile. I’m completely mesmerized by him, but I hide it well like a real woman should.
His lips touch mine for a moment and we both close our eyes. I hear him suck in a breath as his body moves a little closer.
Alonso stops and I look back up to him as he whispers, “Depends on what, mia bella Filomena?”
“On your intentions.” I bite my lip a little, biting his too for how close we are.
Tobacco and mint.
I taste the world on his lips.
I want to smoke, too. I want to be free like him—like a man.
“What do you have to offer?” I tease, leaving that kiss hanging mid air between us.
That’s right, I’d wanted to know what was going to be in it for me.
Something had sparked in his eyes then, like I’d surprised him. Pleasantly surprised him. Maybe Alonso had been expecting a remissive, an innocent little girl, but I’d shown him my true colours.
I’d wanted to know where our dates were going to lead me, where he was going to take me.
I am the youngest daughter of Antonio De Monte, but I hadn’t been shy or naïve back then.
The times had forced me to be quiet, to be a lady—never over the top, reserved and elegant. Never talk back to my father.
That night—that first date with Alonso De la Crux—had been my first night out on my own with my father’s blessing, but don’t think I hadn’t sneaked out of the house before. I had, several times, listened in on my father’s conversations with his ‘business associates’, while they’d lounged out in our garden.