Filomena

by Laura Rossi

  How could he do this?

  I walk fast down the corridor, dodging the soldiers, shouting in their faces to let me through, to get out of my sight. I reach the last two doors when I feel a strong hand grab my dress from behind and pull me back.

  “Let go of me,” I shout, turning around.

  Alonso.

  He’s back. My eyes grow wide as I try to push him away.

  “Get off me. Get off me,” I tell him through gritted teeth, hitting him with all the strength that I have.

  Nothing. It serves nothing.

  A hard slap sends my head flying backwards. I hit the wall, but I pull myself up immediately, trying to keep my feet solid on the ground. Only, Alonso is stronger: he keeps pushing me where he wants me to go: into our bedroom.

  He throws me to the floor and slams the door behind him. “Let’s get this straight, once and for all, Filomena,” he shouts, walking over to me and fisting my hair in his hand.

  “Let me go!”

  “I won’t. Not until I’m finished with you.” He shakes me a little so I’ll look him in the eyes. “Bella e stupida,” Pretty and stupid, he mumbles under his breath.

  I glare back at him.

  I’m not stupid.

  But sometimes I wish I was, so it wouldn’t hurt to be married to a scumbag like him.

  “I make the decisions around here. I decide where I go, where I take my sons, and from this moment onwards, I’m in charge of their life. Do you understand me? Filomena, look at me.” He shakes me again and I glare.

  “Stronzo.” Son of a bitch.

  Another slap stings my face.

  “Again? Again?” he roars. “Do not cross me ever again in public like you did earlier, do you understand me? Huh? What do you think this is? Huh? What do you think we do around here? Sell candies? Play with dolls, Filomena?” he pauses, shaking me again, and my head rolls back, heavy and in pain. “You always knew what I was. You knew, your father knew and you know what your sons will become. They are mine. Mine. I’ll make leaders, warriors, out of them. Mafiosi like me. Don’t come between us or I swear to God, I will kill you.”

  My mouth had dropped open as I’d met his eyes. It had been the first time I’d heard the threat, loud and clear.

  He was going to kill me.

  If I’d tried to save my sons from their fate, my husband was going to get rid of me.

  “Don’t make me kill you, Filomena.” He stares into my face, eyes wild, savage, glancing at the bruises forming on my cheeks. “It would be a shame, to kill something so beautiful.”

  Something?

  I close my eyes, my body limp in his arms, and try to group the last bit of energy left in me. To spit in his face. “Va’ all’inferno,” Go to hell.

  And then he hits me again.

  Everything goes black. I lose consciousness and when I wake up, I am in my room, lying on my bed alone.

  Alone. I can’t do this alone. I can’t.

  Chapter 18

  Rules are meant to be broken; so are promises.

  I’d promised myself I’d never go see Roberto again, but he was all I had. I needed help, I had to stop Alonso.

  Dark bruises on my cheeks, swollen lip…

  Roberto takes one look at me and his hands turn into fists. “I’m taking you to the hospital; I’m taking you to the police,” he says, putting a hand over his mouth, the other reaching out for me.

  His fingers run through my hair gently. He searches my eyes assessing the damage, staring at the broken pieces of the woman he loves.

  “You know we can’t.” I shake my head, looking down at his hand that now cups my cheek. “He owns the city. He’ll have us both killed the minute we set foot in a police station.”

  “We should have done this sooner.” He’s not listening to me, taking a step back, hands balled into fists again. He turns to reach for his coat, his car keys.

  “Roberto.” I take his hand and he stops moving, thinking. Breathing. “I’m not here because I want you to help me,” I sigh. “I’m here because I need your help to save my sons.”

  “How?” He shakes his head. “How? When I can’t even help you?”

  “You can,” I nodded. “There is a way.”

  Another way; not the way you think.

  You don’t fight crime with justice, that much I’d learned. We couldn’t fight a man like Alonso—a Mafioso—with the law. He’d mocked the law, manipulated the rules.

  He’d been everywhere.

  The only chance we’d had was to use his own weapons against him.

  “I need you to do something for me.” I take in a deep breath, searching for the right words.

  Asking a man of God to sin, again. For you.

  My dirty little conscience hesitates a moment.

  “What? What, Filomena?” Roberto asks, his voice pleading, his finger on my cheeks again, like he wants to rub the dark marks off my skin, wash away the pain in my soul.

  “Help me kill him.”

  I watch Roberto’s face change, his cheeks pale.

  “Filomena.” He shakes his head, searching my eyes again, incredulous.

  “Before he kills me,” I go on, “and takes Ramirez and Alejandro under his wing.”

  “You can’t ask me this.” Roberto continues to shake his head, his fingers sliding off my cheeks. “I can’t.”

  My face hardens as I push back the tears. “He made Alejandro kill a man,” I tell him through gritted teeth.

  Roberto gasps, staring at me eyes wide.

  “He turned my son into a murderer and he let Ramirez, a kid, watch his brother become a killer. They’re just kids, just kids… And he’s done this to me.” I shake my head, angry tears streaming down my worn out, battered face. “He’s killed so many people and now you’re looking at me like I’m the monster, like what I’m saying is wrong.”

  “It is wrong, Filomena. Killing is always wrong,” he tries to say, his voice softer now.

  “He doesn’t deserve to live,” I snap, letting the deepest, darkest thoughts out, uncaring of their impact, uncaring of what they’ll do to me and Roberto.

  What he’ll think of me.

  I’m not going to hide my feelings; I’m not going to pretend. Not with him—not when I’ve been forced to pretend for most of my life.

  “Alejandro killed a man?” Roberto had shock written all over his face.

  “He made him do it and made sure Ramirez was there to see it,” I cry out, feeling all the anger and bitterness boil inside me. “My sons, scarred for life. He wants them to be like him; he’ll make them do horrible things… I need to stop him. And I need to stop him now before it’s too late.”

  Roberto had paced the room in silence, thinking, reasoning with himself, battling with his intentions, with what was right and what was wrong.

  Where’s that line that separates the good and the evil? Sometimes it’s clear; sometimes it’s just a blur and you find yourself doubting. How can you fight evil with kindness when that dark force is killing you? Hurting the ones you love?

  Humans are not meant to fight clean: we are flesh and bones wrapped around a fragile soul. And we are both, good and evil. All of us. No exceptions.

  “I’m not asking you to kill him,” I tell Roberto after he’s taken everything in. “I don’t want you to mark your hands with his blood, not for me, not for my sons.”

  Even if he’s your son, too.

  I push away the thought. Now more than ever isn’t the time to tell him.

  The consequences of the truth would have been catastrophic. He would have hated me for keeping it from him all that time. He would have hated me for allowing Ramirez to live under Alonso’s roof for so long. And he would have done something reckless, something horrible.

  It would have changed him forever. I’d disrupted his life, confused him body and mind enough as it was. I’d loved him too much to take him down into the gutter with me.

  I’ll take it all on me, on my shoulders like I’ve done all these years.


  I’ll be the one to go down to hell.

  “All I need you to do is this.” I purse my lips, ignoring the pulsing ache of the wound around my mouth. I walk closer to him, reading the torment, the angst in his eyes, and tell him everything I have in mind.

  Chapter 19

  Rain, lightning and thunder had been sounding in the distance. That’s the first memory I have about that night.

  The phone had started to ring, breaking the silence in the house, waking everyone up but me.

  I was already wide awake.

  You can’t sleep with a guilty conscience; you can only pretend you can’t hear it whispering in your ears.

  You are a murderer.

  You are a sinner.

  You are a cheater: you betrayed your own husband.

  I’d let it wash over me; I hadn’t cared. It hadn’t mattered. He’d cheated first, betrayed me first. I’d owed Alonso nothing—nothing, if not payback.

  “Donna Filomena,” the maid calls out for me, knocking on my door. I open it and am told there is a police officer on the line, wanting to talk to me.

  Every step I took down the corridor, had been a step closer to the showdown. My heart had been in my throat, but I’d kept my face straight, my eyes blank.

  Head high, I’d picked up the phone and taken in a deep breath.

  “Signora Filomena Del Monte?”

  “Si.”

  “Wife of Alonso De la Crux?”

  “Si,” I say again to the male voice on the other end. “What’s going on? Has something happened?” I press on, my voice controlled.

  Steady, steady.

  I wait for the police officer to say something else, tension skyrocketing, and for a moment I panic.

  What if the plan has backfired? What if Alonso figured it out beforehand?

  Roberto.

  I let out a gasp, fearing for his life, for the lives of everyone involved in my plan.

  No, no. It can’t be. I’d thought it through and it was perfect, impossible to fail.

  My husband had crossed many, many gangsters in the underworld to get what he’d achieved. And the more you become powerful, the more you build a strong, invisible army of enemies.

  They’d been out there, on the streets, waiting for the right moment to strike. Only, Alonso had been careful, had mastered the art of never going out alone, never doing the same routes, always unpredictable even when it came to his habits. He’d changed time, date, location at random.

  But Alonso hadn’t foreseen one small little detail.

  I’d known his movements, his whereabouts. I’d studied him carefully over the years, lately even more so, enough to gather important information about him.

  It’s not just about knowing, it’s about giving the right knowledge to the right people at the right time.

  “He’s going to the docks, pier number eleven. Tomorrow night. A meeting,”

  Father Roberto had passed the information to a man in the confession booth.

  “That’s all I need you to do. Just pass the information to the right person. You know who they are, you know everything that happens in The Market. People respect you,”

  That’s what I’d asked Roberto to do for me. Just as I said, right place, right time, right person...

  Someone that hated my husband, that wanted to see him dead.

  I’d wondered how many of us were out there, how many lives he’d destroyed.

  “Signora, we need you to come down to the police station,” the policeman tells me.

  I purse my lips, holding the receiver in my shaky hands, catching sight of Alejandro walking out of his room.

  “Did something happen?”

  “Yes, it’s your husband. I’m afraid. There was a shooting. Signora, signora?” The man calls for me.

  “Si, I’m here. Listening, officer. Where’s my husband?” I say, holding on to the receiver a little tighter. Even in the darkness, I can feel Alejandro’s presence beside me.

  “You need to come down here, signora. I’m afraid something’s happened to your husband. A car is on its way to pick you up.”

  All the tears I’d cried had been tears of relief, guilt and bitterness.

  For the world, I’d become the inconsolable widow of Alonso De la Crux, dressed in black, proud and devoted wife of a Mafioso.

  I’d stared down at the coffin with dark, misty eyes.

  I killed a man—killed my husband.

  I am an accessory to murder.

  After weeks of aching, the plan had finally followed through. They’d ambushed him, shot him dead like he’d shot so many over the years, his life worth nothing more, nothing less. He’d died thinking he was a god, but he too was only made of flesh and bones.

  I’d imagined his blood gushing out of the wound. I’d imagined his last thoughts as he’d died on the dirty ground, like a street rat.

  Money and power can clean up a man to the point where he thinks he’s invincible, above everyone else.

  Look at you Alonso, I think staring down at his pale face.

  You are nothing. Nothing.

  I’d bent down, pretending to kiss his cheek like a good widow should.

  “Until we meet again,” I whisper.

  And when that day comes I’ll tell you how I fooled you, how stupid you were to underestimate me and hurt my sons.

  There’s nothing a mother won’t do to save her own flesh and blood. Nothing.

  I’d fought with every means that I had and I’d do it all again if I could. If I ever had a second chance, I’d do it before that day, before Ramirez’s first communion. I waited too long. I’d let my conscience guide me the wrong way.

  I never felt sorry for what I did, but at times guilt still visits me, when I am alone, at night at times, but I never let it get to me.

  What is done is done; I had my reasons.

  But there were consequences to my actions.

  It destroyed my relationship with Roberto. He never forgave himself; it changed him forever. No matter how many times I’d argued the necessity of our gesture, Roberto had never truly managed to move forward from there.

  Alonso was killed and his killer shot dead by one of my husband’s soldiers in the ambush.

  We’d played with their lives, all of their lives, liked they’d played with ours time and time again, but Roberto’s conscience had been stronger than mine.

  “The end justifies the means,” I tell him during one of our secret meetings, but he never seems sure. My words are no relief to him.

  What we had done had worn out our feelings, destroyed what we’d had.

  “I can’t live like this,” he says to me one day. “I need to leave.”

  I remember holding his stare, suppressing my feelings for him, listening to his words and dying a little inside.

  Don’t leave.

  I love you.

  Please.

  “I’m going on a mission in Brasil to help out where I can. I need to do something, to stop thinking.” He pulls at his hair a little. I see the desperation in his face, the corrosion on his soul.

  What he’s done is killing him; he needs to distance himself from everything.

  “I don’t know if I’ll be back,” he sighs, staring into my eyes.

  Come back; please come back.

  I silence my thoughts and let myself cry at the loss. I kiss him so intensely, my whole body shakes under his touch. “I’ll be here,” I whisper, hugging him tight, not putting any more pressure on him.

  I’d put enough on him; I needed to set him free and let him go. I’d told myself to keep it together, to keep my heart going.

  He’ll be back.

  Roberto had left me in Rome—left me to wait for his return.

  He’d come back only years later, changed church, and I never saw him alone again. He was a different man.

  I’d stayed in my place and let him be.

  My heart had been in pieces once again, but I was a mother, and my heart would keep beating until my sons
no longer needed me. I’d lived for them and tried to change the course of events.

  Now you know it never worked.

  You can’t fix what is irremediably broken. Alonso had made sure to destroy Alejandro’s human side. What I’d done had only stopped my husband from hurting them again, but it hadn’t stopped what he’d started: the transformation of our son into a monster.

  I take my responsibilities, the failures on my shoulders.

  I sacrificed my life, sacrificed a love, and now you know why I helped Andrea when I did.

  A mother knows that a son is the most precious thing life can give you.

  A mother knows no right or wrong when her son’s life is at stake.

  Protect your family at all costs.

  I did my best to protect mine.

  Epilogue

  “Are you okay?” the young officer asks me, his voice bringing me back to the real world, as the memories slowly fade away.

  I nod.

  I’ve told him what happened in the factory, what happened to my son and Andrea, while deep down inside I’ve just relived everything: the mistakes of a lifetime.

  “I’m just tired,” I tell him, my eyes empty.

  “Is there anyone you’d like to call while you wait for the documents, Signora Filomena?”

  I nod, looking at the young man in front of me, his eyes strangely kind and understanding.

  I’m an old woman who’s just lost a son. Who’s just been put in front of her darkest failure.

  I have to stop this, all of this.

  “Si,” I sigh, pursing my lips. “I’d like to call my son, Ramirez. I need to call my son.”

  THE END

  Find out what happens next in Crux