Elsa
I open my eyes. The sun illuminates so brightly that I can barely see. I raise my hand to cover my eyes and inadvertently jerk on the IV tube. What the hell? As soon as my eyes get accustomed to the light, I take a careful look around. All the equipment around me suggests I am in a hospital.
What has happened? Then it strikes me-Marcello was… My heart starts racing, and all the devices surrounding me begin whining. A doctor appears in the room, followed by a nurse and Gabrielle.
I noticed Gabrielle and started crying. Wracked by great sobs, I can’t say a word. I cough, sputter, and choke, waving my arms in panic. The door opens and a figure appears on the threshold: Marcello.
He passes everyone and falls to his knees next to me, taking my hand and snuggling his face against it, looking at me with eyes filled with fear and exhaustion.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I-”
I put my hand against his lips.
Not here. Not now. Tears roll down my face, but they are tears of happiness.
“Madam,” the man in the white scrubs says, glancing at the medical report hanging from the bed frame. “We’ve had to do a carotid revascularization. The state you were in was a threat to your life. We’ve had to insert a tube into your body. That’s why you have a patch in your groin. Through the tube, we’ve inserted a guide wire into your carotid artery that allowed us to clear it. That’s the short version, anyway. Without walking you through all the specialist medical jargon, I wouldn’t be able to explain the procedure in detail. But I don’t think that is strictly necessary. What matters is that we’ve made it.”
I could hear his words, but my eyes were fixed on Marcello. Nothing else matters. He is here-alive and well!
“Can you hear me, Elsa?” I feel someone raising my eyelids. “Don’t do this to me or he’ll kill me.”
I open my eyes slowly. I am lying on the rug, with Dominico nervously looking down at me.
“Thank God,” he says as I start reacting.
“What happened?” I croak, disoriented.
“You lost consciousness again. Are you feeling well?” At the same time, Gabrielle bursts into the room.
“Where’s Marcello? I want to see him now!” I cry, trying to push myself up.
Dominico studies me, as if searching for an answer to my question.
Gabrielle breathes. “I don’t know what happened, but something went terribly wrong. Remember, Elsa-the media doesn’t tell the whole story. But you have to go back home today. These are Marcello’s orders. It’s for your own safety. The car is already waiting.”
I stared at him, terrified, unable to believe him. He went on. Sounds like it is starting to be a good thing getting rid of me.
“Is he alive?” I cut in. “Tell me, Gabrielle, or I’ll lose it.”
The young Italian goes silent then, thinking.
“He’s moving, that’s for sure. So there’s a chance he’s alive.”
“What do you mean moving?” I ask, frowning. “Is it possible that he could be…” I trail off, afraid of voicing the word “dead.”
“Don Marcello has a transmitter implanted into the inside of his left hand. A small chip,” he says, touching my left bicep. “We know where he is at all times.”
For a moment I get lost in thought, absently fingering the little tube in my arm.
What am I doing here giving everyone a headache? Marcello wants me gone. It is even an order. I don’t why it hurts so much thinking about leaving. I have always wanted this. Even when we were flying to Rome, I was planning to find a way out. Now I have the permission. No need to plan an escape. They have even offered a car ride.
How am I supposed to show up home? Like I have been on some top-secret vacation. I am not going to take anything because I didn’t come with anything here. I would have wanted to leave the phone too but Marcello may want to contact me. If he he’s not dead anyway. He can’t be dead. He is always highly protected and he has survived many death traps ever since his childhood. There is no way he succumbed to this. I try to affirm this to myself so that I don’t fall apart. But how can I assure myself when even his closest partner, Gabrielle isn’t sure yet they have been together for years now?
I accept the ride home, and I am escorted by two bodyguards. This is Gabrielle ensuring that I get home safe and probably not get kidnapped by another mafia boss, fall madly in love while he tries to protect me from my family enemies who are absolutely none of his business then let me go when I no longer have the zeal to go.
When we pull up to the front gate, the security stops to check us. They immediately let us through and started making calls thereafter probably to let the whole household that I was finally there.
When I got out of the car, the guards stepped out and followed me to the doorway, just to be sure they delivered me as per the instructions.
Antonio, our butler opens the door with a wife smol as if he expected me to be right there when he opened. News can travel fast from the gate security to the house staff.
“Signorina, Bentornato a casa,” he says, opening the door wide for me. I smile back, feeling sincerely happy to see him.
“La ringrazio, Antonio,” I respond. That’s when the car pulls away. I suddenly feel like jumping in when Rosa comes rushing down the stairs almost breaking her knees in high-heeled stilettos. She looks too dressed up to be in the house, too dressed up for a widow. But how can I blame her? She’s just in her early forties. Too young to fuck up the rest of her life in sorrow, morning over her dead husband. But did it have to be Federico? Of all the men here in Palermo, in Sicily, in Italy, and the whole world, she decided to hook up with her husband’s enemy. Has she dressed up to go meet up with him or is she just back from seeing him?
I feel disgusted with myself while she runs towards me, and suspect she is going to stab me in the back while she embraces me in a hug I would have said was warm if I didn’t know the truth about her.