(Renata Valentini)
Although I feel like I have opened my eyes, it feels like I haven’t, the darkness is so thick that the feeling is that I have gone blind. I get up from wherever I am, and my head throbs, it feels like no mammoths have walked over me. I feel the floor, it is soft and fluffy, I keep crawling and find the walls, they are the same texture as the floor, soft, fluffy and cold. With slow steps I walk until I find a corner of the wall and sit down, hugging my knees, I feel my eyes burning.
“Why am I here? What are they going to do to me?” – Fear cuts through my chest and tears fall like waterfalls, I don’t know how long I slept, and I don’t know where I am, I couldn’t see the faces of the men who kidnapped me. My heart hurts so much. Before I blacked out, I begged Filippo to show up and save me one more time, but that won’t happen, he won’t show up for me, maybe he won’t even remember my existence anymore.
Realizing this hurts me, even though two months have passed, the pain of abandonment hurts as if it happened yesterday.
My mind starts to wander, I touch my belly and start to imagine it getting bigger, with Filippo talking in a drooling dad voice about how much he loves our son, kissing my forehead and saying that I did a great job holding it together until he could come back to us, his family.
Suddenly, the whole happy scene fades away, I start thinking about the terrible things that can happen to me inside this captivity. I can’t control the tears, I feel my throat closing up, my nose getting stuffy and at the same time running, no matter how much I wipe it, the imaginary scenes of possible futures come to my mind and make me cry even more compulsively, I can’t bear the thought of being: tortured, raped and becoming an object being traded to several different men every single miserable night for the rest of my life. My chest hurts, I can’t stand to cry anymore; I feel my eyes getting heavy, with no strength to sit up, I just feel the contact of my skin on the soft floor, slowly I close my eyes and let sleep take me for a few moments away from all this suffering.
Two days later:
(Filippo Valentini – Italy)
I checked the time, it is exactly six in the afternoon. Renata at this moment must be having lunch, the difference of six hours from one country to another… I cannot avoid the memories of our moments at lunchtime, of how I ate her on the stove, on the table, in the sink, in every corner of that kitchen, there are memories of our bodies colliding. Suddenly, I feel a strange tightness in my chest. I have felt this for two days. Cazzo! I need to get this woman out of my thoughts.
As soon as I arrived in Italy, Vicenzo took over our brother’s position and I took over the position that for so many years I ran away from, I am now no longer Filippo, the technology tycoon but Filippo, the new Consigliere (advisor) and sottocapo (sub-chief). Due to my brother’s coma, instead of taking over as capo, which was the initial plan in case I had to return, I am having to take over the two highest positions below only the Don.
“Wake up soon, fratello,” I say and leave Matteo’s room. It hurts me to see him like this. My brother doesn’t deserve to be in that bed, the men who hit my brother are still alive, I didn’t let them die, every day, they are tortured in a different way, they have already told me the principals and we have gone to war with Onore who planned my brother’s execution during the wedding, the only moment when he wouldn’t be surrounded by security guards while walking our cousin down the aisle. It didn’t even take two weeks, Onore no longer exists, all the men in the Rafaelli family have been executed, the only survivor of that family is a one month old baby girl, Heloysie Rafaelli, even though my hands were bathed in blood, I refused to kill a baby girl.
With lazy steps I enter Vincenzo’s office, he as always has his face informed in piles of papers, surely the worst position is Don’s.
“How are they?” Vicenzo asks without looking at me.
“Well, Lais is giving the baby a bottle,” I answer and sit down in the chair opposite her. “Do you think it was really a good idea?” I ask, I know how much my brother’s wife suffered from the numerous miscarriages, and my brother’s vegetative state only worsened her condition.
“You brought her here.” Vicenzo replies.
I know that it was me who brought that baby, it was on impulse, I didn’t think that Lais would run to take the child from my lap as soon as she saw it, to see it come out of its shell a little was relieving, but, as much as she wants to adopt the child, she won’t be able to, children without a blood tie are not allowed, and since she is not yet a widow, as long as my brother lives, she will never be able to adopt that little girl, who will have to live as a servant. I think that living like this is better than not living, I just hope that Lais can deal with this reality.
“Mama won’t leave Matteo’s room, she eats little and she can’t stand the presence of that baby, I don’t know how to get around the situation.” I grumble, I know that I am the one who should be giving advice and not asking for it.
“When Matteo wakes up, she stops picking on the baby.” Vicenzo speaks simply.
“How can he stay so calm?” Vicenzo has always been the most talkative among the brothers, but now he talks less even than me: the quietest. Vicenzo’s smile, which was little, after the death of his wife, is now nil.
“I don’t have time for small talk, if the subject is over, leave.”
“Bene, Don”. – “Right, Don,” I speak with a false respect for his position.
I leave his office and my cell phone starts vibrating, Lucas’ name flashes on the screen, I’m not in the mood to listen to the company’s sales reports. I reject the call and put the cell phone away, but again it starts to vibrate. I repeat what I did before, but again, he insists. I answer.
“I don’t want to talk to you…”
“It’s about Renata.”
“What’s wrong with her?” I ask, feeling my heart palpitate. Two months away from her, I know she is still working there, and that last week she was sick twice in a meeting, but he said that she assured him it was just a passing malaise, that it was because she didn’t have her morning coffee. I was surprised, but decided to let it go.
“Filippo?” The voice of Amanda, Renata’s friend, speaks into the phone.
Again the strange feeling from earlier hits me, what is Amanda doing with Lucas’ cell phone?
“What do you…”
“You’re drooling, inbred, stupid, idiot.” She interrupts me and lashes out.
“Who do you think you are talking to?” I interrupted her.
“With a jerk who abandoned my best friend and now she’s gone!” She screams and I feel all my blood freeze, what do you mean she’s gone?