28. Evelyn

Vroom. Vroom. Vroom.

The steady throbbing of my brain pulsing inside my head leaves me feeling woozy with that sound being the only thing I can identify. It's not even a word I can say, it's just a steady vroom, like a turbine inside a jet engine.

"Evelyn, babe, please open your eyes, mio dolce." Alessandro's voice sounds so far away.

"Where are you? I want to go home," I whimper in the direction of the voice. My wrists are bound in front of me, but my arms are free to wipe some grit off my face. My ankles are individually tied to the legs of the chair I'm siting in.

"Open your eyes, Evelyn," Alessandro demands with a much sterner tone.

It takes every ounce of energy to press my lids up, but the room spins and I feel out of breath, like I'm falling, weightless and heavy all at the same time.

"Mrs. De Luca," a different voice sings my name. "Come on, I need you to read this to your darling husband so he knows where to come get you."

Okay. This is real. This is not a drill. I"m being held somewhere dark but near the water. There's that salty quality to the air. If I'm here long enough, I'll be able to figure out which borough I'm in. They're all near fucking water.

The car!

Bits and pieces of my abduction barrel into my mind. We took Jenkins's SUV a few minutes before switching cars. Alessandro needs to know that. I'm sure Jenkins is already tracking his car.

"Read it, honey. This isn't a social call," the abductor demands.

"I'm having trouble seeing that. My head is throbbing. Can I have some water? You have to have some nearby. I can smell it."

"Oh, you don't want water out of that dredge, my dear. Read the sign."

"Depot?" I remember stopping at a red light on the floor in the back seat of the new car. I saw the MTA bus depot sign against a beige building. Still don't know what borough.

"Come on, don't tell me you're too pretty to read."

"Too dizzy is more like it. I can't hear myself think with all those buses."

The loud exhausts and rumblings of serval bus motors rolling in and out can be heard in the distance. It's like white noise to the average resident. I'm desperate to distinguish any other sounds, but my time is running out.

"Read it, or I'll cut out your tongue and read it for you."

"You touch her, and I'll kill you," Alessandro snarls over the phone.

"Oh, you mean like this?" The man comes closer. His face is covered in greasy black paint as he sticks his tongue out, dragging it from under my chin to the bottom of my ear. My skin crawls and my gag reflex activates.

I retch but nothing comes up. "Oh, God, you smell like you crawled out the Bronx River."

"Honey, you're going to be floating in it by the time I'm done with you if you don't do what you're fucking told."

"Put the money in two small black duffle bags. Bring them to a luggage storage locker at Madison Square Garden. It's in a gift shop. Rent a locker and set the code to 1189. I'll be on the corner of Columbus Circle and 59th Street, unable to move until the money is picked up and counted. Once the money is good, I'll be let go."

"Thanks, Alice Andrew," the kidnapper sings and hangs up the phone before Alessandro can confirm the instructions. The guy stares at me with a triumphant grin. "You did marvelously. Now, keep quiet and I'll let you walk out of here the same way you came in."

"I didn't walk in here."

"Right, right, I did carry you. So light. You should put on some weight. You know some men like their women with a little meat on their bones."

I roll my eyes. "Fuck you, macchia di merda."

"In English, you fucking peasant."

"Who the fuck do you think you are, calling me a peasant? How fucking dare you? You think this is going to end well for you?" I ask him, forgetting that I'm supposed to be worried right now.

Shit, I need to be. I'm worrying for two now, aren't I?

What if I never get to see this little person growing inside me? Imagine it. Me and Alessandro as parents. What a fucking shit show. Just as easily as I dismiss the idea, fantasies of our children running around a kitchen island being chased by Roman and Courtney put a smile on my face. I have to get out of here.

Regardless of what happens between Alessandro and me, being a mom is a dream I didn't realize I wanted. Being a mother to his children is something I want even more.

"Listen," I start. "The Feds probably have my location already and they're about to rain fire down on you. I'm a very important person to their investigation."

"Oh? Investigation into who? Your husband?" he asks, playing his fingertips against each other.

"No, stupid. Alessandro's clean."

"HA! And I'm the Virgin Mary."

"I'm turning state's evidence against my dipshit brother-in-law. He let my sister take the blame for his crime, destroyed our family, and set off the craziest chain of events that have me in this chair right now. He's going to regret ever crossing paths with me."

"Bullshit. La Familia doesn't do rats."

I shrug. "I'm not a part of La Familia. I"m a bargaining chip my father used to keep Alessandro in line while he figured out what to do about my brother-in-law."

"That I believe because after what I did to him, a woman like you could never be in love with a monster like that."

"It can't be. How? Who are you?"

The gleam in my captor's eyes is too bright to ignore. Pride in his gaze, and I'm sure if he were wearing suspenders, he'd stretch them out with his thumbs as if his accomplishment is something to admire.

"Have you seen them? The scars?"

"Yes."

"Well? Describe them to me. Come on, tell me how horrifying they are to look at."

My eyes well with despair, but I need to feed into this to give Alessandro enough time to find me. "Um, there's a large scar on his back."

"How big?"

"About eighteen inches, top to bottom."

"The color?" he asks excitedly.

"A dark pink, mauve, or a nude lip, I guess. It's wide at the top, jagged around the edges, and it gets narrower toward the bottom. There are stretchmarks between some areas."

"Oh, my. Our Alice Andrew has gotten bigger, hasn't he? He's much taller and stockier than the last time we crossed paths."

"How long ago was that?" I ask, wanting to get him talking.

"Aww, you want to hear the story about how we met?"

This guy needs a diagnosis or something. Who is this gleeful about death, maiming, and torture?

"I'll start at the beginning. An underboss, Sandro De Luca, was carrying out unsanctioned hits for certain politicians. He was trying to do things with La Familia that were too advanced for the old guard. They paid me to take him out. I did things as they did in those days, you know, good old-fashioned car bomb. Only the dumb putz wasn't in his car when it blew."

"Who was in it?" I ask him, but I think I know the answer.

"Poor Mrs. De Luca got into her husband's car to move it out of her way because he was blocking her car in their driveway. A putz that couldn't protect his wife by doing the manly, the husbandly thing of not blocking his wife's car. Anyhow, she went kaboom, and I had to leave soon after that."

"And Alessandro?"

"Alessandro and I met when he was walking to school one day. Well, I met him, but he ignored me to talk to his pizza, pasta, pesto loving friends. I followed him for a few days, learned his schedule, and grabbed him one day after he got kicked out of his house. He was an entitled little shit, and I aimed to cut it out of him. I wanted the whereabouts of his father. Big Sandro was making moves to take out the old guys and put his buddies, Rossi and Montegna, in place. Looks like the ravioli muncher did it."

"Okay, that's very fucking specific. What is your fucking beef with us? What have Italians done to you that makes you this fucking upset?"

"It's not that you're Italians. It's that you're New Yaawkuhs." He mimics the signature chef's kiss hand gesture with a butchered New York accent that makes me want to slug him.

"Oh! That's valid, but New Yorkers don't give a fuck about you. We're an acquired taste, you know? Just mind your business and stay out the way. Don't walk too slow, and definitely don't kidnap the daughter of Don Rossi and daughter-in-law of Don De Luca. Ti ucciderò se mio marito non ti uccide prima."

My warning comes with me spitting at his feet, which angers the guy.

"You're just like your fucking husband. Since you're so interested in our history, let me get my knives so I can give you matching scars."