Adriana
“Okay, thank you for telling me,” Adriana whispered before she slowly hung up her cell phone, then put it back down on the nightstand next to her bed. She swallowed to clear the lump that appeared at the base of her throat and shuffled down further under her blankets, cuddling up underneath her sheets to counter the cold sweat that just enveloped her whole body. Her boss, Paolo, the man who’d helped her more than anybody else on the face of the planet, was no longer alive. Giovanni had just woken her up with the news.
“Fuck,” Adriana murmured to nobody. She grabbed the nearest pillow and buried her face in it, screaming until her throat was hoarse, making a scant amount of noise while doing so. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
When she wore out her throat, she dropped the pillow and allowed her body to sag against the mattress, limp and useless. She shut her eyes, staring at the blank blackness of her own eyelids, willing herself to go back to sleep, back into her dreams, where none of this had happened. Maybe when she woke back up again, she’d realize that the whole thing was just a nightmare, an awful trick her own brain was playing to torture itself.
But the longer she waited, the more and more her head ached, a pounding sensation in her temples growing worse and worse as the minutes ticked by. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she muttered to herself as she finally kicked the sheets and blankets off her body, letting the cold air wash over her until her legs shivered. She couldn’t afford to run the heat very high during the winter. She laughed a little hysterically and buried her face in her hands as she thought about how much worse her financial situation would become very soon, now that Paolo was gone.
Okay, snap the fuck out of it, she told herself a few moments later. She couldn’t stand pitying herself. It was the most disgusting feeling in the world, as far as Adriana was concerned. So, your boss is dead. So what? You still have to go on. You still have to pull yourself together and act like a person. After all, her dad still depended on her. She couldn’t afford to fall apart.
Adriana wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and sat up slowly, letting her body adjust to the cold for a minute before she put her feet on the ground, stood up, and stretched to wake herself up before heading across the hall towards her father’s room. She knocked lightly on the door before opening it a crack to peer inside. Her dad was already awake, reading the previous day’s newspaper while sitting on his bed. As soon as he noticed her, he patted the space next to, wordlessly telling her to come over and sit by him.
She smiled a little as she complied, settling on the bed next to her father and leaning her head on his shoulder, careful not to put too much weight on him. He had been doing better recently, relatively speaking, but he was still recovering from a heart attack—multiple heart attacks, in fact. He needed to be treated carefully, even if it drove him crazy to accept her tender care.
“My boss is dead,” she murmured, sighing a little as her father wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tugged her closer.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” her father said softly, putting the newspaper down to focus on her. “Was he sick or something? You never mentioned it, if he was.”
Adriana shook her head. “No, I just saw him yesterday, and he was perfectly fine. He’s always been perfectly fine. I can’t believe this.”
Her father was quiet for a long moment, rubbing the back of Adriana’s head soothingly. “These things happen.”
“I know,” Adriana whispered, but deep inside her mind, there was some little voice that resisted. She’d never thought of Paolo as mortal before. He was larger than life, really, the type of person that people tell their grandchildren about, the type of person that filled every moment with joy or terror or intrigue. For Adriana, he was a second father, giving her a job when she needed it most, when no one else would. Now, what was she going to do?
She cleared her throat and spoke up, careful not to let the panic she felt bubbling up in her stomach slip into her voice. “It’s just that I don’t know what’s going to happen now, you know?” she said to her dad, keeping her eyes focused on the carpet below them.
“To Paolo’s business?”
Adriana nodded slowly, even though she wasn’t entirely sure her father understood the whole situation. She’d never really explained to her dad that she was paid for assisting a crime lord, but somehow, she figured that her father was smart enough to pick up on it anyway. If he disapproved, he kept it to himself, probably aware that she only took the job in the first place to help save up for his medical expenses.
“Yeah, it’s so sudden. I don’t think anybody was expecting him to go for another ten or fifteen years. I guess his son, Giovanni, will take control now, but…” She shook her head, unwilling to state her anxieties out loud to her father. Sure, Giovanni was a dick that Adriana hated dealing with and, in all likelihood, he was about to become her boss or even fire her. But it was selfish of her to unload her worries onto her sick dad. He had more than enough to worry about.
Even still, his grip tightened on Adriana’s shoulder, keeping her in place as he brushed over the back of her hair with his other hand. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart.”
“How do you know?” Adriana whispered, almost embarrassed to be asking for reassurance.
Her dad shrugged. “I know you. You’re the best at what you do.”
“You don’t even know what I do,” Adriana said with a chuckle, thinking about all the drug trafficking deals she’d helped organize over the past year.
“Doesn’t matter,” her dad replied easily. “You’re smart, and you’re loyal, and you’re resilient. No matter what happens, it’ll be okay, honey. I know it will.”
Adriana smiled up at her dad, lightly squeezing his hand. “You always know how to make me feel better.”
Her dad shrugged again and grabbed his newspaper to resume his reading again. “It’s my job.”
Adriana straightened up her posture and toughened up her shoulders before getting to her feet. “Right. Time to get to work.”
“So early?” her father asked, not looking up from his newspaper.
“Yep. No sense slacking off just because I’m not sure who my boss is anymore,” Adriana said with a laugh. “Anyways, they might need my help planning the wake and funeral and everything.”
“Atta girl,” her dad said as she left to get dressed for work.
Thirty minutes later, Adriana stepped into the Rainieri compound feeling awkward and acutely aware of how out of place she looked among the clumps of relatives and family friends who’d gathered in the immediate aftermath of Paolo’s death to give their condolences. She exhaled heavily and headed towards Paolo’s office. Maybe there was paperwork to deal with. Paolo definitely left behind a detailed will, even though he never let Adriana see it while he was alive.
The door to Paolo’s office was already open, and Adriana was halfway inside the room before she noticed that someone was there, sitting at Paolo’s desk. At first glance, she thought it was Giovanni, but on second look, she realized that it was someone else entirely, someone she’d never seen before. It was a young man with thick, dark hair, his head bent over in one large broad hand. He was just staring down at Paolo’s desk, his other hand slowly tracing circles on the surface of the desk, right next to an overturned coffee cup and a huge stack of papers.
Adriana was tempted to say something. Anything. She didn’t know why, but the deep sadness in the man’s eyes called to her, like a rope tugging around her waist. But she held herself back, just staring at him. She knew she was being rude, gaping at somebody who was obviously in the clutches of grief. But she gave herself a few more seconds, drinking in the image of the handsome young man, who looked like he had a shroud of darkness hovering around him like a heavy raincloud.
He deserves to grieve in peace, she finally told herself, backing out of the room and gently shutting the door behind her. But somehow, she felt like she understood his pain, even if she’d never seen him before. She felt like she carried the same pain in her heart, an ache that could never be filled.