Isa

I couldn’t explain it, but Elissa’s visit, or rather the conversation I’d had with Lorenzo afterward had had a revitalizing effect on me. I wouldn’t say that I was happy now, but it had cheered me up. It was a little petty, but I liked to think that he was on my side. Of course, he was on my side, but more than that, he was opposed to Elissa. I had expected nothing less, but it did feel good to hear him defend me. It had also felt good to see Elissa’s face after I had told her about the pregnancy.

She looked like she had just seen a ghost. What the hell did she think was going to happen? I felt foolish even thinking a while ago that the stunt she pulled with the pictures had affected me so deeply. Did she really believe that she had the power to break us apart? I might not have had much faith in the relationship initially, but I did now. Lorenzo had shown her—and he had shown me—whom he was here for...and it was not her.

I felt so good, I didn’t even want to go back to bed anymore. I tucked my phone in my waistband and went to the kitchen instead and looked through the cupboards and the fridge for something to prepare. I wanted to cook, to get something ready so Lorenzo could sit with me and we could eat together.

There was close to nothing in the house that I could whip up into an easy meal. There was the usual food that Carlotta would cook and put in the refrigerator and that would just have to do. Lorenzo was going to be right home anyway. I wasn’t sure where he was, but he had said that he was coming. I chose a cold lasagna and set it on the counter while I preheated the oven.

I turned my head hearing the sound of a car pulling up to the house. I turned the oven off and went to the door. He was here. I opened the door up, hearing him walk up the steps to the door expecting to see him.

Only it was not Lorenzo. It was Elissa. She was back—and this time, she had brought reinforcements with her. In her leather gloved hand was a pistol. My immediate instinct was to raise my hands in the air on either side of my head.

“Get inside,” she said. I backed into the house—and she quickly followed me, closing the door behind her.

What fresh hell was this? It took me a second to register what it was that she started to yell at me.

“Sit down,” she shrieked. I walked over to the dining table slowly, still facing her. “No, bring the chair here.” I lowered an arm to drag the chair across the floor, into the great room and sat. My hands went protectively over my belly.

“Elissa, what’s going on?” I asked her.

“Where’s Lorenzo?” she demanded. Was she a toddler, did she only know how to say that one phrase?

“He’s not here. Elissa, you don’t have to do this,” I said.

She laughed at me. She shrugged out of the trench coat she was wearing to reveal the same dress she had shown up in for her first visit.

“Don’t have to do what? All I want to do is wait for him. That’s it. We can do it together,” she said sweetly.

I struggled to keep my breathing level. I couldn’t succumb to the panic and the stress. I couldn’t. That would have been potentially disastrous. I kept my eye on Elissa. She was walking around the room watching me, keeping the gun pointed in my direction like a cat, stalking its prey.

“What do you want to talk to Lorenzo about?” I asked her.

She smiled serenely and swung the gun around, motioning with her hands.

“Oh, I think the time for talking with Lorenzo is over. I’m not stupid; he has nothing to say to me anymore. I know that. I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Then what do you want to do?” I asked.

My overactive imagination steered me towards every horrible thing conceivable. She had a gun with her. She would not have brought it if she didn’t intend to make use of it somehow. But how was somehow? What did she want to do and, to be honest, did I really want to know? If she wanted to kill me, she was going about it all wrong. The best time to have done it was when I opened the door for her. She would have had a close range shot, I wouldn’t have had time to run, and she would have been able to make as quick an escape as she had made an entrance. Instead, she had asked me to sit in a chair and wait for Lorenzo to come home.

“Isa, I’m going to kill him.”

If it was not obvious that Elissa was completely off her rocker before, it sure was now. She had said it so calmly like she was answering the question, ‘How is the weather today?’ She laughed looking at me.

“Did you think I just came to say hi?”

“That probably would have been a better scenario... what do you want with me?”

“You’re going to watch.”

I sat in my seat, feeling hot and cold all at once. She wasn’t bluffing. The woman was dead serious. What the hell was happening? How had this entire day turned into TRUE CRIME all of a sudden? I had to do something, but what? It wasn’t like she had me tied down or anything, but she was holding a gun and she was clearly agitated enough to do something crazy if I pushed her. I was pregnant besides; I couldn’t risk her squeezing that trigger —on purpose or by accident.

I slid a hand into my waistband where my phone was. Calling somebody was too risky. She would be able to hear their voice and know what was going on. I was getting out of this alive. If I could keep her talking, she would be distracted. I turned on the voice memo function on my phone as discreetly as I could as she walked over to the window by the door to see who was outside.

“Are you going to kill me, too?” I asked her. She walked towards me. She looked too calm, like a sociopath.

“Maybe.”

“Why are you doing this, Elissa?”

“Don’t you see? This is all your fault.”

“What did I do? We don’t even know each other.”

“That’s right, we don’t. And you didn’t even know Lorenzo three months ago when the two of you got married.”

That was what this was about. Shit. Hell really has no fury.

“Our marriage was arranged. There was nothing either of us could have done.”

“Yes, there was. What the hell kind of woman allows herself to be married off like that? What kind of man lets his father pick his woman for him? You could have said no. Both of you. You should have said no, but you didn’t.”

“Why does that make you so angry?”

“Because you ruined everything,” she said. “You think this is something special between you and Lorenzo? Do you think that in these three months you’ve captured his heart and transformed him?”

I was silent. Honestly, I was scared of what she would say.

“Three months Isa. A lot of things can happen in three months but nothing meaningful. Nothing real. Has Lorenzo ever told you how far he and I go back?”

“I know you two used to be in a relationship.”

“We dated for years and knew each other even longer than that. Years, Isa. That is what Lorenzo and I have. Years and a history. You saw the pictures,” she said, smiling. “The two of you have three months and a late abortion.”

My hands balled into fists. I wanted to lunge at her and kick her in the mouth. I had never been violent in my life—and this was not a good time to start—but she was getting one more chance.

“Why didn’t you two get back together?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“We did. Every time that we broke up, we got back together again. Sometimes it was after a few weeks. Sometimes months went by before we would reconcile. But we always got back together. Always... until you showed up.”

She fixed her glare on me and used the gun to point in my direction.

“Suddenly, he can’t see me anymore because he’s making preparations for the wedding. He’s getting married to some woman he’s hardly spoken to for ten minutes, and even better, I’m invited to the wedding if I want to come. By the way, that gown did nothing for you. You aren’t tall or thin enough to really do it justice.”

I bristled. If she wanted the gown, it was right upstairs. She could try it on and see if it looked better on her bony body than it had on mine.

“You think it would have been you if it wasn’t me?”

“Of course. Who else was there who could be Lorenzo’s wife? I was the one he kept coming back to... you know what that means Isa? It means that despite everything, he loved me. He would play around, let his eye wander, but he always knew where I was and always came back to find me.”

Wow.

The woman had barged into my home and held me at gunpoint. She had called me fat and short; she had slandered my unborn child; and she had told me that my marriage was a joke, but now, now I just felt sorry for her. How could she not have seen what she was to Lorenzo? He didn’t keep going back to her. She was just the one who was always available so he kept her in rotation. He could rely on her desperation for him, and he had exploited her for it. I wasn’t going to excuse his behavior—it was awful that he had strung her along—but it was incredible that she hadn’t realized it.

“You really love him, don’t you?” I said gently.

She barked out a derisive laugh.

“I don’t love him, Isa. He’s my soulmate. He’s the only person for me, and I’m the only one for him. We were meant to be together, and there is nothing that is going to stand in our way.”

“Elissa, we’re married and expecting a baby.”

“I realize. God, do you know how many years I have been trying to tell Lorenzo that this is what is right for us. Our destiny? He’s so stubborn. You know that I suppose. If you hadn’t come along, we would be together again and it would just be a matter of time before I was Mrs. Montorini.”

“I’m sorry that it didn’t work out for you, Elissa, I really am, but this, killing him isn’t going to solve the problem.”

“The problem is you. If he’s gone, then you won’t be married to him anymore. Simple.”

“If I’m the problem, then why do you want to kill Lorenzo?”

“Because you left me no fucking choice,” she said sharply. “You... you are a hard egg to crack Isa D’Agostino,” she said, pointing the gun at me and purposefully calling me by my maiden name. “Nothing rattles you, does it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought the pictures would do it. I thought that you wouldn’t believe Lorenzo if he told you that they were old because, hey, what reason did you have to trust the guy? You barely knew him. But no. You stayed. That was when I knew I had to do something drastic.”

“What did you do?” I asked her.

“Your little show at your dad’s funeral, sitting when everyone else was standing and hanging onto Lorenzo like that was frankly embarrassing,” she snapped.

“You were there?”

“You can thank me for the chance to wear that black Diane von Furstenberg. I know Lorenzo got it for you, he has great taste, even if he doesn’t have the greatest model to dress up.”

I felt like the pit of my stomach was being consumed by its own acid.

“You didn’t.”

“I did. Your daddy was a sitting duck, Isa. He didn’t even try and defend himself.”

I felt tears squeeze out of the corners of my eyes. It was her. What kind of sick human being would target and kill an old man...for nothing?

“Why?” I asked her, crying.

“Because I knew it would ruin you. I knew it would send you on a downward spiral. What I didn’t know was that Lorenzo would stick it out. He was supposed to get rid of you. He was supposed to become frustrated and want more for himself. That was the time that he would come back to me because you would be too grief stricken to offer him anything as a wife anymore.”

She was crazy. She was nuts. I knew what it was like to love Lorenzo, but this was something else. How could she act this way about a man who had used her like she was a piece of Kleenex and then go on to marry somebody else? Hadn’t he said it enough times and clearly enough for her to understand? What the hell was wrong with her?

I was scared before, but now I was terrified. She had killed my father...and she was here to kill my husband. She had a gun in her hand and she was crazy. If I said the wrong thing or did the wrong thing, I would be next.