Vittorio
Vittorio pushed through the throng of bodies out of the diner and onto the sidewalk. He hurried down the block, happy as ever for the crowd-splitting effects of being six and a half feet tall and terrifying. He felt like Moses parting the Red Sea, except the sea was pedestrian scum. He got back in the Mercedes, drove back to the penthouse and took the elevator all the way to the top.
Sharon was lounging on the main couch when he walked in. She looked up in surprise from her phone where she’d been playing a game.
“Missed me that much, huh?” she teased with a smile.
“We need to go,” Vittorio told her bluntly.
Sharon’s smile faded. “Go where?”
“I have a place upstate. We’re going to stay there for a few days.” Vittorio walked right past her to the master bedroom. He was positive he had some luggage stored in the closet somewhere.
“May I ask why?” Sharon inquired.
“No, you may not,” Vittorio told her harshly. He didn’t want to scare her. He also didn’t need her asking more questions and wasting time.
Sharon accepted his answer with a hesitant nod. “What should I bring?”
“Toothbrush, clothes for a few days-”
“Do these count as clothes?” Sharon asked. She held between her fingers the lacy, lavender baby doll that she was wearing. “Because this is kind of all I have.”
“What about those pants you wore on the boat?” Vittorio wondered.
“Oh yeah,” Sharon realized. She found the dark blue chinos tucked in one of the drawers he had given her in the closet. “Still no shirt though,” she complained as she shimmied into the pants.
Vittorio found an old sweatshirt and tossed it at her. She pulled the mountain of fleece over her head and giggled. The sleeves hung way past her hands and the hem of the sweatshirt drooped past her mid-thigh.
Vittorio smiled in spite of himself. She truly looked adorable. “That’ll work,” he told her.
“Alright,” Sharon giggled. After she’d rolled up the sleeves so that she could use her hands, she scooped out an armful of clean bras and underwear and stuffed the lacy rainbow into the suitcase Vittorio had laid on the ground. She stuffed her feet into her leather boating shoes and walked out of the closet. Vittorio heard a drawer open and close somewhere else in the penthouse. When she came back, Sharon had both of their toothbrushes and other various toiletries in a large Ziploc bag.
“Thanks,” he told her.
Once they’d zipped all their belonging up, he shepherded Sharon down to the parking garage. She followed him willingly and easily, which made him feel both adored and powerful. On impulse, he opened his passenger door for her when they got to the car. A beautiful, subtle blush ignited her sweet, round cheeks and Vittorio felt himself smiling in return. Sharon settled into her seat and he closed the door behind her. He walked around the car and tossed the suitcase in the back behind his own seat. Once he was in the car and buckled, he reversed out of the parking space and hurried out of the garage and eventually onto the interstate.
Traffic was surprisingly light as Vittorio headed north and he was thankful for it. He could talk all the shit he wanted about Rocco Anafesto, but the truth was that he was just one cold-hearted son of a bitch. With every mile Vittorio put between him and Sharon, he felt a little bit more tension dissipate from his shoulders.
Sharon was surprisingly quiet as they drove. Out of the corner of his eye, Vittorio could see that she was watching out the window as the buildings gradually shrank and the spaces between them got wider.
“Ever been to upstate New York before?” Vittorio asked her.
“Nope.” Sharon replied. “Never had any reason to.”
“Well, I think you’ll like it,” he told her.
“Why?” she asked.
Vittorio shrugged. “Just a feeling.”
The next few hours zipped by and, before either of them knew it, the pair were coasting through the country. It was chilly and the colors weren’t quite as bright in the fall, but it still had a simplistic beauty that never failed to touch Vittorio’s heart in a special way. Sharon continued to look out the window, awestruck by the raw, natural beauty that existed so close to the urban masterpiece of New York City.
Vittorio took a hard left into a smooth, paved driveway that disappeared into the trees. After a few shady minutes, the trees opened up and he heard Sharon audibly gasp next to him.
He couldn’t blame her, really. The Contarini Estate was an impressive piece of architecture. It looked almost like a modern palace, the broad crimson front door flanked by three-story-high Roman-style pillars. Every door and window was decked out in exquisite, aristocratic trim. The house exuded old money and affluence, even before they pulled into the ten-car garage.
Sharon got out of the Mercedes. “Man, you really like cars, huh?” her voice echoed around the cavernous garage. Her eyes bugged out as she took in all the diligently maintained classic cars that were tucked away in the garage.
“I do,” Vittorio admitted. “Most of these belonged to my grandfather though.”
“They’re beautiful,” Sharon gushed.
Vittorio led her inside, trailing their suitcase behind him. The next room off the garage was the kitchen. Sharon walked around the traditional-farmhouse-with-a-twist styled kitchen, her delicate fingers tracing the red tile counters while her eyes traced the antique wood floors. Gleaming copper pots of all shapes and sizes dangled from a matching rack mounted in the ceiling.
“Can I get you anything?” Vittorio asked, pulling open the stainless-steel fridge. He grabbed a mineral water for himself.
Sharon nodded at the bottle in his hand. “I’ll take one of those, please.”
Vittorio tossed her a bottle and opened his own, slurping down the water with its tingly bubbles. Sharon followed him through the house, clearly doing her best not to gasp and gawk at everything in Vittorio’s opulent ancestral home. He figured he probably took a lot of the luxury for granted. He had grown up in it so it was just ‘home’ to him, but he tried to look at it through fresh eyes. Just the ornate, antique chandelier in the living room was probably worth more than the average American worker made in a decade. The furniture was all plush and crafted by the best of the best to last for centuries.
He led Sharon up a sweeping marble staircase. Once on the second floor, he took her to his favorite bedroom in the gigantic house. Through the double doors it was wide open and airy. The mahogany bed had four tall posts, reaching high to support a peach-colored canopy. The far wall opened onto a deck that overlooked a soft, lovely meadow. Sharon hurried to the sliding glass door, pulled it open and stepped out into the afternoon sunshine. The light caught on her wild, ungroomed blonde hair as she took a heaving breath of fresh, country air.
“This is amazing!” Sharon gushed when Vittorio followed her outside. “Man, it makes me miss home.”
“This?” Vittorio said, cocking his head towards the open space. “This makes you miss Kansas?”
Sharon opened her arms wide, gesturing to the long grasses waving gently in the chilly breeze. “This is basically all Kansas is!” she joked.
“Really?” Vittorio asked. He’d never been to Kansas, had actually never even considered it. He pictured it as flat and boring, a trash state he’d rather fly over than suffer through.
“Yeah,” Sharon smiled nostalgically. “It’s actually really pretty there. And when the towns are that small everyone knows everyone and they all really care, ya know? It’s just nice.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was already so beautiful, but when she talked about home her pretty face lit up in a special way. Suddenly, Vittorio cared more about Kansas than he’d ever intended to.
“It sounds nice,” he told Sharon honestly. “I’m from the city. I’m pretty sure the only time anyone there actually cares about you is if you’re paying them.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” Sharon countered. “I think there are good people everywhere, they’re just harder to spot when you have millions of others to compare them to.”
“Fair enough,” Vittorio nodded.
Sharon leaned against the banister, basking in the sunlight. “So, why’d you have to bring me out here?” she asked lightly.
“It’s complicated,” Vittorio told her.
“I can handle complicated,” she retorted.
Vittorio didn’t want to scare Sharon; but she did ask, and he figured she was right, she could handle it. She’d already handled her transition into a completely foreign life beautifully. He might as well share.
“Remember that guy from the Auction? The older one that was trying to buy you other than me?”
Sharon knitted her brows in concern. “Yeah. Rocco Ana-something, right?”
“Anafesto, yeah,” Vittorio confirmed. “Well it turns out he’s not particularly happy that you went home with me instead of him.”
“Why does he care?” Sharon asked, baffled.
“Well, you’re young, beautiful, inexperienced… You’re totally his type.” Vittorio started. “But the biggest issue really has very little to do with you. Rocco just doesn’t like losing. He doesn’t like to lose to anyone, but especially not to me. He and I have what you might call a ‘history’.”
“What kind of history?”
Vittorio sighed. “Our families haven’t gotten along for decades, really. Being a Contarini would’ve been enough to put me in his bad book on its own, but I was a real punk when I was growing up. A few of my buddies and I used to ransack a warehouse he thought nobody knew about in Queens. We’d nab drugs, money… whatever we could find. Eventually he found out it was us, which we should’ve expected…” he trailed off.
“What did he do when he found out it was you?” Sharon asked carefully.
“Nothing big at first,” Vittorio told her. “After a few lootings, some vandalism on our properties, dumb shit like that, it all just started building into this big... tension. He sat down with my father at some point and confronted him about it, but my dad stood up for me. Denied it all, swore I had nothing to do with it.”
“That was nice of him,” Sharon said hesitantly.
“It was. But Rocco knew he was lying, so…” Vittorio heaved a great sigh. “He killed Lara.”
Sharon’s jaw dropped open in shock. Vittorio could practically see the gears turning in her head, no doubt working out just exactly how much danger that put her in, especially if Rocco was already bitter about losing her.
Vittorio continued. “She was… Shot. Broad daylight. We were walking to brunch with her parents, actually. Got her once in the gut, once in the chest. She was gone by the time first responders got there. I didn’t have my gun on me, ’cause she didn’t really like them and…”
Vittorio cut himself off, realized he was rambling. He did his best to shut the memories of Lara’s final few moments out of his mind. The shock, the pain, the fear that contorted her flawless face, until she had faded into Vittorio’s arms. Her blood had stained his shirt and his skin; he could still feel the hot, sticky wetness on his hands whenever he thought about it all too hard.
Sharon took a step closer and began to rub Vittorio’s back. He hadn’t realized how long it had been since he’d shared Lara’s story with anyone, especially a woman he was sleeping with.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Not your fault,” Vittorio said flatly, looking out over the grassy space. “It was a long time ago.”
“Doesn’t make it hurt any less, I would imagine.” Sharon said.
“No, it sure doesn’t.” Vittorio agreed.
He turned to Sharon and her aqua blue eyes looked right up at him.
“You’ll be safe up here,” he ensured her. “I promise.”
“As long as I’m with you, I’m not worried,” she replied with a smile.