Yet it would be your duty to bear it…it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what is your fate to be required to bear.”
—Charlotte Brontë
DALIA RICCI
The Past
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” My pulse quickens, the fear simmering beneath my skin at what I know I have to do. Run. “It has been four years since my last confession.”
The grating separating us smells musty, but I lean my cheek against it anyway. The walls of the confessional moan. Old, like everything else in Devils Ridge, Texas. The heart of the De Luca mafia syndicate. The heart of Hell.
“What ails you, my child?”
Everything.
I am helpless to men, to fate, the insignificant pawn housing a future queen in a game far greater than her. I don’t say the things my heart feels. Instead, I cradle my stomach. I’m not showing. I still have some time. Not much but perhaps enough to figure out my options.
“I slept with a married man.”
And I liked it.
Until I didn’t.
And still, he wouldn’t stop.
Father Luciano says nothing. I can picture him. The scattering of blond hair covering next to nothing on his receding hairline. His pudgy fingers pressed together like a steeple. His white clerical collar choking his thick neck. The all-black attire and stuffy booth running sweat down his hunched back.
Father Luciano. Two years my senior. The twenty-four year old who looks a day shy of forty. I’d pity him if I didn’t need to reserve my pity for myself. My lips let loose a breathy sigh as I wait for his response, unsure why I bothered coming here. It felt right at the time.
The sigh is too seductive, but I can’t help it. Half the men in this town tell me I am a goddess. The other half tells me I’m a curse. I know which half I believe. It is not the same half that visits me at the Landing Strip, leering at my body as I strip away my clothes and dignity to their praises.
I wonder, for a moment, what Father Luciano thinks as his breathing deepens, and the wooden bench on his half of the booth creaks with stilted movement. He knows who I am. He knows what I do for a living. I suspect he knows who I do, also.
He wants you, the Devil in me whispers.
I always listen to my Devil. She controls my future. Sometimes, I get antsy in this small town. One I stumbled upon after listening to her voice, following the pit stop of a groupie tour bus.
I’d call her Fate if it weren’t for the series of bad decisions I’ve made. My Devil encouraged me to stay here. She wiped away my conscience and begged me to sleep with Angelo De Luca, a man unfit to run his own syndicate let alone lay his hands on me. I know I am my Devil, but I prefer distancing myself from the blame.
Because now, I live trapped in a world of four mafia syndicates pitted against one another.
Andretti versus Romano.
Camerino versus Rossi.
Two fractured coasts, warring within themselves.
And the fifth syndicate, cast to the side. The De Luca syndicate. Undeserving. A breeding ground for resentment. Ridiculed as inconsequential for centuries. Run by a mad man whose attention I have caught.
Father Luciano clears his throat and, perhaps, his lust. “Do you feel guilt, my child?”
“Yes.”
Not to Angelo De Luca.
Not to his wife.
To my child.
A girl, my Devil predicts. If my Devil is right, she will die in this town like me. Insignificant. An illegitimate princess unable to claim her throne. Surely, there’s a better way.
Run.
The urge seizes me once again. I feel it down to my toes.
“Guilt is a weight on your shoulder. Your body’s way of telling you to pause. Think. Make better decisions. Repent.”
My repentance will not matter once Angelo De Luca discovers I am pregnant. I will either be dead or captured.
“Have you ever considered leaving this town, Father Luciano?”
His discomfort drifts to my half of the confessional. People do not leave Devils Ridge because people do not leave the mafia. Father Luciano is not a Made Man, but in this town, everyone is, at most, one degree away.
“No,” he finally relents, and I hear it.
The lie.
If priests can lie, where is the sanctity of confession?
“If you were to leave this town, Father, how would you do it?” A provocative question, but most would argue I am a provocative person.
“I would not leave Devils Ridge.”
“Humor me.” I dip my voice the way I know men like. “Please.” At his silence, I continue, voice smooth like silky sex hitting all the right spots. “I’m your child, Father. Your flock.” My lips part as I lean closer to the grating. I know he can see them as I whisper like I am begging for his cock, “Lead me.”
He bristles again. “The airport—”
“Will leave a trace.”
“The church ships supplies through a discreet entrance on Echo Street. I would use it to slip into the cargo hold of an outbound plane.”
It’s a long shot, but a better chance of escape than I had ten seconds ago.
“Thank you.” Not bothering to wait for my penance, I stand and gather the little belongings I own. A passport and wallet with a faded picture of me and my sister.
Father Luciano meets me outside the confessional, his eyes not distracted by my pretty packaging for once. “You cannot leave this town, my child.”
“You just showed me how, Father.” My lips curve into a smile. “You showed me, step by step, and I never would have known about the church’s access to the airport had you not shown me the way.” I toy with the top edges of my shirt until a flash of cleavage blinds him. Then, I fix his collar until he sucks in a breath at the touch of my fingers against his pulse. “A way only you and your brethren know of.”
When I leave the church, it’s to the sound of silence. I hop into my dinky car and take off with the feel of my Devil patting me on the back.
Well done, my Devil praises.
Self-preservation, I protest.
And because bad requires the balance of good, I stop for the man waving on the side of the road. His tire is flat, its bottom the shape of a pancake. I recognize him as I step out of the car Angelo bought me and our eyes connect.
I may fear Angelo De Luca, but I know this man deserves my fear more. Except I don’t feel fear.
“Miss Ricci,” he drawls in that Yankee accent, not offering his name. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ve heard wonderful things.”
I pat my belly on instinct. The movement betrays too much. His eyes dip down. He knows. He knows who I am. And judging by the cock of his brow, he now knows of my baby girl also.
“What a wonderful surprise.” He stretches a hand out. “Please, accept my congratulations.”
I stare at his hand before I take it. “Thank you.”
“You don’t sound happy.”
“Says the man stranded on the side of the road.”
“True.” He shrugs as if every car that passed hadn’t ignored him. They knew who he is. Just my luck.
Not luck but Fate, my Devil suggests as if she understands the word.
“I have a spare in my trunk.”
He sends me a grateful smile that has my back relaxing. I can’t pin point what this is. It’s not lust. Nothing I’m used to encountering. It’s human decency. Perhaps even familiarity. When the tire has been replaced, he shuts my truck and nods his head to the song on the stereo. It’s an old one, where the Bhundu Boys sing about crazy things like Fate and Destiny.
He confirms my suspicions that he knows who I am when he says, “Dalia.” His lips wrap around my name like a present, as if something pleasant hides within. “The goddess of Fate. Do you believe in Fate?”
I don’t, but I answer, “Yes,” because the way he asks makes me feel like he does.
He nods his head and considers something for a moment before his eyes cut through pretenses and narrow on my belly. “Would you like my help?”
I’d like help, yes, but I’m not sure from him. He and Angelo can be two sides of the same coin, but at least there’s kindness in his eyes, and I’m not in the position to pick and choose which Devil to run from.
Mine or theirs.
“Why?” I finally ask.
“Fate,” he answers, as if it exists.