Page 66 of Runaway in the Mafia
I expected her to see me as I was. The monster. The replica of her husband. But it wasn’t fear I saw in her eyes. It was pain. Frustration.
“I know you care for her, but it’s not my secret to tell.”
I only realised I’d hit the wall when Lia screamed behind me. There was a punched-out hole in it, and cracked plaster crumbled to the floor.
“What the hell are you—”
“Shut the fuck up, Lia.”
Sergio thundered inside, gave one look at me caging Mamma, hooked his finger on my collar, and pulled me off. I was already letting go, and that was the only reason he could do it.
“Nice of you to redecorate,” he growled. “But can we get around to actually looking for the girl who’s making you lose your shit?”
“I’ve not lost my shit.” I’d lost her.
“No shit. You think about that. I’ll get some men and follow all the exits out of here.”
“No need.” I shoved him off.
“Well, how are we going to find her, then?”
“I know where she is.”
“Great.” Sergio threw his arms in the air. “Then what the hell are we doing breaking shit?”
“Fuck off.” I burst out of the door and into the hallway.
“It’s Sara’s wedding tomorrow,” Mamma called out.
I scowled. “So?”
“So find her and bring her back. In one piece. If you fucking hurt her, I’m killing you,” Sergio interjected.
“Please.” I took the steps two at a time. “If I hurt her, I am fucking killing myself.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
AHANA
My feet dragged along the hallway of the lobby. The weight of the call with Amara and regrets kept my eyes on the ground. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t. But it didn’t matter what she thought. I couldn’t let Papa fail.
The lift door rattled open. I stepped in and relief soothed my heart when no one joined me. The place wasn’t too bad. It didn’t have a good mobile connection in the room to make a call, but it had a clean bed and a warm shower. My skin crawled with memories. For four months, Rajesh had made me take cold showers. To cool my wicked thoughts, he had said. The shower I’d taken before I went downstairs to call Amara would be my last warm shower. But then again, I had lost so much more than the luxury of warm water.
The lift shook on its rails on its way up. It probably wouldn’t pass all the safety requirements. But when you had a deadline and a monster at the end of the road, going through reviews and ratings seemed as far away as winning the lottery. Lucky for me, I’d earned a bit in my short, free life away from Rajesh. So whenI’d got off the bus in Naples, I’d taken the first hotel I came by. I was too tired. Too broken. What was the point of having money, anyway? Nothing I could do with it.
Plenty, according to Amara. Like book a ticket to India and fly back home. Then what? I was twenty-four. Too old to go home crying and ask Papa to fight off the mean world. Plus, with everything that had happened in the last six months, Delhi didn’t feel like home anymore to me.
The doors squeaked open on the fifth floor. Tightly shut yellow doors and navy blue walls with crooked picture frames greeted me. The dark blue carpet with the diamonds on it softened my footsteps as I trudged along the hallway to the dark end where my room for the night was.
Sometimes, I missed talking to Papa. Really talking. Not the short, ninety per cent lying conversations I’d been having with him for the past six months. But the actual deep conversations we used to have when I was in Delhi. Him watching the news. Me with my coffee. I missed that understanding. That unconditional love he oozed out to me. That freedom to say anything I wanted. Keeping everything bottled up inside was suffocating me. And I had to continue to do it till the end of my days.
Maybe I should just fly home and into his arms.And what? Hand over my burdens to him? If he didn’t crash from the guilt. It wasn’t his problem to solve.
This constant doubt, the fear curling in my chest. I was so tired of all of this. It seemed so easy. Fly back home. But even last week, he’d gone in for a one-day stay in the hospital. He thought I didn’t know that, but Maa had texted me about it. Warned me not to worry him even more with my ridiculous, made-up problems. And she was right. I was being selfish.
But selfish had felt good for some weeks. Selfish had made me delirious with happiness. While it had lasted.
Something threw me off, and I paused with my key in my hand. Made my thoughts shift. The hallway was quiet and dark. I circled three hundred and sixty degrees. No one was around. I sighed. Everything felt off. To think the same time two days before he’d been buried inside me.Forget it.What I needed was a few hours of sleep and then tomorrow I’d get to the border and cross to Switzerland, leaving all of Sicily and Italy behind me. It would just be beautiful memories then. Like a picture book of a past life. The hollowness in my chest expanded. Why did I have to have met them? I should never have gone home with Ada. Fewer people to miss. Fewer regrets. They were probably too busy, anyway. They must have been preparing for Sara’s wedding, I consoled myself as I stuck the key in the lock. My hands were so jittery it took me three attempts to get it to open.
