Page 68 of Blinded By The Sun
King
I can’t believe I’m married… I stare at my ring. It’s odd because I know for a fact that I didn’t wear one yesterday at the ceremony. I don’t know how much this cost but it looks expensive as hell. I sigh, I didn’t know that I was the kind of girl who was in love with diamonds, but now I am. The shape of it, I know that it’s a nice cut, squarish… From what I know with the women clients who also came in, it’s princess cut, and the band is all diamonds. I slip out of bed leaving a sleeping Ciro to rest and I make my way to the bathroom. When I look in the mirror, I gasp and reach out touching my neck. The diamond necklace close to being a choker that adorns my neckline is beautiful.
I pull my hair back to admire it. I have never received a gift in my life, and this is everything to me. I don’t jump this time as Ciro appears in the bathroom with no noise. Eventually, he would wake up because I moved out of bed. I peer up at him, looking at him through the reflection of the mirror. “Happy Birthday.”
I chuckle. “It’s not my birthday,” I say.
“It isn’t, but I missed it and as my wife, you deserve everything that I can afford and that’s a lot of shit, baby,” he winks. He leans down and kisses my bare shoulder.
Ciro moves out of the mirror and goes to pee. This I’m shocked at. It’s weird that I would ever be in anything domestic like this. I have never once in my life thought I would be able to just be someone’s wife. Mistress? Probably, but not a wife. This is what normal women dream of, not me. Ciro finishes, flushes the toilet and washes his hands. I watch him through the entire ordeal. He looks at me with a smirk and a shake of his head. Seeing a disheveled Ciro is the best gift in the world. His hair is in a messy bun with some falling down his face. Ciro fixes his hair and puts it up again. He grabs a toothbrush and does all the things. “I’m going back to bed. Come join me when you’re done being weird,” he teases. He swats me on my ass as he walks out of the bathroom naked as the day he was born.
The blush still creeps in. I guess there won’t ever be a time when Ciro doesn’t make me feel like the luckiest woman in the world who has married her very first crush. I want to go back to bed with him, but I know I told Kenna that I would get lessons on how to make breakfast from her. I turn on the sink water and begin brushing my teeth. I finish that off and step into the shower. I shut my eyes underneath the water as it drowns me in all its glory. I’m transported back to the restaurant; every scene of us girls laughing and talking, then there’s an all-black GMC that pulls up. I see a man step out of the car and I recognize him. I know who he is, but I thought he forgot all about me. He steps near the restaurant like he wants to come in, but when we make eye contact through the restaurant window, his striking green eyes widen. He looks remorseful, and full of regret, but, I see the coward he was once and still is. My father shakes his head and gets back in the GMC and it peels off.
Not even minutes after that, a black escalade pulls up. The windows go down and the man is wearing a mask, but I see the tattoos on his fingers as he pulls a gun out and squeezes the trigger. I don’t react fast enough and right before Bobby tackles me to the floor, the front passenger window rolls down and the man tries to remain inconspicuous but there’s no hiding those dead gray eyes. I don’t know him, but his features were clear to me. My eyes pop open and I scramble out of the shower, forgetting everything like the fact that I could bust my ass.
“Ciro!” I yell out. “Ciro!”
“What?” He gets out of bed with a gun I didn’t even know where it came from. “What is it?” He stands like a soldier.
“I’ve seen that gun before.” I say staring at it. I’m not scared, I’m just observing.
“What?” Ciro is still confused.
“Well, not that one, but another one. It’s the one that the tattooed man wearing a mask shot at us. There was one shooter, and I saw the guy sitting in the front. He was smiling as if this is what he wanted to do.” I say to Ciro, breathing heavily. I don’t realize I’m even trembling until Ciro moves around and grabs a towel to dry me off. He sits me down on the bed with the gun still in his possession.
Ciro crouches, not even caring that he is naked. “Look at me, sugar. Talk to me. What is going on? Tell me slowly… What did you remember?”
“Everything.” I say with my eyes wide open. “I can even give you a license plate number, Cir. But that man, I can’t ever forget what he looks like. He looked like a man who is on the verge of death, not physically but like he’s seen too much. Dead gray eyes. Eyes that could haunt my dreams.” I shiver.
“No.” Ciro says firmly. “There will be no one haunting your dreams. I won’t allow it. I don’t give a fuck.” I can see that Ciro knows exactly who I’m talking about, but I also know he won’t tell me.
I’m fine with that, I don’t want to be part of his life in that way. There are things that I would rather stay away from. I don’t want to be turned into a ruthless killer; I am myself. They have raised me around that life, but never have I once wanted that kind of life for myself. I take a breath in and release another. “No secrets between us, right?” I ask Ciro.
He nods. “None. I tell you what you want to know.”
“Okay… I need to tell you something else. You will not like it, but I don’t think it’s linked to whoever shot at us.”
“Talk to me.” Ciro says.
“My father… He was there. At the restaurant, he wanted to come in and talk to me, but then I saw it in his eyes. He was afraid to talk to me. Why would he be afraid to talk to me? What did I ever do to him? I wouldn’t have turned my nose down at him. I would’ve listened to him, ya know?”
“Baby…” is all he says. Ciro stands and pulls me into his arms. “Do you want me to talk to him?”
I wrap my arms around his naked torso. “No. It’s okay. I just,” I stop because I don’t know how this will sound.
“What is it, sugar?”
I pull my head back a little to look up at him. “I look like him, Ciro. I’ve always wondered, you know. When I was younger, I thought I had what he looked like in my head, but I didn’t. I didn’t remember his face and I guess that’s where the whole photogenic thing stemmed from, but…” I choke on my words.
Ciro looks conflicted. “Did you not want to look like him?” He asks.
I shake my head. “That’s not it at all. I just, wow. I look like someone. I look like someone who made me. You know something, I don’t even hate him. I’ve never hated him. I just wish he would talk to me, you know. I don’t want an explanation or anything, I just want to look him in the eye and see the resemblance. I want to know what he smells like, how he laughs, what his favorite book is and if he even likes Shakespeare. I just want to know him.” I confess.
Ciro pulls me further into his arms and kisses my head. “Fuck, baby. Fuck, I wish I could do this for you.”
“Thank you, but it’s okay, I’ll wait for him. I’ve waited 25 years for him. What is a couple more?” I say and hold on tight to the one man that I know for a fact won’t ever let me think twice about what his laughter sounds like. I’ll never forget this man. Ciro Sarkozy is embedded in my soul.
