Page 124 of Capuleto

Fortunately, that pair was more focused on recounting their last lay than on discovering an intruder.

Once there, I hid behind a gigantic diesel tank ready to spend the night without incident.

The next day, I didn't gather much interesting information. Yuri spent most of the day out, and the men who stayed in the house spent their time playing cards and checking the property.

Things changed when night fell, and I saw Irene herself at the door.

What I didn't expect was to find out that Aleksa was in the hospital and that they were going to kill him that very night.

I cursed and didn't even worry about running into Kulkov. The surprise in his eyes lasted a second, the same one I needed to hit him with all my strength in the temple.

When I was in the army, they taught us that this was the thinnest part of the skull. A precise blow, delivered with enough force, could cause internal bleeding or something much worse. In the case of the Russian, he had encountered the second option; he had just found death in my knuckles.

The crunch was intense, and his body fell with a thud. Yuri's room door remained closed, so he hadn't heard anything; he would find out later when I was no longer in the house.

I knew there was at least one man patrolling the property exterior.

I opened the door silently and peeked through while attaching the silencer to my gun's barrel; it would be the quickest way.

Yuri's man was leaning against one of the trees, lighting a cigarette. I aimed, and the bullet pierced his forehead.

Doctors were right, smoking does kill you.

I ran and climbed over the access wall, not caring about the height separating me from the ground.

All I could think about was saving Aleksa's life; I couldn't lose him.

50

There are hard times

Coming to terms with the fact that Nikita was pregnant was not easy.

A child, my child, was growing in her womb, and that put me in a very difficult position.

They had already taken her to the ward, as promised. The fever had been fluctuating throughout the day, leaving Nikita in a state of semi-consciousness. The nurse mentioned that what she needed was rest so the antibiotic could do its job. They put an IV to keep her hydrated and came to check her temperature periodically.

I spent the day sitting by her side, not even calling my father. All I could think about was what to do next. I couldn’t kill my child, no matter how much of a bitch his mother was. Lying in bed, she even seemed kind, with her flawless complexion and blonde hair cascading over the pillow. An angel, most would say, not knowing that this woman could turn your life into the worst kind of hell.

Looking at her was reliving every moment we shared. I tried to anchor myself in the bad, to revel in the darkness that had enveloped our relationship, but the traitor in my brain kept sending me contradictory messages because even though Nikita was pretending her feelings for me, deep down, I had taken them as genuine and lived them as such. I knew I had been deluding myself; I wasn’t an idiot, no matter how much I seemed to be in this matter. The problem was that emotions clouded my reasoning and bombarded it with “what ifs” that led nowhere.

What my wife did was a complete betrayal; there wasn’t a single pore to poke through, no matter how much Nikita wanted to convince me otherwise. I had never felt this way about a woman, one who made me wish the clock hands would stop moving. That’s why her betrayal hurt so much because I loved her, and even though I told myself a thousand and one times that I should hate her, I didn’t want to see her corpse floating in the river.

I looked at the bandage on her arm and felt guilty. Pathetic, I know. I had been staring at her for a while, holding back the urge to place my hand on her abdomen because underneath that hospital gown, nestled in her belly, a tiny heart was beating strongly. They say something good always comes out of something bad; maybe this baby was that something.

Finally, I decided to gently lay my palm on her, and a slight tremor ran up my forearm. Nikita mumbled something. Without breaking contact, I looked up. She hadn’t woken up; she was still in her particular dream state. I melded my warmth with hers, wanting to transmit all my strength to that little seed that had germinated in hostile soil. I didn’t care if her mother was the worst person on the planet or if our marriage should never have happened because that baby changed everything.

I wanted to apologize to him, to say that if I had shot her, it was because I didn’t know he existed. I could never have forgiven myself for killing Nikita and then finding out in the autopsy that she was pregnant. They say surviving a child is the worst fate, but I think it’s much worse to be the cause of their death. If that had been the case, a cyanide pill wouldn’t have been enough.

I closed my eyes and apologized, swore I would protect him with my life until my last breath, and promised that no one would take him away from me. I would keep Nikita guarded twenty-four hours a day until she gave birth and then fulfill what the ‘Ndrangheta decreed for her; there was no other solution.

I removed my hand and got up from the chair. I had arranged to meet Irene for a drink at the café. At first, when she called, my first thought was of Nikita, how upset she would be about the call. Then I realized my discomfort was pointless; besides, I needed to talk to someone who wasn’t family. Irene knew how to listen.

I went down to the café and took one of the tables. Seven minutes later, a hand rested on my shoulder.

“Hello, R, how are you?”

51