CHAPTER TWO│ UNFAMILIARITIES

SCARLETT DEL GATO

I crack my eyes open, squinting at my surroundings. I tried to lift my head from my pillow, but when I feel throbbing at the back of my head, I plopped my head straight back down onto the pillow. It felt as if though someone were drilling a hole inside my head, over and over again, without stopping.

I groan and close my eyes to relieve some of the pain coming from the back of my head, but to no avail. Closing my eyes only made the back of my head throb more and more, so I opened my eyes again and looked at my surroundings.

The walls were covered in this dark platinum-coloured wallpaper and the entirety of the room was decorated fairly well—with travertine marbled floors that were polished and with walls beautifully decorated with paintings of flowers and landscapes all around the world.

The room had French windows that were covered with these beautiful light grey draped curtains that barely kissed the marble floors and even though the curtains were closed, I still spotted the sunlight peeking through.

There was also a clock hanging on the wall right above the door.

It read; 13:45pm.

I look up, seeing a slow-paddling ceiling fan.

There was a wooden desk in the corner of the room, right beside the draped window, but there was nothing piquing my interest lying on the desk—there was only a small potted fern that has been watered recently, a black pen and an empty photo frame.

I can only assume that this was some sort of guestroom.

The guestroom was nice and warm, and it was surprisingly comfortable.

While I was trying to figure out where I was, I see some flashbacks running through my mind: I remember Giovanni in the kitchen, how he used his gun to beat my brother across the face. I remember Vito pulling me out of the kitchen, careful not to hurt me. I also remember him smiling sadly at me after his brother shot mine.

Giovanni shot my brother, but looking down at my still clothed and un-bruised body, I don’t think he shot me too. Yes, I had this throbbing pain at the back of my head, but I definitely wasn’t shot.

If I was shot, I would have been dead right now.

I swallow hard when the flashback brought tears to my eyes, but I had to swallow it down when I suddenly heard footsteps nearing the room, the footsteps echoing on the travertine marbled floors.

The door to my room opened and I caught a glimpse of both Vito and Giovanni entering my room at the same time but I closed my eyes just in time. I don’t want them to notice that I was awake this entire time. If they did, I’m dead.

“How hard did you hit her over the head, brother?” Giovanni asks, his tone filled with amusement. “It’s been three days and she still hasn’t woken up.”

That’s why my head throbbed so badly.

I’ve been hit with something after all.

I don’t know what I was hit with, but hearing that I was out for three days, it couldn’t have been something like Vito’s fist or even the staircase.

It must’ve been Vito’s gun. That’s the only thing I can think of. Just thinking about it made the throbbing unbearable again, but I managed to ball my hands into fists, controlling the pain by focusing on my nails digging into the palms of my hands instead of the throbbing sensation at the back of my head.

The throbbing was the least of my worries. I’ve been sleeping for three days straight? I’ve been in this place for three days and I’m still alive and breathing?

Vito must’ve convinced Giovanni that I was worth keeping alive. If that’s the case, I hope Vito can convince him to let me leave this place in one piece too.

I peel my one eye open, looking at Vito like someone would watch a horror movie—through their fingers. Vito didn’t find his brother amusing at all.

“You would’ve killed her if I didn’t take matters into my own hands.”

Giovanni’s amusement falters. “What do you think would’ve happened if we left her back at her house, Vito?” He asks, his tone a little harsher than before. “She would’ve run to the cops the first chance she got.”

Vito opens his mouth to object, but he closes it again when his brother started to talk again.

“I would’ve gone back to ESP because the cops are already on my trail for the massacres I clearly didn’t commit back at Old Bob’s Bar. If she told them that I shot her brother, I would’ve been back in ESP, no doubt, and I don’t think dad’s money would’ve been able to get me out of that place this time.”

“Dad’s money didn’t get you out last year, Giovanni.” Vito says. “You served your sentence.”

Giovanni shakes his head. “That’s not the point right now.” He says, tugging at the roots of his hair. “The point right now is her.” He jerks his chin toward me and I snap my eye closed faster than a blink.

Luckily he didn’t notice that I was awake.

“What the hell are we going to do with her now?”

Vito sighs and for the first time in ever, he sounded defeated.

“To shoot her was the only option we had, but now we have to take care of her because you decided that it was a good idea to bring her to the mansion. We could’ve done something about her instead of worrying about the consequences right now—”

“Stop being so emotionless, Giovanni.” Vito says and I peel my eye open again to look at his expression. He was tugging at his roots too, clearly annoyed at his brother for being a heartless asshole. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No,” Giovanni agrees. “She didn’t do anything wrong but she was related to that… that fucking rat.” His face pained when he said those words, but his expression turned into something more sinister not long after: anger.

“I know you’re hurt and feel betrayed, Giovanni.” Vito says, placing his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Antonio was your best friend, after all.”

I knit my eyebrows together in confusion.

Antonio wasn’t Giovanni’s best friend.

Antonio barely had any friends, and even if he had, it wouldn’t have included someone like Giovanni.

I don’t think that was right.

I was imagining things.

I have a concussion and I was clearly hallucinating.

Giovanni pinches the bridge of his nose. “Don’t talk about him, Vito.”

Vito shakes his head and tilts his head toward the bed, toward me.

He locks eyes with me.

He frowns, but just enough for Giovanni not to notice. It’s like he didn’t want Giovanni to know that I was awake because he was just as afraid as me to know what the consequences would be if he knew that I was awake. I don’t think Vito knew what his brother was capable of, and I didn’t want to find out either.

He turns to look at Giovanni again.

I feel a wave of relief washing over me.

Eden was right.

He was the gentle brother.

“When dad comes home,” Giovanni starts, inhaling deeply as his chest rose and then fell with an exhale, “you have to explain to him why she’s here and why you were a coward to do things my way.” There was silence for a while before he spoke again. “I say just kill her now and then all, and I mean all of our problems would be solved. Poof, disappeared into thin air.” He says, gesturing with his hand in the air.

“No.” Vito says, his decision final. “I don’t want another death to be on my hands. I don’t want to be a part of this.”

“Oh,” Giovanni chuckles, “but you are part of this. You were part of this since you brought her in this mansion without a plan on getting her out of here again.”

My heart somersaults inside my chest at his following words.

“You have to do something about her soon, or I will.”

I swallow hard, careful not to draw attention to myself.

“What do you want me to do, Giovanni?” Vito asks him. “If you killed her, not one, but two deaths would have been on your hands. If you killed her and they found out that you did it, you would be sent to jail with no parole at all. You’d be lucky if you got a life sentence and not the death one. She’s—”

Vito inhales deeply, composing himself.

“I saved your ass, Giovanni.”

“No,” Giovanni shakes his head, “You didn’t save me. You just caused more problems for the both of us. Dad already doesn’t like us and telling him that we brought the sister of a rat into his mansion,” he chuckles humourlessly, “I don’t even want to tell you what might happen to all of us.”

All of us.

He said all of us and not just me.

“So, you didn’t save my ass, Vito.” Giovanni says, raking his fingers through his thick onyx-coloured hair. “You only put a target on my back even more.” With that, Giovanni left the room in three long strides. He shut the door hard behind him, shaking the paintings on the wall.

Vito shakes his head again before he made his way over to the side of the bed. He stops, his knee barely touching the bed, and he looks down at me.

It didn’t help to fake-sleep now because he already knew I was awake the second he came into the room, and the only reason he hasn’t told Giovanni that I was awake yet is because I don’t think he wants his brother to harm me.

“Did you know about what your brother was involved in?” He asks me.

I open my eyes fully, taking him in. He looked like he was about to go to a wedding—black bow-tie, his hair styled backwards but it was a little tousled from when he raked his fingers through it, a black tuxedo jacket, a black buttoned up shirt and a pair of shiny dress shoes. I focused on the shine of his shoes, not wanting to look at him at all.

If I lie to him, Giovanni would kill me.

If I stay quiet, Giovanni would kill me.

So I kept quiet and sealed my lips.

I was dead either way, if I talked or if I didn’t talk. They were going to let me leave here in a body bag, if not a normal trash bag that they’d just dump in a ditch somewhere—somewhere no one would ever find me.

I feel a traitorous tear run down my cheek and I made no effort to wipe it away. But Vito however, raised his hand and wiped it away with a brush of his thumb. It was so smooth and so fast that I barely felt it.

It almost felt like a feather against your skin.

His thumb was warm against my cool skin from the ceiling fan’s wind and his touch sent a shiver cascading down my back and it wasn’t because I liked it.

He lets his hand fall to his side again. “Please answer me.” He pleads. “Otherwise your brother would have died for nothing—”

I retracted, spitting in his face. It was definitely a reflex, one I didn’t regret at all, but when I glanced down at his hands, they were balled into fists. I suddenly regretted spitting in his face.

He doesn’t do anything about it. He only wipes my spit away from his face with the sleeve of his tuxedo jacket. He never looked away from my face, and I never looked away from his.

My hands shook on the bed beside me, but I kept my gaze locked on him.

“You and your psychotic brother can torture me all you want but I am not throwing my already dead brother under the bus.” I tell him, the confidence booster really helping my case a lot right now. “If you wanted to know what he was mixed up in or why he betrayed your psycho ass brother, you should’ve asked him before you put a bullet in his head!”

Vito pulls at his collar, the button at the top of his neck nearly popping off with how hard he was pulling at it. He inhales deeply and exhales again. The smell of mint with a hint of nicotine washes over my face. “I just want to know if you knew.” He says, walking away without another glance or word my way.

He does stop near the door before pulling it open and he looks over his shoulder, but he doesn’t look at me. “For all it’s worth, I didn’t want to kill your brother.”

“Fuck you.”

He ignores my foul mouth, turns the doorknob of my door, and leaves my room.

I was sitting on the bed now, the pain behind my neck just a faint throbbing now. It was still there though, the pain of being hit over the head with something hard and surely metallic.

I was staring out of the window when the door to my room opened. A women in about her early thirties walks through the door with a tray like it was a normal occurrence for her to serve hostages inside this mansion.

She carries the tray and sets it down onto the nightstand.

There was an apple, a few grapes still on the roots, a slice of buttered toast, a few thinly sliced pieces of cheese and a glass of water on the tray.

The glass actually was sweating from the ice that already started to melt inside the glass. My mouth watered.  I can’t remember the last time I had a decent glass of water.

She smiles at me. “How are you feeling?”

I wonder how much they paid her to keep quiet about what happened inside this mansion—probably a lot by the looks of the diamond necklace around her neck hiding behind her apron.

I shrug. “I have a throbbing headache.”

She nods in understanding, biting her thin lip between her teeth. “You might have a concussion.” She says. “I’ll go get Kallie for you but I think you just need to rest. You’ve been out for a long time.”

“Rest?” I scoff. “I’m being held prisoner here. How the hell am I going to rest knowing that one of those psychotic brothers want me dead?”

She flinches at my tone and her smile from a few seconds ago fades away. “I’m sorry.” She says, giving me an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry.”

“You can get me out of here.”

“I can’t.” She says, shaking her head wildly.

“But—”

She was out of my room before I could finish my sentence.

“Ah great.” I huff, looking at how she closed the door behind her in a hurry.

I look at the glass of water resting on the nightstand and take it in my hand.

I take one big gulp, liking how cold the water was. It eased the dryness in my throat and it lessened the scratch I had from not eating or drinking anything in—I look at the clock resting on the wall by the door—five days.

I nibbled on a piece of cheese when the door to my room opens again.

I didn’t expect it to be Vito or that lady who brought me this food.

And I was right, it was neither of them.

It was Giovanni.