Repaying the Mafia’s Dept

TRISTAN The paramedics came and took over from Massimo. We all stood on and watched as one agonizing second after another ticked by. With each passing second I saw Candace’s life slipping away.

Candace.

Candace the girl who means so much to us. Such a true friend she felt like family. Such a true friend there was never any doubt about trust when it came to her. She’s the kind of person who will always be true to you and always put herself last. She’s the heart of us. The person who keeps us from slipping away into the darkness of our world. She’s … She can’t die.

Everything fades around me as I continue to watch the paramedic trying to save her. As he resorts to getting the defibrillator I know we’re in serious trouble. The severity of the situation has gone past hoping she’ll make it with the right people helping her. Those trained to save lives.

It’s gone past that. The time for miracles has arrived. The time for prayers and wishes, anything that will help. The last time I saw my brothers cry the way they are was when Ma was found dead in the river. We were all children. This is years later and if we lose Candace I don’t know how I’ll be able to deal with that type of loss.

I see the look on the paramedics face. His colleague is looking at him like he should stop, but I think he keeps going because of us.

All of us.

He looks to me, and I silently bid him to continue. Never stop until she comes back. Never stop until the life comes back to the girl we love so much. Never stop until he pulls her back from wherever she’s gone.

Turning his gaze away from me he gives her one blast, then another and … her heart starts beating.

It’s a faint beep but it’s there. I hear it. Beep… beep…beep, beep.

Her heart is beating! I release the breath I was holding on to.

I want to rush over to her and thank her for coming back, thank her for staying and not joining the ghosts of loved ones on the other side. However, the swiftness with which the paramedics next move tells me she’s not out of the woods yet.

“We have to get her to surgery now,” the paramedic says and they head out.

The next few hours go by in a blur because it happens so fast. Candace is taken to the hospital for surgery and we all go there and wait.

One hour goes then another follows and we wait.

The hospital waiting room is packed with those living on a prayer, hoping their loved ones pull through.

We’re all here but sitting apart, split like the wild cards life dealt us.

Dominic is in the far corner, Massimo is standing by the floor to ceiling glass windows gazing out to the night and I’m sitting with Isabella.Nôvel(D)rama.Org's content.

In the back of my mind I try to pin point when it was Dominic started to change. His grief over Pa made him slip. That was clear, but I think Andreas betrayal did something to us as brothers. it had to, and that explains everything since we’ve always been close.

I glance at his pale, grief stricken form sitting over in the corner and I find I can barely look at him. he looks like he’s climbed down from the high and he’s himself again, but fuck… fucking fuck, look at the shit that happened. He clearly didn’t know what the fuck he was doing if he was just shooting up the fucking house the way he was and waving the gun around the way he did when Candace tried to intervene. I know it was an accident. Having had that same gun pointed at me, I can say he would have been more likely to aim at me and shoot me than her, even in his state of drug induced craziness.

I can’t imagine how he must feel now.

Feeling the intensity of my stare he glances at me and shame makes him look away.

Y eah, fucking right. He’s right to do just that because accident or not, if he wasn’t my brother he’d be dead right now. I know Massimo feels the same way, and that’s why he’s keeping away from all of us. We came in here together and automatically split off when we were told we’d have to wait.

Soft fingers stroke over my palm. The motion so soft and stark against the roil of emotion raging inside me. I look down at my hand and see I’m holding Isabella’s. I don’t remember doing that. I’m holding her hand and squeezing. That’s why she’s stroking me. She knows I’m enraged.

My gaze climbs up to meet her tear stained eyes and she reaches out to touch my face. I go to her when she pulls me closer for a hug and allow myself to be comforted. I need it. I need this moment of respite. I need her.

I just need to have a break so I can find my footing. My mind needs to rest from the worry and her arms around me is helping.

As she holds me my mind drifts to the past. Far, far away to the past when I was a kid.

There’s one memory I’m sure all my brothers share and that’s all of us playing in the meadows of Stormy Creek. Ma did a painting of us. Massimo has it at home. We thought he was the best person to keep it but I kept the memory in my heart.

I remember because those were the days when we just had each other. life was hard. I remember life being so hard but having each other was all we needed. It was a life lesson of what we’d need as time went by.

Another hour drifts by, then another and I find I actually can’t calm my mind, not when I don’t know what’s happening.

I straighten up when the surgeon comes into the room. He’s closest to Massimo so he sees him too. Dominic next.

We all snap to attention and rush over to him.

“How is she?” Massimo asks first speaking the words tumbling around in our minds.

“She’s stable,” the surgeon answers. “We managed to get the bullet out and there doesn’t seem to be any grave damage we can’t work on, but since she was out for a while before her heart started beating we don’t know when she’ll wake up. That kind of trauma can impact the brain a lot.”

“She’s in a coma?” I ask.

“Yeah. I can’t say when she’ll pull out of it. We finished surgery an hour ago and we’ve been monitoring her. She could wake up soon, or it could be tomorrow or next week, or next month, or… well we have no idea. Her vitals are strong so we have hope, it’s just on her now.”

“Thank you. Thank you for saving her.”

“You’re welcome. I suggest you all go home and get some rest. You won’t be allowed to see her for another few hours anyway while she’s in the recovery suite. I can call you to let you know if there are any changes.”

“Call me. I’ve got my name down as her next of kin,” Massimo says.

“Okay, I’ll do that,” the doctor says and leaves us.

“You guys go home,” Massimo says looking to each of us. “I’m gonna stay but hang out in my car.”

“I’m staying, I’m sorry I know you just gave me an order but I can’t leave,” Dominic says. A tear drifts down his cheek and he walks away not waiting for Massimo’s answer.

Massimo’s face softens as he watches him walk back over to where he was previously sitting.

“I’ll take Isabella home and come back,” I say.

“I’d prefer to stay,” Isabella cuts in. “I want to stay if that’s okay.”

She looks exhausted, like she can barely keep her eyes open. I’m touched she wants to stay but I think she should go back to the house and sleep.

“It is okay but you need to sleep. I’ll take you back and I’ll call home to make sure you have any updates,” I answer. “Okay?”

“Alright.”

I put out my hand to take hers and she takes it.

As we walk out I notice Massimo doesn’t go to his car like he said he would, he goes over to sit opposite Dominic.

I give him credit because I don’t know if I could do the same, or when this rage will leave me.

Dominic was on drugs. I still can’t believe it. I still can’t.

Isabella and I drive back in silence. She falls asleep for a little while on the way back but wakes up before we reach. When we get out of the car and walk into the house it feels strange. There’s a hollow feel to the place I can’t ignore.

We’re on the other side, far from the living room where Candace was shot, but that hollowness is so thick it surrounds the house.

I take Isabella up to her room. As I’m about to leave her I realize this should be goodbye again.

This should be it.

We walk in and she turns to face me with huge sad eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I feel like my presence was what got him so worked up. he was really upset and it’s understandable.”

“You can’t blame yourself for what happened. Dominic was high Isabella.”

I still want to beat the shit out of him. I don’t even know how he gathered himself so quickly after he shot Candace. I full well expected him to shoot all of us in the state he was in.

Back at the hospital, his pupils still looked dilated.

“I feel like I was the straw that broke his back. I could see it when he spoke about your father.”

“He shouldn’t have talked about you that way,” I say. “The problem existed before we met you.”

I think about it all, replaying tonight’s events in my mind. Dominic believed we weren’t there for him. That wasn’t the first time he’s said that to me. He said that the other week too. Tonight he pointed out that no one spoke about losing Pa. That’s true. If I’m being honest he’s right about that. We didn’t.

I think having to grieve Pa by himself set the chain in motion for him to get hooked on drugs.

I gaze on at Isabella and see how sad she looks. I move closer to her and she moves to me, arms outstretched.

I take her into mine and hold her. My heart starts beating rapidly and the closeness makes me want to take comfort in her.

Everything she is to me stops me from resisting the pull of need that stirs within my soul. It feels like the most natural thing to do when I lower my lips to hers and we kiss.

We kiss and suddenly fall into bed kissing. I’m not going to resist what my body feels like doing next, because my mind, heart, body and soul need to escape in her and it’s not just because of tonight’s events. It’s because she’s what I need.

Our clothes come off and I slide right into her welcoming passage, she’s ready for me. always ready for me to take her.

I do. As I start driving into her body, making love to her everything that I feel for her comes rushing to the forefront of my mind. The way she touches me, the way she looks at me, the way she feels to me are things I never thought I’d have again. but… it’s not again. This is the first time.

I fell for her the first time I looked at her and now I know I wasn’t imagining things. She unlocked something inside me that only she had the keys for. It made me fall for her, fall in love with her.

Only she could make me love her the way I do.

We come together giving into the climax of the pleasure that takes us with mutual surrender. When I look at her again I know she can see how I feel. It’s that soul to soul moment. It’s happening again. A moment where words don’t need to be spoken. You just look at each other and know exactly what the other is feeling.

I’ve never experienced that with anybody and as I continue to look at her I know I never will with anyone else, just her.

It’s best though that I say nothing, because I can’t give her what she needs.

It’s because I love her why I have to let her go.

I want her to have the best and that’s not me.