Chapter 1
I was in my happy place.
La Bella Rossini in North Beach. The best Italian food in San Francisco.
The first bourbon had warmed my insides and flushed my cheeks. My second glass of liquid gold sat sparkling in the candle light. A man I was crazy about was smiling at me like I was the best birthday present he’d ever received. The food was obscenely delicious.
Bobby reached his fork over the table to spear the massive scallop bathing in butter on my plate. I swatted him away. “Back off if you want to keep that hand.”
Hiding my smile, I took him in. Sometimes when he showed up at my door, I thought that there was no way such a beautiful man was all mine. He looked like a young Johnny Depp except he had longish auburn hair.
“What?” he said, tilting his head.
“Nothing.” No need to tell him what I was thinking or he might get a big head.
I chiseled off the tiniest piece from the hockey puck-sized scallop. I closed my eyes, and let out a small groan as it melted on my tongue.
When I opened my eyes, Bobby was smiling and shaking his head.
“Don’t do that in public. Please.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” It was the truth.
“If you want to stay long enough for dessert, you’re going to have to stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Moaning as you eat. Every dude in this restaurant is watching.”
“Oops.”
I looked around. The restaurant around us bustled with people celebrating this glorious late fall weather. The wall-sized windows were open, extending the dining room onto the bustling North Beach sidewalk. Diners sat at the sidewalk café tables. Although I didn’t live in this part of town anymore, it was very much my home. My people.
A small group of chicly dressed diners at a table near us spoke Italian. Although many of the North Beach old timers still spoke Italian, I didn’t hear it very often. This group was definitely from the bel paese. They had la bella figura down pat. From the women’s glossy hair and designer clothing to the men’s polished, custom-made shoes. Italians.
They stood out since most San Franciscans who came to eat in the Italian section of town donned the city’s unofficial laid back utilitarian uniform: skinny jeans, environmentally friendly slip on canvas shoes, flannel shirts, and fitted down jackets.
I was somewhere in between in my nicest leather pants and high-heeled boots. It was my dress-up uniform. We were celebrating Bobby’s birthday, so I’d ditched my motorcycle boots and faded jeans just for him.
I took another bite of my scallop and tried not to moan this time after I noticed that Bobby might be right: A few men at nearby tables watching me under hooded eyelids.
“Gia!”
A slight moan had slipped out. “I’m trying!”
“I can’t help it if I enjoy my food.” I gestured at my plate with my fork. “I mean it’s practically orgasmic.”
“Exactly.” Bobby said, making an exasperated face.
Over our dessert of pistachio-dotted cannoli, I pushed an envelope toward Bobby.
“Happy birthday.” My cheeks grew hot. For some reason, I was both embarrassed and nervous for him to open it.
He slid one finger into the envelope and withdrew a thick stack of papers, reading the top sheet. I knew the first piece of paper listed our airline reservations to Italy.
“You bought me a ticket.” He gave me a look. He’d thought I was going solo. “When I said I couldn’t afford it, I didn’t mean you should buy my ticket.” He looked a little pained, instead of happy. Damn it.
“Shut up, it’s your birthday. Dante’s my best friend and I want you to be my date for his wedding so my treat. It’s actually more of a birthday present for me.”
He rolled his eyes, but he seemed less distressed. He glanced down at the paper again. “We’re leaving tomorrow?”
“Surprise!”
“I don’t even have the time off work.”
“I already talked to your boss. He was totally down for it.”
Bobby raised an eyebrow.
“It’s cool,” I said. “He was really nice about it. In fact, he suggested a side trip we should take to some small island of the coast that has a marine research lab specializing in something. Like studying planktoskeletans or something. It’s not far from where we are staying in Positano. A train ride, maybe.” I’d forgotten exactly what it was, but I’d scheduled the trip as part of our itinerary. Bobby worked for a marine biology research lab studying how to prevent the depletion of oxygen-producing plants in the ocean. “The oceans are the lungs of planet earth,” he once told me.
“You mean phytoplankton?”
“Yeah, I think that was it.”
“Cool.” His eyes were wide and glassy with excitement. “Did you know the Mediterranean is arguably the most diverse sea basin when it comes to species and culture? I bet that lab has some research we could use in our studies. If we could figure out a way to keep the oceans clean, we can make up for—or at least counteract—some of the ozone depletion over Antarctica. The ocean provides half of all the oxygen on earth but we are destroying it. Carbon dioxide and industrialization are demolishing the ocean’s ability to provide us the oxygen we need.”
I tried to look interested. “Wow.” I gestured toward the stack of papers. “There’s more.”
He turned to the next page. It was a printout with color photos. He sat back, his mouth open as if he were about to say something.
“It’s where we’re staying.” I said, maybe a little big smugly.
“You’re joking, right?”
I couldn’t stop grinning. “No joke.”
He shook his head. “It’s a freaking castle.”
“It’s actually a villa.”
“It’s incredible.” He flipped through the papers. “Is there a picture of our room?”
“Bobby, the entire place is ours.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Not shitting.”
“For three weeks?”
“Yep. Happy birthday.”
He put the papers down. “It’s too much.”
“It’s not. Really. You should see Dante and Matt’s place. Freaking Taj Mahal of the Amalfi Coast.”
He pressed his lips together. I reached over and rubbed my fingertips over his creased brow. “Say thank you. Please.”
Bobby leaned back again, let out a big breath, and then, finally, smiled. “Thank you.”
I relaxed back into my seat, as well. The smile that always made me melt, also made everything perfect in my world again. My heart was full to bursting. If I could purr, I would. I’d have to make do with ripping his clothes off and having my way with him. Not a bad compromise, I thought, grinning to myself. I snaked my foot under the table and rubbed it against his leg.
“Should we blow this joint? I can think of something I’d rather be doing right now.” I gave him my sexiest smile.
“Check please.” He raised his arm.
We were curled around each other as we walked through the restaurant. As we stepped outside onto the sidewalk, I impulsively turned to kiss Bobby. I went up on tiptoe. His silky hair brushed against my cheek. At the same time my lips grazed his, a horrific screeching noise and ear-splitting blare of a horn was accompanied by Bobby jerking me off my feet and flinging me away.
I slammed against a wall, stunned by the impact, and blinded by headlights and then crushed by Bobby’s weight on my torso. I instinctively put up my arm to shield us. The air was filled with blood-curdling screams and the shuddering crunch of crumpling metal. The headlights stopped a few feet away from my face and the wall I was against shook.
Distantly I registered the headlights came from a gray SUV, wedged cater-cornered into the wall supporting the restaurant’s alcove doorway where we had taken cover. Or rather, where Bobby had tossed us. The passenger side door was inches away from Bobby’s leg. A few feet closer and we’d have been underneath the engine. A few feet the other way and the SUV would have careened through the open French doors and taken out the entire crowd of diners inside.
The screaming, coming from God knows where, grew louder and shriller.
I pushed my way out from under Bobby, frantic for air, hyperventilating with panic.
Bobby grabbed my arm before I could scramble to my feet. “Are you hurt?” He took my chin in his hands and looked into my eyes.
I couldn’t speak. Only shook my head. I tried to stand but my legs were Jello. I collapsed back onto the sidewalk.
“You sure you’re okay?” His voice was shaking. I didn’t answer, too staggered by what lay a few feet away. Limbs stuck out helter-skelter from beneath the vehicle, along with the mangled frame of a café table. The front window of the SUV had disintegrated, jagged glass shards along its edges. I couldn’t see anybody inside.
“Good God.” Bobby sprung up and was at the bumper. Several other men joined him. They lifted the car and set it off to one side. A man miraculously scrambled out from under the SUV. He had a tire mark on his chest. He took a few steps and collapsed. Another man lay unmoving. Bobby leaned over and checked the man’s pulse and then shook his head. A woman in a torn dress, stood screaming, pulling her hair and staring at the dead man. A small crowd gathered. The dead man’s eyes were open and seemed to stare straight at me. I looked away. That’s when I saw her.
With everyone concentrating on the victims under the vehicle, nobody had noticed her. She lay on her back on the sidewalk near the building, staring at me, her lips moving. Her clothes bloody. Her legs splayed at an unnatural angle. As I met her brilliant green eyes, she reached out her arm toward me. She gave me a look I knew I would never forget to my dying day: a combination of desperation, determination, and wide-eyed horror.
I crawled over to her on my hands and knees. She was speaking Italian, talking so quickly I couldn’t hear her over the still blaring horn or make out the words in the foggy, surreal haze that surrounded me. I lifted her head a few inches onto my lap and gently smoothed her hair off her forehead, trying to soothe her as I looked around for someone who could help her. Everybody was busy with the man who had crawled out from under the car. Finally, someone disabled the vehicle’s horn and whomever had been screaming finally stopped.
I heard the faint sounds of sirens in the distance. In the back of my mind I remembered something about not moving an injured person, but it was instinctive to lift her head out of the pool of blood on the sidewalk and smooth her hair back in an attempt to calm her. Her eyes were so green they seemed to glow.
She continued to speak in Italian, sounding angry, but her words seemed like they were coming from far away. I brushed a bloody clump of hair out of her face.
As I did, I felt something sticky. That’s when I saw that the other side of her head, the one near the wall, was laid open bare. A huge chunk of her scalp and brain were gone. I swallowed my revulsion, looking down on her, her features upside down, her green eyes were wide and glossy. As she rapidly spoke to me in Italian, her words finally came together for me.
“Sei tu.” It is you.
I’d never seen her before in my life, but I nodded and continued to brush her hair back on the side that was still intact. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” I tried to keep my voice reassuring even though it wasn’t okay. Not at all. Part of her brain was missing. She was babbling. All I could do was comfort her.
“Sei tu.” It is you.
Her green eyes grew wide and she looked angry. She struggled to sit up, but I held her down by placing my forearm across her upper chest. The movement had caused something to ooze out the side of her head. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it wasn’t good. Moving was the last thing she should be doing.
“Shhh,” I said, searching my memory for remnants of what Italian I remembered. “A chi bene crede, Dio provvede.” It was something my own mother had whispered to me as a child when I was upset. I didn’t know what it meant exactly, but it was all I had. A small part of me wanted to slip out from under her and run away from her as fast as I could. My body pleaded with my mind, begging me to get up and run as far away from this horror-movie scene as possible.
But my heart ordered me to sit tight. My Budo beliefs gave me resolve, fighting against my body’s natural repulsion.
Determined to comfort her, I held her as gently as a mother holds her own newborn. My job was to comfort her. I repeated my hopefully soothing words: “A chi bene crede, Dio provvede.”
But instead of calming her, my words seemed to infuriate her. She said something angry, spitting a little, glaring at me. “Sei tu.” It is you.
Then her body went limp. She’d been straining against me to lift her head, her neck muscles flexed, but now she relaxed in my arms. In the distance, the sirens seemed to draw closer.
Hurry. Hurry.
A nasty taste filled my mouth. I tried not to look, or think about, the side of her head. Instead, I concentrated on her face. Her brilliant green eyes, lined thickly with black eyeliner. Her perfectly shaped eyebrows and lips with red lipstick, forming an “O.”
The cacophony of sirens was close now. On the street, only a few yards away now. But looking into the woman’s eyes I knew it was too late. She stared at me intently, her gaze full of both fear and fury. I cradled her head as the light left her eyes and the life seeped out of her.
Bobby came over and tried to move me, but I shook his arm away and continued to stroke the woman’s hair on the one side. I sat there on the cold sidewalk until the paramedics came and gently lifted the woman out of my arms.
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