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“The marriage is a lie.”
“Shut up, Michela.”
“I want to see my brother.”
“Not today.”
Something in Corrado’s voice makes me think that if I tried to run, he’d capture me. Like, really capture me and not let me go.
“But I must see him.” I hug myself. “I want to see him.” I start rocking. “I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to do this alone. I don’t…”
Corrado’s arms come around me, and he hugs me, moving my head to rest on his chest. “You’re going to be okay. I’ve got you. I do.”
He rocks with me, and I hear the sliding door open and close as Drago exits the house for the backyard.
40
DON’T DIAL THAT NUMBER
MICHELA
Ispend the next few days on the couch, glued to the news that keeps exaggerating and dramatizing every little thing, no matter how insignificant.
The arrival of the FBI was plastered as a “new development,” with red alert signs flashing over the screen. I wouldn’t have noticed how much the media dramatizes things had Corrado not commented on it this weekend.
It’s Monday today. I should be at work.
Before stepping into the backyard, Corrado hands me a beer. I’ve drunk one every night. It helps me sleep. I sip it and watch the front door. I’m thinking about running away.
I wonder if I could make it as far as the street and then hitch a ride to Jesse’s club.
Drago confiscated both my and Corrado’s phones, but he’s giving us new ones. In fact, he’s “securing” them now in the kitchen and seems preoccupied with a magnifying mirror and pins clasped between his fingers.
Corrado’s in the backyard on the lounge chair, seemingly napping, his face turned up into the waning sun that’ll dunk behind the horizon within the next hour or so. After that, I can run.
“Still thinking about running?” Drago asks from behind me.
No sense denying it. “Yes.”
“Where would you go?”
“To see my brother.”
“And when the authorities ask you where you were, what will you tell them?”
“Whatever Corrado wants me to say.”
As if summoned, Corrado walks into the house. He takes one look at us, and I know he knows I’ve thought about running. These men are smart. This is their sandbox, and I’m the new girl with pigtails they want to tug to see if I’ll cry and tattletale or suck it up.
Corrado sits at the foot of the couch and turns up the TV volume. My picture is up on the screen again.
“The search for the missing woman, Michela Trentino, is ongoing, with authorities growing suspicious that she was a victim of a trafficking ring run by the Benvenuti crime family.”
“Oh my God.” I cover my mouth. “Trafficked. My poor mom. I hope they don’t loosen up the rules and let them watch the news in the facility.” When Corrado doesn’t comment, I go on. “My brother will think men are raping me. This will kill him.” I drop to my knees and crawl to Corrado. I put my hands together in prayer. “Please let me see him. Please call him. I know you have resources that can do that. Please. I’ll do anything, anything at all. Don’t let him rot in there and think all is lost for Mom and me. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s a good man.”
Corrado pulls me up to sit on his lap. I start crying again, and he rubs my back, shushing me. “When things calm down, I promise he’ll know you’re fine. But right now, we lay low.”
“We’ve sat in this house for days, and things haven’t improved. If anything, they’ve gotten worse. I went from missing to kidnapped to trafficked. The next step is dead.”
