Page 8 of The Man with a Treasure

“Oh my God,” uttered Sal. “Isabella.”

The first time I saw Isabella Giordano, she was in my father’s arms. He had stepped out of the backseat of the car that way. This woman, wrapped in a blanket, clung to his neck, tightly curled against his chest as if she was expecting to be attacked at any moment, and only the man holding her could help her survive. Whole body trembling, she didn’t dare to come out from under his chin to look around.

I wanted to greet my father since he had been gone for most of the time I had been on the property. His search for Isabella had taken ten whole years. But there was someone who needed to see his daughter, and I didn’t dare interrupt such an awaited moment that most believed would never come.

Mr. Giordano, an aging man, stood in the front yard of his fancy home. In his expensive suit, his expression of horror spoke to all of his mistakes. It spoke of why I wanted away from such a family. All the money—from illegal activities—was not worth the true price. God saw what was being done. Greed had cost Mr. Giordano so much more than all his wealth.

His daughter was now broken and would never be the same. No matter what.

After Isabella had returned, Sal and I hadn’t been told what she had undergone during her abduction, but we sure wondered because we often woke to her screams in the night. We would sit up in bed, our hearts racing as we waited to hear how the adults reacted. We didn’t know if we should grab guns and run outside, like when a wolf would hunt the sheep.

But no one moved.

The only wolves present were from Isabella’s haunted past.

One particular night, when her screams woke us, Sal and I snuck out of the house. We crept around to the back of the Giordano mansion, hoping to find answers. What we found was my father, sitting on the ground, in the dark, crying.

When it was clear I wasn’t going to hide, Sal backed away into a shadow to save my father his dignity from crying. My father peered up, startled I had been able to sneak up on him. “Mr. Rossi is teaching you well.” He quickly wiped his face to disguise the tears I had already witnessed.

Not interested in a lie or cover-up, I knelt next to him. “I am glad you are home.”

Those being my first words seemed to surprise him. We had not spoken much since his return. It seemed he had been avoiding me. Since I was happy where I was and didn’t want to now live with my father, I let him.

He let his hands fall, no longer hiding his wet face. “Thank you.”

After a moment of silence was broken by Isabella crying out again, I dared to ask, “What happened to her?”

With exhaustion I wasn’t accustomed to witnessing on a Suit, he leaned his head back against the house. “I think the proper question would be, what didn’t happen to her?”

“Will her nightmares ever end?”

Tears streaming, my father shook his head. “I do not believe so, son.”

“You wish you could have found her sooner?”

A sob escaped him before he could recover. “Yes. Very much so.”

“At least she is with family now.”

Father eyed me with a glimmer of pride. “Yes, this is true.”

I am grateful my father did not tell me more details until I was older. My young mind was impressionable. Why haunt my dreams with a cruel world before needed? Which it would be. In an unimaginable way.

History would soon repeat itself for my father and me.

One year later

By age fifteen, Sal and I were gaining weight and growing much taller, absolutely taking up all the room in our little beds. Mrs. Rossi was now complaining about having to peer up to read our eyes. I asked her once, “Why is it so important you read my eyes?”

“Ah, that is so I can see if you have fallen off—” she suddenly grabbed her aproned stomach and slowly, distractedly, finished with, “your path,” while staring into nothing that was for me to see. Then, as if whatever was shown to her was quite alarming, her upper body startled backward as she sucked in air.

“Mamma? Are you not well?” asked Sal as he entered the living area connected to the kitchen.

As soon as he was close enough, she pulled him into her arms with such vigor my heart sped up. Holding him to her, she nodded. “Yes, my son. I will be just fine.” I swallowed as one of her hands left her son to reach up and cup my cheek. “My angel will make it so.”

After releasing me, she then released her son. “Would my boys like some hot milk before their adventurous day?”

Knowing the answer, she didn’t wait for a reply, just turned to the stove and heated milk. She still called it hot milk, but as we got older, more and more coffee was added. We were no longer children, per se, only allowed hot milk of coco, and could totally be on full coffee by this point, but Mrs. Rossi liked to mother.