I
spent the next hours, days, and weeks in bed. Olga and Atilla kept me company. István joined in at times. We played games, read books, watched TV, and just hung out, getting used to one another. A bit like siblings. My test results came in and were getting better by the day. I grew calmer, too. I can’t say I was happy—there was no day that I didn’t think about Massimo, but at least I could live without him. I called my mom, switching numbers each time. Thank God my phone had caller ID blocking, so she didn’t know I was changing them all the time. And she would never call me first. She always waited for me to do it.Fall came and went. It was December. My mood was declining steadily
—I grew too large for my clothes, even though my belly was still smaller than I’d anticipated. Olga was fighting with herself while István was fighting with her reluctance. One day, the conversation that couldn’t be avoided finally came.
“It’s time for us to go back to Poland, Laura. Either way, we need to move out of here,” Olga said, sitting by the kitchen counter one morning, as
I was having breakfast.
“The kid is okay now, you’re feeling well, nobody is following us or looking for us. It’s been nearly two months. Let’s go back.”
I was glad she’d proposed that. We both missed Poland—our parents and friends. Hungary was gorgeous, but we were only ever going to remain guests. We couldn’t overstay our welcome.
“You’re right. Did you tell István?”
“Yeah. We talked through the night. He understands. I have made him realize we weren’t going to be together forever, no matter what. I think he’s accepted that.”
Atilla appeared in the kitchen and gave me his now-customary great hug and a smooch on the forehead.
“How’s my favorite mommy doing?” he asked.
The fact that he was gay made it easier for me to get closer to him. He might have been one of the most handsome men I had ever known, but I treated him like a brother.
“I’m feeling well enough to tell you that we’re leaving,” I said, reciprocating his embrace.
He jumped back, his face suddenly filled with anger, and he rounded the counter, slamming his hands onto it and shouting, “You can’t just leave now! You can’t leave me here alone! Besides, you can’t change doctors again. What if you start feeling worse in Poland? Who’s going to take care of you then? I won’t allow it! You’re not going anywhere.”
He slammed his hands on the counter again and pinned me with a furious glare. His reaction left me short for words. This abrupt change that had transformed a cute boy into a totalitarian lunatic unwilling to part with his possessions shocked me.
“Stop acting like a prick, Atilla!” Olga barked, getting up. “Don’t you yell at us. There’s nothing worse than a handsome man acting like a total douchebag. We’re not leaving you. We’re going back to our country. You can come and visit. It’s not like we’re from Canada. We can see each other every week if you’d like that. Besides, there are a lot of beautiful boys for you in Warsaw.”
I pushed myself to my feet and walked over to him, cuddling against his muscular torso.
“Now, now, Godzilla, don’t get so angry,” I said placatingly. “You can come with us if you’d like. But we have to go home.”
I patted him on the back and went upstairs. Just like I predicted, I didn’t have to wait for long until my new gay brother stormed into my room. He slammed the door behind him, stomped across the room, grabbed me by the throat with a muscular arm, and shoved me into the wall. I felt the familiar tickling sensation in my stomach. Only Massimo had ever treated me like that. Atilla’s tongue pushed its way into my mouth, and his body stuck to mine. I closed my eyes, feeling like I had gone back in time. Our tongues danced around each other as his strong, large hands gently cupped my face.
His soft lips clung to mine, hot, passionate, and wild.
“Atilla,” I whispered, shocked, pulling my head back, “what are you doing? You said—”
“You really believed I was gay?” he asked, his tongue tracing a line down my neck. “I’m as straight as it gets, Laura. I’ve wanted you since I first saw you. I adore your smell. I love watching you when you sleep.
When you wake up. I love the way you cross your legs when you brush your teeth, or when you bite your lip, reading books, or when you are deep in thought.” He sighed. “Oh, God, how I want you.”
I was so shocked, his words didn’t reach me at first. I didn’t understand.
And his tongue, inching its way across my skin, wasn’t making anything easier.
“But I’m pregnant,” I said, “and married to a mafioso. Don’t you understand?” I pushed him away. “I’ve treated you like a brother, kid. And you pretended to be gay so you could what? Sneak up to me one night and fuck me? Jesus, that’s twisted.” With rising fury, I stepped to the door and opened it. “Get the fuck out!” He didn’t react. I screamed, “Get the fuck out of here, Atilla!”
Olga, ever the loyal pit bull, appeared out of nowhere and stopped in the doorway.
“What’s going on? Why are you shouting?”
“No reason. Pack your things now. We’re leaving.”
Unable to hide her concern, Olga shot a glance at me, then at Atilla.
Having received no other explanation, she turned around and left for her room.
Two hours later, we were ready to leave. Olga spent a long time saying goodbye to István, who didn’t look happy with our departure at all. I don’t know how she thanked him for being such a gracious host, but when they left his room, he had a wholly satisfied expression. I kissed him on the
cheeks, and he embraced me in a fatherly gesture, keeping me in his arms for a long time. I liked him. He made me feel calm and safe. And, unlike his son, he wasn’t harboring any ill intentions.
“Thank you,” I said, finally pulling away.
“Call me when you get there.”
After our falling-out, Atilla left the house and didn’t return. I felt bad, but at the same time I was so unbearably angry with him that my distress balanced out. All in all, his absence might have been for the best.
The road to Poland was long. Too long. With our sudden departure, we hadn’t worked out where to stay. It dawned on us halfway.
“I got an idea. Guess what it is,” Olga said.
“I think we had the same one at the same time. You were thinking we couldn’t stay at your place, weren’t you?”
“Sure, but I figured that out days ago. I have another idea now.”
I sent her a searching look.
“So I’ve been thinking about this for some time now, and I decided it won’t do us any good to be constantly on the run. He’ll find you whether you want it or not. Besides, darling, there are ways to get things between you in order, you know. And fucking up your entire life only because Massimo is a bastard gets you nowhere. You’ve had time to rest and recuperate now. I’m not telling you to call him now, but let’s just stop worrying about them finding us. We’ll be in Poland, not Sicily. He’s pretty powerless here. In Poland, he’s just another pimped-up Italian hunk, not a mob boss everyone tries to please.”
I listened in silence, wondering where this was going. I was slowly beginning to accept that she was right. I had acted like a totally egoistic idiot. My escape had nothing to do with Olga, and she had every right to be fed up with this whole situation.
“You are right,” I acceded. “But I don’t want to go back to my flat. We’ll stay at the hotel I used to work for. It’s downtown. We’ll look for something more appropriate then. We have the money—it’s only a matter of picking a spot. I’d like to live in Wilanów. Not the new projects, though. A bit farther away. It’s calm there. Quiet. Close to the center, and the clinic is just a stone’s throw away. Paweł Ome will hook me up with a good gynecologist and work his magic so I don’t die of pain during childbirth.”
“I can see you’ve already planned all this.”
“Yes. Absolutely. But only, like, a minute ago.” I shrugged.
It was late evening when we reached Warsaw. Before we arrived, I had called Natalie, a colleague I used to work with, and asked her to book me a room under her name. I didn’t want to run anymore, but I wasn’t going to make it any easier for my husband to find me by booking it under my own.
The closer we got to our destination, the more tired we were getting. I had taken over the driving all the way back at the border and immediately started speeding, in desperate need of a good night’s sleep and wanting to get home as soon as possible.
The ring road around Warsaw was empty, and I exceeded the speed limit.
An instant later, I noticed the twinkling lights of a police patrol car in the rearview mirror. They pulled us over.
“Shit. It’s the police,” I said.
Olga turned to look through the window, completely unfazed.
“How fast were you going?”
“I don’t know, really, but fast.”
“That’s all right. We’ll spin some sob story, and they’ll let us go.”
We tried and failed. After fifteen minutes of trying to explain my pregnancy, the long road behind us, and the foul mood we were both in, the officers gave us a hefty fine and slapped some penalty points on my account. That in itself wasn’t anything I felt particularly bad about, but they did write down my name and check it in the database.
Massimo would get his hands on that information, for sure. He’d know where I was. Maybe I was getting paranoid, but I had to assume he had access to police databases. When we finally reached the hotel, I paid for a week up front and we went to sleep.
I found a place for us three days later. It wasn’t located where I wanted, but the place was so gorgeous, I just had to rent it. The owner wanted us to sign a contract, but I couldn’t have that. I paid for six months in advance and offered a large security deposit to boot. He was happy with that arrangement.
The flat was situated close to Martin’s, my ex’s, apartment, but I knew he’d probably give me a wide berth if we ever saw each other again.
So we moved in, Olga and me, and after long weeks, we had our own place. It was a great spot. Too large for the two of us, but that wasn’t a problem. A massive living room with an adjacent kitchen took up nearly half of the total space. Then there were three bedrooms and a large closet, two bathrooms and a little lavatory. We wouldn’t organize any parties or
anything, but better to be safe than sorry. The extra space might come in handy.
It was Tuesday. We were sitting on the long couch in the living room, staring dumbly at the TV.
“I need to go to my parents’ for a while,” Olga said. “A day or two, tops.
I’ll also drop by your folks’. Tell them that you’re doing super okay. I’m going to leave in the morning. Mom called me earlier today. I’ve got to go.”
“Sure thing,” I replied. “I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks. Lying around, watching movies.”
Olga left the next morning. I was instantly overcome by loneliness. I grabbed my laptop and scanned through cinema lineups. There were so many movies I wanted to watch, I bought two tickets for two separate screenings—one after another. I spent about five hours at the cinema. After all, what difference did it make if I stayed in bed at home or in a seat at the cinema?
When my movie marathon ended, I caught a cab and returned to Wilanów. I turned the key in the door to my apartment and heard the TV chattering from the inside. Was Olga back already? I went in and headed toward the sound. It was dark. The gloom was illuminated only by the faint glow of the TV. My eyes wandered, finally focusing on the screen. I froze.
This was some kind of nightmare. The screen was divided into two halves
—the first depicted the CCTV recording from Massimo’s study where he was fucking Anna, and the second was showing some sort of meeting taking place in the garden back at the mansion. I collapsed on the couch, trying not to faint. Someone paused the recording. The film stopped. I took a deep breath. He was here. I closed my eyes.
“Massimo?”
“If you take a close look at what’s happening on the left side, you will notice a birthmark on my brother’s buttock. I do not have a birthmark there.” His voice resonated in the room. “If, however, you look at the right side of the screen, you will see that at the same time I was sitting in the garden, entertaining my guests from Milan.”
I was so close to bursting out in tears.
I could hear his voice, smell his scent… I did not listen to his words, though.
“Now please fucking tell me what the hell you were doing for the last two months!” Massimo bellowed when I didn’t react. “If you want to leave
me, you say it! You don’t get to run and hide! You treated me like your worst enemy, not your husband. And to make matters worse, you apparently decided that I was a complete idiot. Do you think I would have cheated on you with someone I despise?”
The lights came on and don Massimo stood up from the armchair and walked up to me. I raised my head and looked him in the eyes. He was the most beautiful man on Earth. In his black pants and dark turtleneck, he looked breathtaking. He stood still and pierced me with his ice-cold eyes. I had not felt the chill of his stare for such a long time. I made myself avert my eyes. The sight of him caused me physical pain. Instead, I looked at the TV. Massimo pressed Play again. Everything he had told me was true. It all became clear. He rewound the tape, and I saw him getting up from the table and walking to his study, where his brother was making love to Anna. I was going to throw up. I had not felt this bad in my entire life. I fucked up. I had made a mistake, and it had cost us both dearly. My mouth didn’t want to open. What could I say? Was there anything that could make things better?
“Adriano left,” Massimo said after a while. “And he took Anna with him. I think she’s happy with him. The truce between our families has been officially established, and I’m sure now that you’ll be safe.” He sat back down in the armchair. “Now. Pack your things. We’re going back to Sicily.”
“I can’t leave Olga.”
“She’s with Domenico. He was at her parents’ place. They’ll be here in an hour.”
“I don’t have anything I’d like to take with me.”
“Then get up and come with me,” he said coolly, deftly pushing himself up.
He was angry. Furious, to be precise. He had never been this cold to me before. I didn’t want to stoke the flames of his fury, so I just did as he asked.
The trip to the airport took us fifteen minutes. Fifteen long, exhausting minutes. I took a seat on the jet. Massimo offered me a pill and a glass of water.
“Take it,” he said. His voice was impassive.
“No. I’ll manage without it.”
“You have endangered my child enough. Do not test me any more.”
I swallowed the pill and went to the bedroom cabin, where I grabbed a heavy woolen blanket, covered myself, and closed my eyes. All the tension
I had been holding inside me was dissipating. I was calm and happy. He hadn’t cheated on me. I hadn’t felt this good since my honeymoon. We had to talk, but if he needed time, I was going to give him as much as he needed. What mattered was that he was mine again.
When I opened my eyes, it was morning. I was in my bed on Sicily. I smiled and reached across the bed, but my husband wasn’t there. I got up and threw on my bathrobe before going to Olga’s room. I was just about to grab the doorknob when I remembered she might not be alone. As quietly as I could, I peeked inside. She was in bed, with a laptop on her thighs.
“Hey,” I greeted her, closing the door behind me and slipping into her bed. “Massimo is so pissed off, he doesn’t even talk to me. He only orders me around. It’s getting on my nerves.”
“Can you blame him, though? He didn’t do a thing, and you accused him of cheating and took away the thing he loved the most. Forgive me when I say that he’s simply in the right here. I’d have killed you already if I were in his place.” She slammed the laptop shut. “I told you he didn’t do it, but you didn’t listen. Maybe that will teach you a lesson. You should sort those things out with conversation instead of running away from your problems.”
“I’ll take my penance with grace,” I groaned, covering my face with a pillow. “How’s Domenico?”
Olga smiled and closed her eyes. She muttered something under her breath and then said, “He came for me yesterday when I was at my parents’
place. Imagine my surprise when I took their dog out for a walk and he just showed up. Leaning against Massimo’s black Ferrari, aloof, serious and stylish as always. Jesus, he was so beautiful… I wanted to jump into his arms, but my dog ran away.”
I snorted with laughter.
“What?! What do you mean?”
“Yeah, the fucking mutt just ran off, and instead of going for my man I sprinted after the dog, because he’s Mom’s favorite thing in the world. The evil little shit took off, and I gave fucking chase.”
“What about Domenico?”
“And Domenico stayed in place, watching on. There was a bright side to that whole shitshow. I focused on the dog instead of the urge to suck Domenico off by my mom’s house. I’ve been living without sex for nearly two months! How long can a human being…”