????MAFIA POSSESSION ????????
( HIS ADDICTION ????)
BY, ROYAL DIADEM ❣️
CHAPTER 32
Copy and have your life shortened ????
LUCA’S younger brothers always joked that they would put the ‘fun’ infuneral, but no one was having fun now. Luca sat in the front of the chapel
between Giovanni and Antonio. Antonio didn’t even fidget.
Alessandro
bounced his leg on the other side of his twin, and his wife put a hand on his
knee to stop it.
Afternoon sunlight through the stained-glass windows cast saturated red
and blue and green and yellow light in circles on the floor. An electric
organ, no pipes to be seen, wheezed its mournful dirge to resonate from the
wooden beams in the ceiling.
The funeral hall smelled like old people;
damp must, dates, sweet mint, and cough syrup.
Luca wasn’t listening to the music or remembering anything in
particular about his father like the minister asked them to. He stared down
the picture of Bruno Moretti perched on top of his polished wood casket
and tried to grieve. He could still hear his mother saying,
“Everyone grieves
differently and there is no wrong way. We all need to support each other.
You can cry if you need to, but if you don’t need to, that’s okay too.
Everyone processes things in a different way,” when their sister died. But
Luca had cried for Luciana. He had felt a cold emptiness that crept from the
center of his chest to the tips of his fingers when they lost her.
He could
make himself cry if he thought about her, about all the life she didn’t get to
live, about how their father would have used her like he used Tessa and
tried to use Gio.
The photograph stared back at him and dared him to speak ill of the
dead. He wouldn’t speak, but he would think it. Bruno’s legacy would be
stained with blood and pain.
He would be remembered by those closest to him with some contempt or resentment for the abuse which became
abundantly clearer the longer he was gone. Luca was justified for that
feeling. His father hadn’t been a good role model for healthy relationships.
Luca didn’t want to be anything like him, and now he had a chance to grow
away from that toxic influence.
The raspy organ chord changed, and the guilt settled in.
Because this
should be worse than Luciana. Luca didn’t kill his sister; he did kill his
father. He would have given his life to give Luciana a fighting chance
against the leukemia, but when he tried to regret his actions with his father,
he couldn’t. There was an empty void where those emotions should be. He
should feel bad. He should be sorry. He should regret it.
But he looked at
his brothers around him and felt relief. They were free. They were all free.
And their mother. She sat with perfect posture, hands folded in the lap
of her elegant black chiffon dress with a little capelet clasped over her
shoulders and a mourning veil partially obscuring her face. She looked the
part of the devastated widow down to the tasteful tears glittering in the
corners of her eyes.
This was ha-rd for her. She’d been despondent the first
few days. She wouldn’t talk to anyone, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep.
Eventually Giovanni was able to get through to her and she started
pretending that everything was fine. It wasn’t. The act couldn’t hold. It
lasted two days before she broke down. Luca had to drag her to a grief
counselor, but it seemed to have done some good.
She was working it
through her system and seemed a lot better now, more like the mother she’d
always been, almost herself again. Composed, elegant, one step ahead. She
was stronger than anyone gave her credit for.
Luca didn’t listen to the Minister’s service. He was wondering if there
was a special place in hell for him next to all the jealous princes who
wanted to be king, the Greek titans with too much power, and Oedipus Rex.
He also wondered if there was a special place in hell for his father next to
anonymous abusive fathers and husbands. No one noteworthy, no,
he
wasn’t worth comparing to Ivan the Terrible or Darth Vader. He would rot,
forgotten with the nameless rabble and that would be the worst of all for
him.
The eulogy was superficial. If Luca didn’t know it was about his father,
he wouldn’t have guessed it. The Minister opened the floor for anyone who
wanted to come up and say anything. Silence. No one moved,
just glanced
around to see who would go first. Exactly two seconds after the silence lasted too long to be a pause for reflection and became awkward, a man
Luca vaguely recognized as someone who worked with his father stepped
up. He repeated what was said in the eulogy. “Bruno was a very hard
worker, always dedicated to making the most of every situation.”
Translation—‘Bruno was an opportunistic asshole who stepped on people
to reach the top.’
Another person Luca barely recognized said something else about how
successful Bruno had been. As if that were something commendable about
him as a person. A few more people stepped up to say something shallowly
kind. No one really had anything nice to say about Bruno. They sounded
forced and insincere. Luca looked around the room and saw dry eyes. He
looked back at the photograph resting on the casket and it still looked
pompous and insufferable.
The Minister released them to carry Bruno to the gravesite.
The air
outside the chapel was hot, and not at all the crisp refreshing breath Luca
needed. The sun burned above as if to remind them of the Shakespeare
sonnet. “Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, and often is his gold
complexion dimmed. And every fair from fair sometime declines, by
change or nature’s changing course untrimmed.” Everything fades,
everything falls to ruin. Even the great empires of history.
Even Bruno
Moretti.
Luca followed his mother behind the pallbearers. Maybe he did the right
thing. Maybe if all these people couldn’t find a good word to say about him,
their lives might be richer without him. Like a parasite that su-cks the life
from its host’s veins. It’s only doing what it was created to do, but the host
is happier without it.
Surely the lives of countless others are worth more
than one? The ghost of a headache at his temples made Luca duck his head.
He didn’t want an internal battle over ethics.
They stopped at the gravesite and the Minster said a few more words.
Giovanni stood to the side of the grave, and Delilah slid through the crowd
to stand next to him. He watched the tension in his brother’s shoulders ease
at her presence. Antonio stood next to Tessa, almost guarding her from the
grave as if he could stop their father’s zombie from attacking her, or else
protect her from falling into the grave herself. The Vice President stood on
her other side, looking appropriately glum. The President was unable to
make it to the funeral,
being out of the country on business, but he sent his
polite condolences and a lovely basket of flowers. Alessandro’s fingers were laced between Lorna’s and he twisted her wedding ring nervously.
Lorna also looked politely gloomy, but Luca could tell her thoughts were
everywhere but here. Many people in the small crowd looked distracted,
bored, only here for appearances.
When the casket was set in the ground, Luca’s mother removed one of
her black lace gloves and tossed a handful of dirt over the polished wood.
Luca watched her shake the dirt off her hand and slide back into the glove.
That turned the cogs in his brain the last fraction until they cli-cked into
place. His father wasn’t worth his mother soiling her gloves. He didn’t
regret what he’d done. It was better for those left living.
He killed the
parasite and now the host could heal. Luca took his turn pouring a handful
of dirt over his father with a sense of peace.
The Minister released them, and everyone walked away except Luca,
his mother, Giovanni, and Delilah. Luca approached his brother, and they
looked at each other in silence for a moment. Giovanni knew, and he had
forgiven Luca. He held out his hand and his brother grasped it. Parasites
and abuse, they’d born it all together, but now that it was gone they didn’t
have to walk alone.
“I’ll be there if you need me,” he promised.
“Same for me.” Giovanni shook his hand and Luca stepped back to give
Delilah a sad smile.
His mother watched the workers fill the grave the rest of the way, then
looked up at Luca. “I’m ready to go.”
Luca wrapped an arm around her and guided her away from the grave.
He glanced back at Giovanni and Delilah, standing close, speaking in
hushed voices,
and wondered if he would have another sister-in-law soon.
He didn’t mention that to his mother as he opened the car door for her. She
sat too elegantly for his sports car. Her mouth was set in a determined line
and glitter of unshed tears had vanished from her eyes. She would survive
this.
Luca drove her home in silence. They hadn’t talked about what
happened. Luca knew she suspected something between him and Caroline,
but she wouldn’t ask.
For that, Luca was grateful. He was also grateful,
more than words could have expressed, when she made his favorite gnocchi
from scratch. Actions speak louder than words, and that action meant that
she forgave him. He cried then. But not before or after. Not for his father.
He felt no shame in his tears for his mother’s forgiveness, but his father was
not worth his tears.
He dropped her off at home, then drove back to his apartment. When he
crossed the threshold,
he smelled the bleach cleaner he used in the kitchen.
If Caroline had been there, she would have opened a window and the smell
would be gone. Luca opened a window and leaned against it to look down
at life going on. The world didn’t stop spinning for anyone, not even Bruno
Moretti.
Behind him, his apartment felt empty. He turned around. Sure, he didn’t
have much, he hated clutter. There was enough. A sofa and a chair and end
tables with lamps and a tv and bookshelf. The room was inhabited, lived in.
But the space felt… empty.
Luca realized he was lonely. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with that
feeling, because he’d never had the opportunity to be lonely before. He
always had his brothers to call if he wanted company, but he didn’t always
want company and he lived his life the way he wanted to for the most part.
He still had his brothers of course, but now he’d tasted something different.
He knew what his apartment felt like when he wasn’t the sole inhabitant. He
knew what it felt like when Caroline was here. And without her, it felt cold,
and lifeless. Empty.
Luca loosened his tie and walked to his bedroom. He was being
dramatic. He just needed time to forget her. He stopped in front of his
mirror and ran a hand through his gelled hair. Something white on the bed
caught his eye through the mirror. He turned around to see a letter with hisname scrawled in bubbly half script letters in black ink. He frowned andpicked it up.
A standard mailing
envelope, but it wasn’t sealed. He pulled a foldedsheet of computer paper out of the envelope. Large loopy letters attempting
o be neat but losing the commitment look like, this would be spot on. The letter read “I can’t let
you go. Meet me at the coffee shop where we first met tonight at five if youfeel the same” Signed, Your Stalker.
TBC