Deadly Embrace (3 page)

A few months later, he still couldn't forget Anna Maria, so he
informed Lani, his mother, a big-boned woman of Sicilian descent,
that he was returning to Italy.

"Why you wanna do that?" Lani asked, her large work-worn hands on
her ample hips. "Europe ain't safe yet. The war's only just over
with."

"I havta go, Ma," he explained. "There's someone I gotta see
again. It's kinda fate."

"Fate my big fat ass," Lani exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "You got
a girl there, ain'tcha?"

"No, Ma," he protested.

"Ha! Liar!" Lani snorted, wiping her hands on her apron. "How ya
gonna pay for a ticket to Italy?"

"You'll lend me the money," he said confidently. And Lani did,
because Vincenzio was an only child, and since his dad had passed
away several years ago, she gave him more or less anything he wanted.
Besides, she longed to see the back of Marnie—a feeling she'd
had ever since she'd first set eyes on the blowsy blond with the loud
mouth who was certainly not good enough for her precious son. Maybe
this was a convenient way of breaking them up.

So Vinny flew to Italy with his mother's blessing, and immediately
reconnected with Anna Maria, who was thrilled to see him again.

Several weeks later, much to Lani's surprise, he returned home
with a pregnant wife—a seventeen-year-old Italian girl who
barely spoke a word of English.

At first Lani was deeply disappointed that her son had gotten
married without her being there, but the fact that he'd found himself
a girl from the old country did a lot to help her get over her
initial disappointment—although it struck her that it would
have been nice if Anna Maria could have waited to get herself knocked
up.

Still... they were married. Marnie was definitely out of the
picture, and Lani decided to make the best of it.

She soon fell in love with Anna Maria; everyone did. The girl had
a sweetness and vulnerability about her that was quite
irresistible.

When Vinny's dad had passed on (Lani called it a heart
attack—the truth was that he'd had too many beers, fallen into
a drunken stupor, hit his head on a shelf, and never recovered), Lani
had taken over his business, the convenience store on the corner. She
ran the place herself, ordering the stock, balancing the books, and
taking care of everything else that needed doing. Most often she
served customers in the shop, although she employed a man called
Ernie, who was way into his sixties, a man Lani considered
useless.

Shortly after Vinny returned to America with his bride, Lani put
them both to work. After all, they were living with her, it was only
fair. She arranged for Ernie to take care of the store in the
mornings, Anna Maria was allotted afternoons, and Vinny got the late
shift.

"But Ma," Vinny objected at first, "shouldn't I be gettin' into
business for myself? I got a wife now, an' a family on the way."

"This is your business," Lani pointed out. "When I'm gone, the
store'll be
all
yours, so you'd better take damn good care of
it."

Vinny loved his mom; however, he couldn't wait for the day when it
was
all his. Not that he wished her any harm—she was the
best, and the good thing was that she and Anna Maria had bonded in a
way he could only have dreamed of.

Early February the weather was cold and stormy. Anna Maria was
huge—the birth of their baby only weeks away. Still, she
insisted on working at the shop, trudging through the snow and
rain—always making sure she was there on time, refusing to let
her mother-in-law down. Things were tough all over, and Anna Maria
knew she was a very lucky girl indeed. She didn't take anything for
granted; besides, hard work was not foreign to her. Before meeting
Vinny she'd worked as a maid in a hotel filled with Germans, and
struggled to get enough to eat. She'd been raped twice, beaten up a
few times, and in spite of her delicate appearance she'd learned to
look out for herself. Then Vinny had come along and rescued her, and
she would do anything for him. She adored her husband. To her he was
the American dream personified: tall, handsome, kind. What more could
any girl ask for?

Weekends Ernie didn't work, so on this particular Saturday morning
in February, Anna Maria was on her own. She had trouble turning the
key in the rusty padlock affixed to the back door. Her fingers were
swollen and she felt a touch nauseous. She'd promised Vinny this
would be the last weekend she'd work before the baby came. Lani had
already spoken to Ernie about taking over her hours and he'd
agreed.

The shop smelled of stale beer mixed with the faint aroma of
rancid cheese. There was a bar next door, and the stale beer smell
always seemed to hang in the air.

Anna Maria shivered. It was too cold to open the back window and
get rid of the offending smell, so she rubbed her hands together for
warmth, switched on the lights, set up the cash register, opened the
front entrance, and waited for the first customers.

There were quite a few regulars, and Anna Maria had quickly
learned their names: Mr. Rustino, who always bought two loaves of
bread and a dozen eggs; Mrs. Bellimore, who requested three small
bottles of club soda, and then went down the block to the liquor
store for a quart of gin—as if the liquor were an afterthought;
the widow Syl-vana, who never purchased anything but enjoyed
gossiping.

The customers loved Anna Maria. They all asked after her health,
patted her belly, and inquired when the baby was coming. Even though
the entire neighborhood knew exactly when the baby was due, they
asked anyway, happy to spend time with the sweet young Italian girl
who reminded them of their roots.

As the day progressed, the sky grew dark and snow began to fell.
Anna Maria busied herself cleaning up the back of the shop, making
sure everything was in its place.

A few minutes past two, a buxom blond girl burst into the shop,
accompanied by two unruly young men. None of them looked familiar,
but Anna Maria smiled politely and asked if she could help them.

The blond's heavily mascara'd eyes raked Anna Maria from head to
toe. "So
you're
the foreign tramp who tricked my Vinny into
marrying you," she sneered. "You're not so pretty, an' fet as a
sow."

"Excuse me?" Anna Maria ventured, sensing trouble. "My
English—it is not so good."

"I
bet
it's not," Mamie said derisively, tossing back her
dyed hair.

Anna Maria turned her attention to the two young men, who were
roaming around the shop acting suspiciously as they checked
everything out. One of them was flicking through the magazines,
bending the pages. The other one was playing with a stack of cans,
almost knocking them over.

"Please. Can I help you?" she asked, emerging from behind the
counter.

"Yeah, honey," Mamie drawled. "You can gimme back the boyfriend
you stole from me. Although, on second thought, I wouldn't take the
jerk back if you wrapped the dumb creep in dollar bills an' had him
delivered to my door." She roared with laughter at her own humor.
"C'mon, boys," she said, going toward the exit. "This place stinks of
wops. I gotta smell me some clean air."

The three of them departed, leaving Anna Maria with an uneasy
feeling.

Later that day, when Vinny arrived to take over, she'd forgotten
about the trio. Vinny kissed and hugged her, told her she was the
prettiest girl in the world, and warned her to be careful on the
short walk home because the sidewalks were slippery and a storm was
on the way.

"Maybe I should lock up an' walk you home," he suggested. "There's
nobody out anyway."

"No." She shook her head. "I'll be fine."

"You sure?"

"Yes, Vinny."

He hugged her again, nuzzling his chin against her cheek.

S'ne loved the feel of his strong arms around her, especially when
the baby was kicking in her belly and she knew that he could feel it
too. Secretly she wished for a boy.

Life—the way she'd experienced it—was too tough for
girls.

Halfway home she remembered the flashy blond and her two lowlife
companions. There was something about them she didn't trust,
especially since the girl had mentioned Vinny by name. She recalled
that when she'd first started working at the shop, Lani had warned
her to report anything suspicious. Well, they were definitely
suspicious, and now she felt that she should have alerted Vinny.

In spite of the icy sidewalks and bitter cold, she decided to go
back and tell her husband of the incident. As she turned around to
retrace her steps, the baby suddenly kicked. Placing her hands on her
stomach, she murmured, with a smile on her lips, "My
bambino
.
My
piccolo bambino
."

Thunder rumbled in the distance as she neared the shop. The street
was dark and deserted; most people were aware of the upcoming storm
and had retreated to their homes.

Standing outside, blocking the entrance to the shop, was the blond
from earlier, a scarf tied around her brassy hair. She looked
startled when she spotted Anna Maria.

"Excuse me, please," Anna Maria said, attempting to squeeze past
her.

"Not so fast, honey," Marnie said.

"Please move. I wish to go inside," Anna Maria said, frowning.

"I don't think so," Mamie snapped, an arrogant tilt to her pointed
chin.

"Oh yes, I think so," Anna Maria said, asserting herself. And with
that she pushed past the blond and entered the shop.

The sight that greeted her caused her to gasp in horror. Vinny was
trapped behind the counter with his arms in the air. One of the
blond's companions from earlier had a gun in his face, while the
other man was busy ransacking the cash register.

"
Bastardo
!" Anna Maria screamed, fury overtaking her as
every bad memory of the violence she'd experienced in her past came
rushing back. "
Bastardo! Bastardo
!" she repeated, before
throwing herself at the man with the gun, arms flailing wildly, her
pretty face contorted with fury.

"No!" Vinny yelled, frantically trying to stop her. "No,
sweetheart!
No
!"

He was too late. The man holding the gun reacted fast, pointing
his weapon at her, shouting a rough, "Get off me, you crazy
bitch!"

But still she attacked him, even though her heart was pounding out
of control and the baby was kicking in her stomach.

Vinny jumped into the fray, more concerned with saving his wife
than his own safety.

Then it happened. One gunshot. Two. Three.

And the men grabbed the money and ran.

And so Vincenzio Michael Castellino entered the world.

It was quite an entrance.

Dashell Livingston had three wives, even though in the state of
Nevada it was not exactly legal. Dashell didn't care; he called
himself a hovering Mormon and boasted to whoever would listen that it
was a man's right to have as many wives as he chose. Dashell had
fathered seven children—all girls, which didn't bother him
because he reasoned that. girls would take care of him in his old
age. Girls were useful—they would never run off and desert
him.

Dashell, a big man in his late fifties, with a weatherworn face
and a mane of white hair cascading down to his shoulders, was a
degenerate gambler. In between raising horses on his run-down ranch
several miles outside of Las Vegas, he would make occasional forays
to the Vegas Strip and score enough money to support himself and his
evergrowing family for the next few months. While there, he would
visit the local whorehouse and avail himself of a girl or two.
Dashell had a voracious sexual appetite.

Dashell's number one wife was Olive. Almost forty, she was the
mother of four of his children and quite the controller. If Dashell
wasn't giving orders,
she
was.

Wife number two was Mona, a small, slight woman with a permanently
frightened expression. Mona had produced three children for her big
bear of a husband.

And lastly there was Olive's cousin Lucy, who at twenty-one was
the youngest of the three women, and also the prettiest, with long,
corn-colored hair and bright blue eyes. Lucy had come to live on the
ranch after a bad marriage to a man who abused her verbally and beat
her on a daily basis. By the time she arrived, she was fragile and
exhausted.

Dashell and his two wives had offered comfort and a place to stay,
and although she had not found Dashell physically attractive, she
soon realized that with him she'd at least be safe.

Shortly after becoming wife number three, Lucy found herself
pregnant with her first child. Regrettably, because once she
discovered her condition, everyone's attitude immediately changed.
Dashell became cold and distant; Olive, bossy and demanding, forcing
her to do more than her share of the household chores. And
Mona—who had never welcomed her into the family—chose to
ignore her.

Lucy soon realized that joining Dashell's extended family might
have been a big mistake.

But once in, there was no out. She had no money and no means of
leaving the ranch, which was located in the middle of nowhere.
And
she was pregnant.