Sleeping With The Enemy (10 page)

‘You were
married to a man who just tried to kidnap you?’

‘He’s a
dangerous and ruthless man. When I divorced him he promised not to come close
to me as long as I didn’t reveal the truth about him being the Mob.’ She began
to pace about and fiddled nervously with her hands. ‘I don’t know what got into
him.’

He stared
fixedly at her. ‘The rules have changed.’

She stared back at
him silently.

‘Come here.’

She went forward
to him. He took her in his arms and embraced her in a firm hug for a long
moment. He kissed her forehead and then unexpectedly scooped her up in his arms
and walked with her to the bedroom. He laid her down on the bed and then got on
all fours above her body. ‘I want to make love to you.’

‘No,’ she said
quietly. ‘Hold me. Hold me close. And let’s let our hearts dance together to
the music of our souls.’

He lay down next
to her and pulled her into his arms in an affectionate embrace.

* *
* * *

Imposimato awakened
in the middle of the night with a full bladder. He slipped out of bed and went
to relieve himself in the bathroom. He was still half-sleep as he emerged out
of the room, but even in that condition he had a sudden premonition that an
intruder was in the house, but the feeling had not fully registered itself in
his psyche when he was struck a heavy blow at the back of the head with
something that felt like a four-pounds hammer.

Imposimato reeled
forward with a loud groan. Instinctively, he reached for the African artifact
that rested on a small table next to the door leading from the bathroom. It was
a small statue made of stone. He grabbed it firmly in his hands and lashed out
with it at his attacker. It crashed into the man’s chest and he was rewarded
with a loud groan of pain.

Suddenly the
room was bathed in light, and Imposimato quickly cast a glance at the bed and saw
Rosina with her hand still on the bedside switch. She screamed suddenly and
Imposimato turned just in time to see the knife in his attacker’s hand make a
dive for his throat. He swerved back and the blade missed him. When he saw his attacker’s
face, Imposimato was not really surprised, but he was stunned at how the man had
penetrated the security of his mansion.

More thoughts on
that though – for now he was facing clear and present danger.

Cambiaso lunged again
with his knife at Imposimato’s midsection. Imposimato blocked the attack with
the artifact. As soon as the knife made contact with the artifact, he released
it from his hands and pummeled a fist into Cambiaso’s face. Cambiaso screamed
in pain as the fist caught him squarely in the face and broke the bones of his
nose. Imposimato kicked him in the groin and swiftly followed that up with another
blow to the man’s head with his strong fist.

Cambiaso slumped
onto the floor in a dazed state. Imposimato picked up the stone artifact from
the floor and dropped to his knees before the agonizing man. He raised up the artifact
in both his hands, ready to crush it into his enemy’s skull, but a shrill scream
from Rosina stopped him.

Still holding
the statue firmly in his hands, high above his head, he looked at her, and saw
the horror written on her face. She was sitting up on the bed now, watching
helplessly as the two men connected to her life one way or the other fought.

Imposimato slowly
lowered the artifact and dropped it to the floor. He rose to his feet and
stepped back slowly from Cambiaso, still engulfed in a maddening fit of
murderous rage.

Cambiaso
struggled weakly to his feet. He wiped away some blood from his nose and gazed
fixedly, tauntingly at Imposimato. ‘The soft heart will never be warm enough to
respond to the stimulation of violence.’

‘Get out,’
Imposimato said in a dangerously quiet voice laced with vehemence. ‘Get out of
my house.’

‘Or what, huh?’
questioned Cambiaso boldly. ‘Or kill me?’

He did not get an
answer.

‘I don’t think
so. Not in front of you angel.’ He cast a glance at Rosina and then brought his
eyes back to taunt Imposimato. ‘She’s the best thing that’s happened in your
life, isn’t she?’

No response.

‘Are you equally
as good and honest to her as she is to you?’

‘Get out of my
place, Cambiaso.’

‘Tell her,
Imposimato. Tell her the truth.’ Cambiaso warmed up hysterically, raising his
voice. ‘Tell her that you are no saint. Tell her you are a heartless brute with
a criminal record, who has hands full of blood…’

For the first
time Rosina’s voice penetrated the tense air in the room. ‘What is this, Ferdinand?’
she said, getting out of bed. ‘Do you know this man?’

Ferdinando stared
at her for a long moment without responding. ‘This man…’ He turned to look at Cambiaso
but found Cambiaso having disappeared.

Imposimato avoided
Rosina’s eyes and looked down. A long, tense silence followed.

* *
* * *

She drew a
distance from him and spoke quietly. ‘Violence is the last refuge of the
incompetent.’

It was a quote
from Isaac Asimov.

‘I’m not an
incompetent,’ he said softly.

‘What are you?’
she demanded hotly. ‘The Mob?’ she spat the word out as if it was some vile
demon defiling her body.

Shamefully,
Imposimato stared at her and nodded silently.

Rosin stepped away
from him. She began to pace about the room restlessly. She let out a loud sigh and
came back towards him. She stopped before him and gazed into his eyes lovingly.
‘The rules have changed…It’s no longer bout me…’ Her voice trailed off but
returned moments later. ‘It’s about you, isn’t it?’ she asked gently. ‘It’s you
that Cambiaso wants.’

‘I’m afraid so,’
Imposimato responded quietly.

They stared at each
other silently for a long moment.

Rosina eventually
broke the silence. ‘Goodbye, Ferdinand,’ she said in a quavering voice, tears
wetting her eyes. She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the cheek.

He tried to hold
her but she shook her head and pulled away from him and walked to the door. She
gave him one last glance and walked out of his life.

Sixteen

She was sitting
on a chair under a tree, with an open book on her lap. In front of her were
twenty seven children, who also each had a copy of the book that was on her lap.
One of them, a small girl of nine, was standing up and reading aloud to the class.
The girl mispronounced the word “familiarity” and Rosina took a moment to
correct her.

Suddenly the
whole class burst into noisy cheering, shouting hysterically and clapping their
hands in unison, “Mr. Imposimato! Mr. Imposimato! Mr—.’

Rosina rebuked
them harshly, having glanced over her shoulder and seen the man himself, standing
there, clad in a long black coat, holding a bunch of beautiful red roses in his
hands.

The children quieted
down.

She stood up to
face him, color rising on her face.

He handed her
the flowers. ‘These are for you.’ He turned to point his hand at the convoy of
cars parked a distance away on the driveway. ‘And in those vans are boxes full
of gifts for the kids.’

She glared at
him angrily, whispered something to the sub-teacher, and then she stomped down
the park to a tree a bit further away from the children. She faced him with a
flushed face. ‘What are you doing here?’ she fumed.

‘Take the
flowers,’ he said calmly.

She folded her hands
across her chest.’ I do not want your flowers. I want to know what you want
here.’

His hands fell
to his sides. ‘I brought some presents for the kids, that’s all.’

‘We do not need
your charity, Ferdinand. This center shall not be associated with blood
tokens.’

He grimaced painfully.
‘You know as well as I do that these children need—.’

‘Not if they
were obtained with blood money.’

He sighed heavily.
‘It’s pointless to stand here and argue about where the money came from. What
matters is that these children get these goods so that they can at least lessen
their suffering—.’

She cut him
short. ‘What do you know about suffering, huh? You come here clad in your fancy
clothes, driven in an expensive car, and you stand there and talk about
suffering. What can you possibly know about suffering?’ She was yelling now.

‘A lot!’ he
yelled back angrily, and then stopped when he realized that the children, a distance
away, were startled. ‘A lot,’ he repeated in a lower voice.

They stared at each
other angrily for a long moment, and then he sighed deeply and looked away from
her face. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Tell me why,’
she said in a quiet voice.

He brought his
gaze back to her and stared at her with a puzzled face. ‘Why?’

‘Yes. Why choose
this…this
life
.’

He stared at her
as she leaned against the tree trunk, her hands folded firmly cross her chest.
‘I never knew my dad,’ he said with a sigh. Ma got pregnant with me when she
was very young. And the man responsible vanished. Ma had a small income from
her job. We didn’t have enough to get by. I was an angry and hungry kid. Got
involved with a bad crowd. I had this hungry desire to succeed…’ He looked away
from her penetrating gaze. ‘Ultimately the end justifies the means.’

She stared
sympathetically at him. ‘But you had a choice—.’

‘I had no
choice!’ He hurled away the bunch of roses with such vehemence she flinched
back into the tree.

‘I had no
choice,’ he repeated in a calmer voice. ‘Only when I started peddling drugs was
I able to put food on Ma’s table. Only when I did that was I able to have
decent clothes to wear.’

Rosina looked
down. When she looked back up at his face she demanded, ‘Did you ever think about
the millions of young lives you were destroying?’

‘You get so involved
in bad actions that you cannot tell wrong from right…’

She braced
herself upright for her next question. ‘Have you ever killed anyone?’

‘I have,’ he said
quietly.

Instant shock
covered her eyes. She covered her face in her hands. ‘Oh God!’

He edged closer
to her. ‘It was either me or them. In the world we live in that’s the code we
live by.’

He grabbed her
wrists and pulled her hands from her face.

She pushed him
away. ‘Go away, Ferdinand. Please go away.’

He raised his
hands in surrender and took a step back. ‘You are angry.’

She took a while
to answer. ‘I’m not angry that you are what you are; I’m angry that I’ve fallen
in love with you, and everyone knows what the Mafia does.’ They faced each there
silently for a moment. ‘You stand for all the wrong things I’ve been trying all
my life not to get involved in.’

They stood
there, facing each other, and did not speak for a long while. Tears fell from
Rosina’s eyes, and when she spoke her voice quavered with emotion. ‘Go away,
please.’

‘Rosina, please
just accept—.’

‘I said go
away.’

A crowd cried
suddenly in unison. ‘Go away!’

He turned around
and was surprised to find the whole bunch of kids behind him, urging him to
leave.

‘Go away!’ they
repeated their chorus. ‘She doesn’t want to talk to you.’

He lifted up his
hands in surrender, walked slowly back to his convoy of cars and got inside the
limo. He had a pensive, pained look on his face as the chauffeur drove the big
car out of the orphanage.

* *
* * *

He was attacked
by terrible angst. Beside the loss of his mother, losing Rosina was the single
most painful thing to ever happen to him. He had in reality spent few moments
with Rosina, but during that time he had fallen deeply in love with her. He
loved her more than he had thought himself capable of loving someone.

She had waltzed
into his heart and taken over his senses. He would give everything he had now
to have her back in his life. Life was so futile, so worthless – without her. She
came into his dreams and whispered sweet, wonderful things in his ears. In
those dreams he made love to her passionately and tenderly… and then he woke up
to the reality of her not being there next to him.

The pain was so
intense he found no other remedy for it but to go to her and see her – even if
just for a moment.

When he arrived at
her apartment he knocked on the door. She opened the door slightly ajar and saw
him. ‘Please let me in,’ he begged.

‘She shook her
head, tears springing into her eyes. ‘Go away!’ she slammed the door shut in
his face.

She leaned against
the door on her back and then slid down as the tears rolled in torrents down
her face. Her phone rang and she stared at its screen and saw that it was him calling
her. She hurled it forcefully at the nearest wall and it crashed onto the wall and
fell silent. She hugged her knees to her chest and burst into a bitter sob.